Board Game News

Earn Fame in Portugal's Coimbra at Gen Con 2018

When I first saw the title of eggertspiele's Gen Con 2018 release Coimbra, I wondered whether the game would be a tribute of sorts to 7 Wonders and Small World artist Miguel Coimbra. Turns out...

Going Head-to-Head with The Game: Face to Face

I've been thinking a lot recently about death, specifically my death. I'm turning fifty in 2018, and my dad lived only to seventy. Maybe I'll have twenty more years, maybe more, maybe less.I...

Game Overview: Speed Colors, or Color Madly, Young Kids

Erwan Morin's Speed Colors from Lifestyle Boardgames is a real-time game about coloring images quickly.That's it. Each player has a black-and-white image on a plasticized card, with a colored...

Crowdfunding Round-up: Rambo and the Scarlet Pimpernel Mystery Draft Status Reports

Another week, another five hundred board game projects launched on Kickstarter. Well, it seems that prolific sometimes, but the actual number is probably no more than a few dozen — which is...

New Game Round-up: NY Toy Fair 2018 — Return to Jurassic Park, Slam More Words, and Exit Even More Places

• NY Toy Fair usually has far more to offer in terms of mainstream games aimed at children than modern games aimed at older players, but the variety of games on display at that show has been...

Game Overview: LOT, or Lining Up Tokens in All the Wrong Places

In 2012, designer Néstor Romeral Andrés released the abstract strategy game LOT, a.k.a. Line of Three, through his own nestorgames brand, then German publisher Clemens Gerhards picked up the...

Zoch Verlag Welcomes 2018 with Witches, Cows, Ghosts, Monsters, and Tall Cylinders

• German publisher Zoch Verlag has released info on a half-dozen titles that it plans to release in the first half of 2018, and as is often the case for this publisher, the games are a mix of...

Episode #2 of The BoardGameGeek Show — Now with Show Notes

Thanks for all the comments and feeedback on The BoardGameGeek Show, which debuted on January 11, 2018 and the second episode of which went live today. We've made a few changes to the recording...

New Game Round-up: Avoid Mummies, Launch Samurai Mechs, Attack Jelly, and Move Faeries in a Calm and Organized Manner

• Renegade Games Studios introduced the Clank! Sunken Treasures expansion in March 2017, and it's repeating the timing this year with the release of Paul Dennen's Clank! The Mummy's Curse,...

New Game Round-up: Go Beyond the Edge and Into Other Games, Then Prepare for Forbidden Sky

• U.S. publisher WizKids debuted Ken Shannon's Approaching Dawn: The Witching Hour in late 2017, and the publisher has another of his designs scheduled for release in April 2018, a...

BGG.CON 2017 — Part 2

Be sure to check out BGG.CON 2017 – Part 1 if you missed it!Board Game Bazaar (Formerly the Flea Market)The Board Game Bazaar was held Saturday from 10:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. This is a popular...

Play Quickly and Stylishly with Helvetiq's Clean Lines and Short Games

Swiss publisher Helvetiq focuses on family-friendly and child-friendly games with a short playing time. The publisher was founded in 2008, making 2018 their tenth anniversary, and in 2017 I...

Dig for Coins, Search for Cities, Remember Things, and Drop Stuff in KOSMOS' Early 2018 Line-Up

German publisher KOSMOS has already announced one title it's releasing in 2018: Catan: Der Aufstieg der Inka, from Klaus and Benjamin Teuber, which is due out in July 2018. Now it's revealed the...

Crowdfunding Round-up: Seize the Epic Hate in a Tiny Home with Killer Eyelashes

• As January 2018 continues, the number of game projects launching on Kickstarter continues to escalate, with a wide variety of games on offer to serve (possibly) every flavor of gamer under...

German Publisher Pegasus Spiele to Release Many Games in German in 2018

• German publisher Pegasus Spiele has passed along a list of titles that it will highlight at the Spielwarenmesse trade fair in Nürnberg, Germany at the start of February 2018, and let's kick...

