New Game Round-up: Bounce on a Trampoline, Answer Questions About Food, and Command the Gates of Mara

New Game Round-up: Bounce on a Trampoline, Answer Questions About Food, and Command the Gates of Mara
Board Game: Gates of Mara
I'm not sure what's going to happen in terms of release dates for announced games — probably no one does is at this point — but I have info on several games on open tabs, so let's write them up to unburden that browser.

WizKids has announced an October 2020 release date for Gates of Mara from J.B. Howell, designer and co-designer respectively of the 2019 releases Reavers of Midgard and Flotilla. Gates of Mara is for 2-4 players with a playing time of 90-180 minutes and a US$70 MSRP. Here's an overview of the setting and gameplay:
Quote:
Lead your tribe to the Gates of Mara, portals to realms of pure elemental energy. Encounter powerful elemental lords, manipulate intricate economies, and summon colorful magic. Vie for the most influence in each realm so you can establish your tribal claims.

Gates of Mara blends upgradeable worker placement with layered area-control mechanisms, all brought to life by the art of Nastya Lehn. You can lead reptilian dragonkin, the amphibious goblins, the insectoid antids, or the arboreal elves.

Strategically position your tribe members around the realms and gates. Enchant your tribe members to give them new abilities. Compete for short-term objectives, but keep your eyes on your influence. Only the player with the most influence can lay claim to the Gates of Mara!
Board Game: Linkto Food
Board Game: Linkto Travel
Match Up! Food and Match Up! Travel are a pair of party games from designers Joël Gagnon and M.eve and Canadian publisher Randolph, which first released these titles in French in 2018 as Links Cuisine and Links Voyage. ("Randolph" is the publishing brand of the Randolph Gaming Pub, which opened in Montréal in 2012.)

Both games play as follows, with only the topics of the cards differing:
Quote:
Match Up! Food is a co-operative trivia game in which players team up to find the key amongst the 50 cards that feature unique food art.

Together, players link all 49 clue cards to the 50 word cards. They then discover whether the remaining, unlinked word card is the key to their victory, validating its code with the answer card to know whether they've won the game!

Board Game: Linkto Food

Match Up! Food offers five levels of difficulty in the game as well as a competitive mode for those who want it.
Match Up! Food and Match Up! Travel will be distributed in the U.S. by Asmodee North America at some point in 2020.

Board Game: Trampoline Park
• I'm not sure how I first became aware of Trampoline Park from Hassan Hekmat and Iranian publisher Soren Game Studio — a title that's held a tab open since January 2020 — but I would guess that I saw the cover image pass through GeekMod, and said, "Hmm, I should find out what else that company has done", and now it's late March. Hmm.

I see that Soren's 2018 release Color Match is also in the BGG database, but not Conqueror or Business Intelligence. (A note from the publisher to one of the BGG admins mentions that a second edition of Color Match will be released at SPIEL '20, which suggests optimism on the visa front since many Iranian publishers were denied entry to Germany ahead of SPIEL '19 — not to mention optimism on the medical front. Anyway...)

Here's a rough overview of the game, which the back cover helps to make clearer in both visuals and text:
Quote:
Trampoline Park is played over several rounds. At the beginning of each round, the top playing tokens from the piles go to the jumping points placed around the game board. The youngest player starts the game, then players take turns in clockwise order. From the jumping point, a playing token moves based on how much energy the player puts into the jump; land on a space with another player's token, and you bounce them elsewhere.

After all players have had a turn, the referee token goes to the next jumping point in clockwise order, then the top playing tokens again go to the jumping points and players take their turns in order again. If a playing token remains at a jumping point, the new token is placed behind the previous one to create an entrance line.

Board Game: Trampoline Park

As soon as a player manages to be on three tiles of the same colors or the same letter, they reveal their card and win. Since you don't know the other players' colors, you might do something which accidentally helps another player win, so bounce with care!

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