New Game Round-up: Hunting Treasure with The Goonies, Revisiting Vanuatu, and Crafting Cards in Mystic Vale

New Game Round-up: Hunting Treasure with The Goonies, Revisiting Vanuatu, and Crafting Cards in Mystic Vale
Board Game: The Goonies: Adventure Card Game
• We've already seen 1980s nostalgia at work in the excitement expressed for Ben Pinchback and Matt Riddle's Back to the Future: An Adventure Through Time, which is coming from IDW Games and Pandasaurus Games in March 2016. Now that design duo has another 80s flashback for you with The Goonies: Adventure Card Game, which Albino Dragon plans to debut at Gen Con 2016 in August. Here's an overview:

Quote:
In The Goonies: Adventure Card Game, you play as a ragtag group of kids from the Goon Docks neighborhood of Astoria, Oregon. You must join together on a quest to find the treasure of legendary pirate One-Eyed Willy so that you can save your homes from demolition! You will need to keep your wits about you and use your unique skills to avoid One-Eyed Willy's booby traps and also stay one step ahead of the Fratellis, a family of criminals intent on claiming the treasure for themselves.

In this cooperative game, you'll work with your fellow Goonies, taking actions to clear obstacles, defeat the Fratellis, and discover secret paths to long-lost treasure.

You all win the game if you discover the hidden paths to One-Eyed Willy's ship and manage to secure his booty. But if too many obstacles mount up, you run out of event cards, or too many Fratellis hit the board, it's all over...
Greater Than Games has signed a license for Przemysław Świerczyński's Exoplanets, which debuted from Polish publisher Board&Dice at Spiel 2015. GTG plans to run a Kickstarter for this edition in mid-2016 "with special promotional expansion items and variant play not available in the first printed edition", with this material and rulebook clarifications being worked out in concert with Board&Dice.

Board Game: Vanuatu
• Designer Alain Epron released one edition of Vanuatu through his own Krok Nik Douil editions in 2011, then he tried to fund a second edition through Indiegogo in 2012 (while also offering copies for sale through a Ulule funding campaign for Massilia), but those campaigns mostly failed to deliver the game to backers. Dutch publisher Quined Games picked up Massilia in 2014 and worked with Epron to deliver copies to backers at conventions or for the cost of shipping.

In that post about Massilia fulfillment, Arno Quispel of Quined also said, "Vanuatu will most probably be published as part of the Master Print Series in 2015. The expansion The Rising Waters will also be published by Quined. The exact details are not yet known." Those details still aren't known, but Quined has now revealed that it plans to release a second edition of Vanuatu at Spiel 2016 with new artwork from Konstantin Vohwinkel and the included expansions the Rising Water and Governor. Quispel has told me that he hopes to be able to provide similar support for prior backers of Vanuatu for this release.

Vanuatu (second edition) is one of three Master Print Series titles Quined plans to release in 2016, the other two being "a very good and interactive German game" and "a great game by a Belgian designer".

Board Game: Mystic Vale
• Due out in June 2016 is John D. Clair's Mystic Vale from Alderac Entertainment Group,a game that features some AEG is calling the "Card Crafting System", "which lets you not only build your deck, but build the individual cards in your deck, customizing each card's abilities to exactly the strategy you want to follow". I caught a glimpse of this more than a year ago at NY Toy Fair 2015, and we'll be able to demonstrate how this works when we broadcasting a demo of Mystic Vale from the 2016 GAMA Trade Show, but for now we'll rely on this description of the game's setting and goal:

Quote:
A curse has been placed on the Valley of Life. Hearing the spirits of nature cry out for aid, clans of druids have arrived, determined to use their blessings to heal the land and rescue the spirits. It will require courage and also caution, as the curse can overwhelm the careless who wield too much power.

In Mystic Vale, 2 to 4 players take on the role of druidic clans trying to cleanse the curse upon the land. Each turn, you play cards into your field to gain powerful advancements and useful vale cards. Use your power wisely, or decay will end your turn prematurely. Score the most victory points to win the game!
Board Game: Mystic Vale

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