• From designer Reiner Knizia's Twitter feed on July 13: "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Board Game to be released spring 13. The Hobbit: There and Back Again Board Game to be released winter 13." (HT: Doug Adams)
• In an update of sorts, designer Ted Alspach notes that he still doesn't have a release date for Mutant Meeples.
• Days of Wonder has announced that Bruno Faidutti and Serge Laget's Mystery of the Abbey, which has been out of print for several years, will be available once again in the U.S. and in Europe in late August 2012.
• Wolf Wittenstein at eggertspiele reports that Reiner Knizia's Spectaculum, originally announced as a late 2011 release, has been produced by Ludo Fact and is on its way to eggertspiele's partner Pegasus Spiele for distribution.
• German publisher ABACUSSPIELE will release Antoine Bauza's Hanabi in October 2012. Notes Abacus' Matthias Wagner, "This game was not available in Germany before, and we are proud to have the chance to present this extraordinary game at Spiel 2012. Having a different card size than Cocktail Games, we switched back to our standard size and changed the card graphics." As for the game itself, here's a short description:
The card deck consists of five different colors of cards, numbered 1-5 in each color. For each color, the players try to place a row in the correct order from 1-5. Sounds easy, right? Well, not quite as in this game you hold your cards so that they're visible only to other players. To assist other players in playing a card, you must give them hints regarding the numbers or the colors of their cards. Players must act as a team to avoid errors and to finish the fireworks display before they run out of cards.