Trick Out Targi with a Bonus Box, and Keep the Tricks Under Control in Violet and the Grumpy Nisse

Let's sample a few more titles that publishers plan to have available at SPIEL '22 in October, although these games might hit retail outlets before or after that show depending on the whims of shipping, customs, and other factors.

• In Q3 2022, Irish publisher Agie Games plans to release Violet and the Grumpy Nisse, a two-player trick-taking game from Pedro Pereira that was first released as the print-and-play game The Grumpy Nisse in 2020.

Here's an overview of the setting and gameplay:

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In Violet and the Grumpy Nisse, one player is Violet and the other is Torech, the very grumpy nisse (a creature from Nordic folklore similar to a gnome) who has been kicked out of every single household in the village and taken shelter in the woods, which he claimed as his own domain.

Now, Violet is setting out to meet with her friend Ordep, the friendly troll, a journey that takes her right through the woods that Torech has claimed for himself. After being kicked out of the village, Torech cannot stand the idea of a human invading his home, let alone a human who is friends with a troll! So he is out to make Violet's journey as unpleasant as he possibly can, playing all sorts of tricks on her.

Violet and the Grumpy Nisse is a two-player trick-taking game. Players take different approaches on how to play this game depending on who they are playing as:

—Violet has control over the pacing of the game, but is also more vulnerable to losing tricks as she has to manage her lantern, making sure it's always fueled so that she doesn't get lost in the darkness of the woods at night. She also wasn't expecting a nisse to cross her path; this can be scary, and she has to manage her fear so not to be overwhelmed by her own paranoia.

—Torech has very little control over the pacing of the game, but he does has a few tricks up his sleeve. As Violet's fear of him increases, he becomes bolder and sets out more and more traps that make it harder for Violet to reach her friend. Also, unlike Violet, losing a trick is not nearly as bad for Torech as it is for Violet. He, after all, is the master of tricks!

Game board

The game ends with a win for Violet if she reaches the end of her journey. Torech wins if Violet's lantern runs out of fuel, or if her fear sneaks up on her before she gets to Ordep.

In slightly more detail, Violet's pawn moves along a track on the game board to show her progress, and trump changes over the course of the game based on where she is. Most cards have a special ability, but the ability works only when that card's suit isn't trump. Torech has two tracks to record Violet's fear, which he wants to increase, and her light, which he wants to douse.

• KOSMOS continues to release info about its late 2022 titles at a slow rate, with September 2022 bringing Targi: Die Bonus-Box to coincide with the tenth anniversary of Andreas Steiger's Targi. This expansion contains wooden tokens to replace the goods tiles in the base game, two modules of six new edge cards, new action cards, and rules for a solo mode.

• Dimension is not a smaller version of Lauge Luchau's 2014 real-time pattern-building game Dimension, but instead a logic puzzle with two hundred challenges similar to what you encounter when playing the original game.

• KOSMOS also plans to release a German-language version of Kevin Ellenburg's Death Valley, a 1-2 player card game that debuted from Button Shy in 2021.

Each turn in the game, you choose whether to assign a card to your journey, or move cards from your journey to your scrapbook. Cards feature stars (points), special abilities (which affect the value and position of cards), and facts about Death Valley. Each card also lists a hazard: heat, terrain, flood or animals. Having three of the same hazard visible in your tableau causes you to bust and lose all progress in your journey. At game's end, players sum the stars in their journey and any additional points from card abilities to determine who wins.

• David Cicurel's co-operative game Kids Chronicles: Quest for the Moon Stones, which debuted from Lucky Duck Games in 2021, will see release in Germany, as will CATAN: 3D Expansions – Seafarers + Cities & Knights, but that can hardly be a surprise...other than the €400 price tag.