Wonder Book to Pop Up on Tables in Q4 2021

At the annual Spielwarenmesse trade fair, BGG tries to record previews of as many games as possible, but in addition to seeing what publishers are ready to talk about publicly, we often get a sneak peek at titles that are still in the works. Sometimes those games are "normal" designs that will be revealed later in the year for release in Q4 (but the publisher doesn't want to overshadow current announcements by talking about it now), sometimes the designs will never appear in print, and sometimes the concept is solid but the work required to bring the game to completion is...of an unknown duration, often because you're doing something that you've never seen before, which makes the point of completion somewhat obscure.

With that introduction in mind, let's talk about Wonder Book, a design from Martino Chiacchiera and Michele Piccolini that Italian publisher dV Giochi will release in late 2021.

Non-final front cover

Wonder Book is a "pop-up game" that's been in development for six years and that I got an earlier glimpse at during Spielwarenmesse 2019, something I told to Chiacchiera in early June 2021, who said:

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By that time the game was basically done aside for most of the artworks... but hey, we are perfectionists! We've spent two more years refining every aspect of it (including artwork, story, gameplay) at the very best of our skills and resources.

It's been a wild ride but the time has almost come.

So what is a pop-up game, and what are you doing in it? Here's an overview:

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Oniria — the world of an ancient dragon civilization. Tales describe the land as an idyllic paradise filled with marvelous dragon-made wonders and surrounded by a flourishing wilderness. The only portal to that world is the Wonder Book, an ancient tome locked away in an abandoned tower. It sleeps, covered in dust, awaiting the one thing it desires most: you.

In Wonder Book, each of the 1-4 players takes the role of a teenage kid in a group of adventurous friends. This is a co-operative game in which you all win or lose as a team.

The game is split into six consecutive scenarios ("chapters"), each composed of a specific deck of pre-sorted cards that contain the rules, the story, and the challenges you have to face. Each chapter has you explore a new part of the interactive 3D cardboard pop-up book and reveals more about the world in which your adventure is set.

Starting with the first card of the chapter deck, the story unfolds until you reach a goal card. These cards show a goal that must be achieved to proceed and explain how the players' and enemies' turns take place. Each hero can perform three actions per turn, including moving and fighting, using their individual skills, collecting sparks of magic (used to perform special actions), and interacting with cards and pop-ups. Once all heroes have taken their turn, a Wyrm card determines how the enemies will respond by moving, attacking, spawning, or doing something unexpected.

The basic mechanisms are easy to grasp, but the game keeps changing as each scenario offers different things to do. You will find yourself exploring, fighting bosses, solving riddles, playing little minigames, looking for clues...anything is possible during the story!

Publisher dV Giochi has a standalone website to highlight the ten-hour replayable campaign, show video of some of the pop-up book elements, and provide a link to the rulebook. Wonder Book retails for US$80/€70 and will debut in European markets in October 2021 and in the U.S. in November 2021.