Today we have a quartet of previews for games coming from LudiCreations, two of which originated as self-published designs from Todd Sanders' Air and Nothingness Press, as was the case with They Who Were 8, which LudiCreations released in a new version at SPIEL 2016. Sanders' Mr. Cabbagehead's Garden Game is a solitaire game that mimics the look of a 19th century Sears, Roebuck & Co. catalog.
• The other Sanders title coming from LudiCreations is IUNU, with "Iunu" being the original name of one of the oldest cities in ancient Egypt, a city that the Greeks renamed Heliopolis. In this set-collection game, 2-4 players return to those ancient times when everyone worried about collecting the right cards to make a name for themselves.
• Alexandria from Babis Giannios has an entrancing setting: Players are characters in the Royal Library of Alexandria at the moment that it's started to burn, and each character is concerned about different things that will drive their actions during the subsequent game. One might try to help the others, whether they want help or not, while another wants to save particular rooms. The library burns over the course of the game, and when you all perish in the final room, whoever has done the best job will win (but still be dead).
• Long Live the Queen, first released in Japan by Circle 3D6 in 2014 as Save the Queen, is a two-player game in which you are neither saving the queen nor helping her live a long time, but are instead trying to place your own butt on the throne as her successor. To do this, you need to collect might, wisdom, and wealth tokens — three of each — or else assassinate the other candidate, who happens to be your sister and a fellow princess. Them's the breaks, sis!
Long Live the Queen will be released in two versions, one using the original Japanese art and another using dieselpunk art and a setting to match. Why two versions? Because the LudiCreations team likes dieselpunk and wanted to place this game in that setting, while also acknowledging that some percentage of the audience would want the original look. Which one will prove more popular? Give us twelve months for publication and sales, and then we'll have the data on hand.