At the start of the game, each player knows three things:
• Who he is and to which clan he belongs
• That a few other players are his allies, while everyone else is the enemy of both him and his clan
• The clan to which one of his neighbors belongs – although some characters can lie about their clan identity
Now the players have to figure out who the Elder of the opposing team is (if there is one) and capture him. To do this, players need to attack, negotiate and deduce, with an attacked player being required to reveal information, such as his rank or clan affiliation. Each player has an ability unique to his character, and this ability can be used only at the moment that he reveals his rank. The Assassin forces players to suffer wounds, for example, while the Guardian protects a player of the character's choice.
In the end, if you capture your rival clan's Elder, you win – but if you capture the wrong vampire, you've fallen into the enemy's trap and lose the game.
• U.S. publisher Cryptozoic Entertainment has released a few more details for The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers Deck-Building Game, starting with a release date of Q3 2013 and the availability of the game for demoing at Gen Con 2013 in mid-August.
While The Two Towers can be combined with Cryptozoic's The Fellowship of the Ring Deck-Building Game, it's also playable on its own, and unlike that previous game, it includes a Wall of Helm's Deep deck that adds a new element to gameplay. If The Wall can't defend the wall from Saruman's forces and it becomes breached, the battle will get tougher for the heroes!
• The Rio Grande Games website lists a September 15, 2013 release date for Roll for the Galaxy and a December 1, 2013 release date for Race for the Galaxy: Alien Artifacts. I'm just leaving those dates right there, then backing away.
• Designer/publisher Ted Alspach of Bézier Games has been teasing components of the Suburbia Inc expansion on his Twitter feed – and BGG users have been reposting images and discussing them on this thread – but now the expansion has its own page in the BGG database, as should be evident by the link earlier in this sentence. While Suburbia Inc will first be available at Spiel 2013 in October, Alpsach will be demoing the expansion at Gen Con 2013 in August. Here's a summary of what's included:
In Suburbia Inc, an expansion for the award-winning Suburbia strategy game, you get to develop your city in new directions: Define borders that are unique and provide you with all-new benefits; build more than a dozen new, powerful buildings to optimize your income and reputation; and take advantage of new Bonuses (to increase your income) and Challenges (to boost your reputation) by achieving mid-game goals.
The midgame Bonus and Challenge goals – which are revealed at the start of the game and which resolve, respectively, at the end of the A stack and at the end of the B stack – can be won by multiple players as long as each player achieves the goal requirements. "Since you use a random one (of ten) for each stack each game, there's something like 75 trillion unique combinations. (I'm estimating here, math is overrated.)"
Alspach adds that "Two of the following three new goals made the cut: Gypsy, European, and BGG News Editor." Wow, I can't wait to see the image on my tile!