• Ascora Games is taking preorders for Donald X. Vaccarino's Nefarious for pick-up at Spiel 2011. The preorder price is €35 and includes a bonus 8x10 glossy print of an invention; email [email protected] to put your name on the list.
• Keith Blume at FRED/Gryphon Games/Eagle Games says that a handful of titles are arriving at the warehouse this week and should be available soon. Those titles are new editions of Montage, Can't Stop, BuyWord and New England Railways, along with the new title Mirror, Mirror.
• Also in Gryphon Games news, the company will release Caveman Curling – a disc-flicking game from Daniel Quodbach released in France as Kairn – in the U.S. Here's a pic of the box and components:
• Dale Yu and others at Opinionated Gamers have been previewing Spiel 2011 releases, with long looks at Funkenschlag: Die ersten Funken, Prêt-à-Porter and Shitenno and summary posts on many other titles.
• Funforge's Philippe Nouhra says that in addition to The Big Idea and the company's earlier games – Illusio, Pony Express and Isla Dorada – the Funforge booth at Spiel 2011 will feature "our first video game projects", those projects being "Isla Dorada Episode 1 and a new game prototype on iPad and on a new device that you will discover during the fair". Nouhra says that the English version of The Big Idea should be available in the U.S. in late November 2011; a Japanese version of the game will be available from Arclight at about the same time.
• Designers Jay Cormier and Sen-Foong Lim have been detailing the origins of Belfort, which Tasty Minstrel Games teased at Gen Con with a few airshipped copies while the bulk of the order is expected in the U.S. around the end of Septemmber 2011. To date, the designer diary consists of segments focusing on the playtesters, the developer Seth Jaffee, and the artist Josh Cappel. Part four will feature an interview with the game's printers.
And for something from the designers themselves, you can head to this interview on BGG from June 2011 that was conducted by Jeff Temple.
• New editions of Eric B. Vogel's Cambria and Hibernia, both from Sandstorm Productions LLC, should be in retail stores in the U.S. by the end of November 2011.
• Both Taiga and Paradisio are now available in Canada and the U.S. from FoxMind Games.
• A request: While I and the other BGG admins appreciate – nay, crave – game submissions to the BGG database, please consult the list of pending items before doing so. Eleven users submitted a listing for Games Workshop's Dreadfleet, for example, nearly all of which repeated the same 2-3 paragraphs of information. Thanks!