New Game Round-up: UK Games Expo 2013 – Czech Games Edition, Disgrace & Favours, Key Celeste, Clacks & Luchador! Mexican Wrestling Dice

New Game Round-up: UK Games Expo 2013 – Czech Games Edition, Disgrace & Favours, Key Celeste, Clacks & Luchador! Mexican Wrestling Dice
Board Game Publisher: Czech Games Edition
The 2013 UK Games Expo takes place May 24-26 in Birmingham, and with only a few days remaining before the Expo takes place, I thought I'd highlight games debuting at the show or available in prototype form ahead of their release. In addition to the titles included below, I've created a UK Games Expo 2013 Preview GeekList that includes preorder information for some of the titles at the show. You can check out the news section of the UK Games Expo website for information on RPGs and other items.

• Through its UK playtest division, Czech Games Edition will be present at the show with four new items, all of which the publisher aims to release at Spiel 2013 in October. I've created preliminary BGG pages for these items in order to include them in the GeekList above and get a jump on the Spiel 2013 Preview, which already includes several dozen games (but won't go live until July 1 at the earliest).

First up on the list is the Dungeon Petz Expansion, which is probably not the final name for this item:

Quote:
Bringing you more than just new pets, cages and magic items, the Dungeon Petz Expansion has a whole new district in the town. Would you like to hire an illegal worker or buy a pet on the black market? Maybe book a facility that produces food for active dogs, cats and dragons? And what about a fancy ribbon or a cool spiked collar for your pet? Taking care of your pets will never be the same.
Board Game: Dungeon Petz
Board Game: Last Will
Expansion #2 from CGE is the Last Will Expansion:

Quote:
With the Last Will Expansion, not only do you have to spend your money as fast as you can (as in the Last Will base game), but you also need to get fired from your job. After all, your Uncle's heritage can't go to someone who's employed!

With this expansion, each player begins the game with a job card that provides him with a regular income each turn and details a number of things the player must do in order to get fired. This expansion also includes new cards, including new buildings and companions.
Board Game: Tzolk'in: The Mayan Calendar
Expansion #3 is for gamer fave Tzolk'in: The Mayan Calendar and was already revealed on BGGN in April 2013:

Quote:
In Tzolk'in: The Mayan Calendar - Tribes & Prophecies, each player now controls a particular tribe, each having a special ability which only that player can use. The whole game is also influenced by prophecies that are revealed ahead of time and fulfilled when the time is right. These prophecies give players other opportunities to score points, but also affect the game in other ways.
Finally, CGE has a new title from designer Vlaada Chvátil that it describes as follows:

Quote:
Players take the role of skilled summoners that face each other in an arena. They summon various beings, not just to fight opponent's forces and fulfil quests given by the arena masters, but also to prepare patterns for summoning higher beings on the board. Players have a hand of cards, each depicting a being and specific pattern, and if the player can create this pattern on the game board, they may play the card, summoning that being and performing any effects it offers. Will you be able to summon a legendary creature? Playable by two to four players, as a duel, team game, or free-for-all deathmatch.
Board Game: Disgrace & Favours
• Through his own Hopwood Games, designer/self-publisher Andy Hopwood will release a 100-copy edition of Disgrace & Favours, which he summarizes as follows:

Quote:
In the set-making card game Disgrace & Favours you play the role of a socialite who is trying to gather influential people to your cause by "persuading" them to promote you. You do this by sending your servant to snoop on them, find out an embarrassing secret, then ask them nicely to help you out...or else.

Each card in the game appears twice, and if a player has her secret revealed by an opponent she becomes disgraced and the other identical card is forfeit, even if it is in a set.

Disgrace & Favours includes an element of luck as players have to try to guess what each other are up to during the snooping phase. Set disruption is also part of the game, and ruining someone's plans will bring you a large chunk of satisfaction. Naturally you can try to defend against this by getting hold of both cards or taking the disgrace token for yourself.
The complete rules are available on the BGG game page, and while I haven't checked them out, the cards in the game tickle my love of the ridiculous. Ideally the game itself will also measure up!

Board Game: Disgrace & Favours
Board Game: Disgrace & Favours

Board Game: Keyflower: Key Celeste
Key Celeste is a small expansion for Breese and Bleasedale's Keyflower that will be available at the Coiledspring Games stand, then later from R&D Games at Spiel 2013 and through other distributors. Here's how you add this expansion to the game:

Quote:
Key Celeste is comprised of one large Key Celeste hexagonal tile, one oversize grey ghost keyple, and a rules sheet. Players bid for the Key Celeste tile and obtain the ghost in the same way that they bid for the turn order tiles. The owner of the ghost can use it to frighten away and replace another player's winning bid. The player who played the ghost takes the replaced worker(s) and places them behind his screen. These workers are now available to play by that player in the usual way. Points are available at the end of the game for the owner of the Key Celeste tile and additionally for the ghost if they own both.
Board Game: Clacks: A Discworld Board Game
Board Game: Luchador! Mexican Wrestling Dice
• In addition to demoing Codinca, which was previously available in a limited pre-publication edition at Spiel 2012, Backspindle Games Ltd. plans to demo two other titles in the works, the first being Clacks: A Discworld Dice Game which has only this short description for now: "a simple strategy game based on the 'Clacks' system of transmitting words from Terry Pratchett's novel Going Postal."

The other game is Mark Rivera's Luchador! Mexican Wrestling Dice, which will head to Kickstarter for crowdfunding later in 2013. Here's the summary of that game: "Luchador! Mexican Wrestling Dice is a two-player dice game (with optional rules for four-player tag-team play) based on the popular world of professional Mexican wrestling, or Lucha Libre! Players start with 21 points of health and roll custom dice to try to beat their opponents either by KO or by a pin." Rivera has posted a pic of the dice used in the game:

Board Game: Luchador! Mexican Wrestling Dice

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