Conflict Old and New to Be Found in Reiner Knizia's Yellow & Yangtze

Australian publisher Grail Games has become a go-to publisher for designer Reiner Knizia. After releasing a new edition of Knizia's classic press-your-luck game Circus Flohcati in 2016, Grail...

New Game Round-up: Cannes 2018 Edition — Save Dinos, Escape the Maze, and Set Loose the Huns

• At the Festival International des Jeux in Cannes in February 2018, Belgian publisher Sit Down! will release Magic Maze Kids, a version of Kasper Lapp's Spiel des Jahres-nominated Magic Maze...

New Game Round-up: Reconstructing Talisman, Expanding Sagrada, and Reading Games

• Talisman celebrates its 35th anniversary in 2018, and thanks to a license between German publisher Pegasus Spiele and original publisher Games Workshop, four new games set in the world of...

Blue Orange Games in 2018, Take Two, with Knizia in the Blue Lagoon, Cathala in the Age of Giants, and Much More

In early January, I covered the titles that Blue Orange Games plans to release on the U.S. market in 2018, but BOG has a European branch as well, and Blue Orange EU doesn't release the same games...

Kolossal Games Aims to Cast a Huge Shadow on the Industry in 2018 and Beyond

One game I left out of yesterday's crowdfunding round-up was Hervé Lemaître's Western Legends from Kolossal Games, and that's because I wanted to cover what's coming from Kolossal in one go...

Interview with Brian Mayer, designer of Freedom: The Underground Railroad

Notes: Brian Mayer is the designer of Freedom: The Underground Railroad and co-author of Libraries Got Game: Aligned Learning through Modern Board Games. This interview was conducted by Patrick...

Crowdfunding Round-up: Operation Countdown for Candy, Capers, Red Death, and a Quintet of Legacies

• In mid-December 2017, I wrote about Adam Wyse's Masque of the Red Death, a design from IDW Games in which 4-7 players attempt to avoid the Red Death from Edgar Allen Poe's story of the same...

Changing Players: Mayfair Uses Alliance, Compass Hires Blennemann, and Game Salute Splits

My inbox is a deep well, one that I drain at the end of each year in preparation for fresh waters to come. Along the way, I've uncovered more mergers, purchases, distribution deals, and other...

The Trucker's Guide to the Galaxy: A Retrospective

I didn't know what I was doing. Oh, I thought I knew. I thought I was translating a rulebook for my friend Vláďa, but actually I was working on a game that would be Czech Games Edition's...

Say Hello to The BoardGameGeek Show!

Lincoln Damerst has been overseeing the production of the board game playthrough show GameNight! since 2012 and been involved in BoardGameGeek's convention coverage since 2009, but as BGG's new...

Next Move Games to Establish Reef at Origins 2018

For the past month or so, I've been focusing on upcoming games that will be highlighted at one of three conventions in February 2018 — Spielwarenmesse, NY Toy Fair, or Festival International...

New Game Round-up: Tell Stories, Avoid Marbles, Pose Like a Nut, and Gain Mastery Over Others

• Stone Blade Entertainment has had continued success with its Ascension deck-building game since it was introduced in 2010, and in March 2018 the company will release a new deck-building game...

Grab Tree Branches, Collect Animals, and Lie Your Pants Off Courtesy of MJ Games

Canadian publisher MJ Games has been around since at least 2007, and I have written about them in this space, um, zero times. Maybe that's not surprising given that MJ Games focuses on small...

Game Preview: Topiary, or I Think That I Shall Never See a Tile as Lovely as a Tree

In 2017, Renegade Game Studios assumed the unofficial title of "chief U.S. hobby game importer and repackager" that Rio Grande Games had held for so many years. In addition to releasing original...

Revisit — and Resettle — the Past in Catan: The Rise of the Inca

German publisher KOSMOS has not announced its full line of titles due out in early 2018, but they have released info on one game that shows the Catan game franchise is alive and well.July 2018...