• Can you believe that after two game round-ups on BGGN, German publisher Schmidt Spiele has still more new games coming out in early 2014? Yes, indeedy, with one of those games being a card game version of Schmidt's evergreen dice game Kniffel, a.k.a. Yahztee. Yes, one year after releasing Kniffel: Das Kartenspiel, Schmidt will publisher Michael Feldkötter's Karten Kniffel in January. Here's what's going on in the game:
• Discard 0-5 cards from your hand, then draw that many cards plus one from the deck. You can't have more than ten cards in hand.
• Play five cards from hand, record your points on the score sheet, then refill your hand to five cards.
In more detail, to score, you lay down five cards and score for one of the combinations on the score sheet: number of 1s, 2s, etc.; three- or four-of-a-kind; full house; small or large straight; Kniffel; etc. Write the score in the left-hand box of the appropriate line. You also lose 2 points for each other card in your hand, so note these penalty points in the right-hand box.
As soon as one player scores in all of the lines on his score sheet, players complete the round so that everyone has the same number of turns, then they tally their scores and subtract their penalties. Whoever has the highest score wins.
—The third title in Thomas Spitzer's coal trilogy, the first two games being Ruhrschifffahrt 1769-1890 and Kohle & Kolonie. Notes Blennemann, "The game traces the origins of Ruhr coal mining, and once again Thomas has managed to create a completely new game feeling." The working title of "Kleiner Haspelkecht" has only an outside shot of making it to print, so if you can suggest something better, Uli wants to hear from you.
—Stefan Risthaus' Arkwright, in which 2-4 players are business tycoons during the industrial revolution and trying to lead their corporate empires to profitability. Blennemann hopes to release this title, with artwork by Harald Lieske in August/September 2014.
—La Granja, an economic development game by Andreas Odendahl and Michael Keller, and the only one of these three titles that has a BGG entry. Here's an overview of the game:
In this game, each player takes over a small farm, developing it, producing goods and delivering them to the small nearby town of Esporles. The game is played over six rounds, with each round consisting of three phases. The introductory farm phase, which is something of a management phase, is followed by an action phase during which players perform actions — getting crops, acquiring sheep, producing goods, playing cards, or making small deliveries — based upon what the dice show. The round ends with the delivery phase, with players needing to choose one of their delivery tokens to gain influence on the playing order and determine the number of deliveries they can make. Through deliveries, players fulfill tasks, which gains them both advantages and victory points.
After six rounds, the game ends and the player with most victory points wins.