New Game Round-up: 504 in 6 Languages, Dinosaurs in Battle & Skiers in a Race for Their Life

New Game Round-up: 504 in 6 Languages, Dinosaurs in Battle & Skiers in a Race for Their Life
Board Game: 504
• I posted an overview of Friedemann Friese's 504 in April 2015, and here's a short description of the game for those who missed it at the time: Think of a children's flipbook that has the pages divided into thirds, and on each page of this book you have rules showing how to set up, play and score a game. To play a game, flip to three numerically different pages — say, 984 — and discover that you're playing a stock-based, production-driven wargame or perhaps a racing pick-up-and-deliver game with majority scoring. (Each number corresponds to a different game mechanism, and 504 = the number of possible combinations you can play.) Thematically, 2F-Spiele explains the game this way:

Quote:
Scientists in the future are able to build small alternate Earths. Exactly 504 such Earths have thus far been built. The scientists have programmed each of these worlds with an individual set of laws and rules, which the inhabitants strictly follow and consider most important for their lives. These may be exploration, consumption, economics, military, etc., and each is unique. You can visit all of these 504 alternate Earths to experience how the people are living and decide which of these worlds harbors the best civilization. On which world do you want to live? Explore them all and decide!
Friese has now created a FAQ that answers some questions that people have had about the design. What's more, German publisher 2F-Spiele has announced its co-publishers on the project: in French and Spanish Edge Entertainment, in Chinese Swan Panasia, in Korean Korea Boardgames and for the English edition Stronghold Games, which will release 504 as the second title in its "The Great Designer Series". 2F-Spiele and Stronghold Games will debut 504 in October at Spiel 2015, and Stronghold anticipates releasing the game to the U.S. retail market in November 2015.

Board Game: 504

Board Game: JurassAttack!
Green Couch Games has announced two forthcoming titles that fit its small, quick-playing game ideal, with the first of these being JurassAttack! from Ryan Cowler:

Quote:
In JurassAttack!, two players face off in an epic face-to-face dinosaur battle!

In the game, each player chooses a dinosaur or pack of dinosaurs of the same type from their hand, then they reveal them simultaneously to compare Ferocity values. The player with the highest total Ferocity wins the round, taking their rival's dinosaurs into their score pile. Different types of dinosaurs are worth varying amounts of victory points, so it's important to plan well and make sure not to give away too many points in the event of a knockout!

These fierce, prehistoric beasts each have their own special effects as well. Some hunt alone while others may pack with dinos of different types. And sometimes, with a well-placed bluff, players may even be able to sneak some of their precious eggs into their own score pile to protect the future generation.
Board Game: Avalanche at Yeti Mountain
The second title is from Matt Wolfe, and despite me living in the same town with him, this is the first that I've heard of the game. An overview:

Quote:
It's a race to the finish when some super-smart, yet somehow clueless, engineering students invent rocket-powered skis and decide to test them out at Yeti Mountain!

In Avalanche At Yeti Mountain, players play dual-use cards — the same cards used to make up the ski slopes of Yeti Mountain — to determine their speed in a race down the mountain. If players collectively exceed the speed limit, which is determined by the number of players, the fastest players crash, only moving one space forward towards the goal. Players may also activate rocket jumps to overshoot the competition but at the expense of causing an avalanche to begin chasing them down the mountain. If that's not enough tension, rocket jumps are possible only if the Yeti, awoken from his slumber by all of the rocket-powered racket, doesn't attack and deactivate players' rocket-powered skis! The last skier standing, or the skier who makes it to the bottom of Yeti Mountain, wins the game.

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