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Spielwarenmesse 2018 Round-up II: An Enlarged Azul, More Distinct Eastern Wonders, and a New Lost City Found

Spielwarenmesse 2018 Round-up II: An Enlarged Azul, More Distinct Eastern Wonders, and a New Lost City Found
Board Game Publisher: Next Move Games
• To continue with reports from the 2018 Spielwarenmesse trade fair, let's start with an item not necessarily available for purchase that still attracted a ton of attention: a giant-sized version of Next Move Games' Azul that was on display in the Pegasus Spiele booth.

When I later met with Sophie Gravel of Next Move Games, she explained that they had produced fifty of these giant-sized versions, the minimum number that could be produced, and they had given a copy to various distribution and licensee partners so that they would have something special to use for demoing the game in tournaments, for creating giant displays, or for whatever else those partners had in mind. She had not intended this to be an item available for purchase, but lots of people expressed interest on Twitter when confronted with this thing of beauty — check out the case's handle! — and Next Move has some copies remaining, so...maybe? (Gravel also owns Pretzel Games, which has released a lavishly produced version of Flick 'em Up! along with giant versions of Junk Art for use at conventions, so this approach to creating large games isn't unusual. Whether the market for such items exists is still to be determined.)



While visiting Gravel, Lincoln Damerst and I also played a game of Emerson Matsuuchi's Reef, the first title coming from Next Move Games, but the components weren't final, so at Gravel's request I took no pictures. I'll post a game overview separately at a later date.

Board Game Publisher: Plan B Games
• Gravel is also the owner of Plan B Games, and she showed off Matsuuchi's Century: Eastern Wonders on the first production copy of the game, which had just been delivered to the show. You can arrange the tiles into almost whatever configuration of islands you want, with certain layouts being tougher than others since you must pay for any movement beyond the first space on your turn and since you have to pay when you end movement on an occupied space.



One difference between Century: Spice Road and Century: Eastern Wonders is that the goods cubes will be the same colors (yellow, red, green, brown), but they'll be different tones. Gravel said that they worked hard on the tones to try to ensure that the cubes will be more easily distinguishable for those with color blindness. They needed to keep the colors the same, however, so that you can combine the two games into the "From Sand to Sea" variant included in the rules for Eastern Wonders.



Board Game: Legends of Andor
• Legends of Andor: The Last Hope was announced by KOSMOS as the final title in Michael Menzel's Andor trilogy, but that doesn't mean an end to new material for Andor. This mini-expansion of three new legends contains material that was created by fans and is now being made official by publication through KOSMOS.



• Having now looked at Ubongo Solo firsthand, I can confirm that this is a collection of solitaire logic puzzles, with the box containing components from Ubongo, Ubongo extrem, and Ubongo Trigo and dozens of puzzle sheets that indicate which pieces you need to use to fill the depicted area. I love these types of puzzles, but it's not appropriate for the BGG database until they put four copies in a single box and rechristen this as Ubongo Solo^4.



• KOSMOS' new version of Reiner Knizia's Lost Cities that is due out in March 2018 adds the sixth expedition that was previously available only as a promo item from its North American Thames & Kosmos branch to the base game. I'm not sure whether this new version will also appear in print in English, but I'll find out at latest when I visit the T&K booth at NY Toy Fair in mid-February.



KOSMOS also had Knizia's Lost Cities: Das Brettspiel on display, and the rep seemed eager to show it off on camera, but I pointed out that the game has been available for nine years in the U.S. and it's not a new thing for most of our audience, and he kind of sagged in response. Sorry to spoil your excitement, Erik! Many German gamers will see this as a new thing, though, having experienced the game only through its Keltis incarnation that was nearly the same, but not identical.

Lost Cities: To Go, Knizia's new travel-sized two-player game in the same line, was not on display at Spielwarenmesse, so I can't tell you anything more about which Keltis game it might be or resemble.


Board Game: Lost Cities: The Board Game


• Let's close this round-up with a game that might not have been breaking on anyone's list, but will surely wind up there upon closer inspection of its compelling narrative:

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