Board Game News

King of New York to Debut at Gen Con 2014

Word of Richard Garfield's King of New York has been out for some time, with publisher IELLO dropping a few hints to me at Spiel 2013 and sprinkling bread crumbs here and there in game forums...

ACD Games Day III: Dead Man's Draw, Meteor, Krosmaster: Arena, Crap or Slap & Pick-a-Tatterdemalion

• Time for the second post of game preview videos that I recorded at ACD Games Day in May 2014, starting with Dead Man's Draw, which was first announced as coming from Stardok but will now be...

Gen Con 2014 Preview — Now Live!

Despite Gen Con 2014 not starting until August 14, BoardGameGeek's Gen Con 2014 Preview is now live. The preview already features more than one hundred listings, and I have at least a dozen more...

Osaka Game Market 2014: Akindo, Birth, Assaultous & More

With Tokyo Game Market taking place on June 1, 2014, let's take a look at the previous Game Market to see some of what was on offer at that show. My thanks to Jools for offering this report....

ACD Games Day 2014 II: Realm of Heroes, Jupiter Rescue, Cheesonomics & Mystery Rummy

While at ACD Games Day in mid-May 2014, I recorded a few game overview/preview videos in addition to tweeting photos and short notes like a fiend on the BGG Twitter feed. Here's the first batch...

WizKids Games Brings Dungeons & Dragons to Dice Masters

Can you ever have too much of a good thing? WizKids Games is going to put that old chestnut to the test with the announcement of Dungeons & Dragons Dice Masters, a new Dice Masters game from...

New Game Round-up: Updated Gloom, Expanded Machi Koro, Rebuilt Japan & Raw Rosenberg

• At Gen Con 2014 in August, Atlas Games will debut the second edition of Keith Baker's Gloom and three of the game's currently out of print expansions: Unhappy Homes, Unwelcome Guests, and...

Crowdfunding Round-up: Defending the Galaxy, Stealing Loot, Throwing Down & Raising Fallen Gods

Time for another round-up of game-related crowdfunding projects looking for your money. Money money money! You have it, and they want it. Such is the way of the world.• Ares Games and Gremlin...

Designer Diary: 1944: Race to the Rhine

The game 1944: Race to the Rhine has its English-language premiere at UK Games Expo 2014 in late May 2014. Here, Waldek Gumienny, the co-designer of the game, writes about the beginnings of this...

Game Overview: Loonacy, or Speed Bumped

Designer Andy Looney has had great success with Fluxx, a card game that starts super simple — draw one card, play one card — then escalates and de-escalates in complexity as rules enter and...

ACD Games Day 2014 I: Time in an Abyss, Monsters in a Smash Up & Dirndls in Tanto Cuore

• In late May 2014, BGG flew me to ACD Games Day in Madison, Wisconsin, an event run by U.S. distributor ACD Distribution to show upcoming games to its retail customers and to news guys who go...

New Game Round-up: Sierra Madre Heads North to Greenland, The Village Heads to Shore & Camels Run to the U.S.

• Sierra Madre Games' release for 2014, a co-design between SMG's Phil Eklund and Philipp Klarmann, is Greenland, a design for 1-3 players lasting 60-120 minutes. Here's an overview of the...

New Game Round-up: Feld Goes Deep, Lang Goes Ooky & Alspach Goes Express

• In case you didn't get enough of Stefan Feld in 2013, Pegasus Spiele (which released Feld's Rialto that year) and developer Ralph Bruhn of Hall Games have a Feld design in the works that's...

PAX East 2014 - AgMagic Booth: What the Food?!, A Terrible Time, The Game of 49, Havoc Boards, Slash, Jack Attack & Apocalypze

PAX East 2014 was a fantastic event, bringing together gamers and games from around the world. One of the biggest showings this year was the AdMagic booth, AdMagic being a printing company that...

Convention Non-Report: ACD Games Day 2014

I call this a non-report as this post contains no info, but I'm at ACD Games Day in Madison, Wisconsin checking out upcoming games from a few dozen publishers and will be tweeting pics and short...

Game Overview: Vikings, or Rainbow-Powered Norsemen Dominate Tileland

Michael Kiesling's Vikings — first released in 2007 by Hans im Glück and rereleased on May 21, 2014 by Z-Man Games — is an archetypal Eurogame, with players challenging one another within...

New Game Round-up: Herner Spielewahnsinn edition - Arler Erde, Terra Mystica Expansion, Kingsport Festival & More

• Herner Spielewahnsinn — an annual event in Herne, Germany during which many designers and publishers show off titles that will be released at the subsequent Spiel — took place the weekend...

Designer Diary & Game Overview: Think Again

Party games are a kind of game I didn't touch very much, not because I don't like them — I looooooove funny games when they are good, such as Time's Up!, Spot it!, and Liar's Dice) — but...

Nominations for the 2014 Spiel, Kennerspiel and Kinderspiel des Jahres

The nominees for the 2014 Spiel des Jahres — Germany's game of the year award and the most influential award in boardgaming — have been announced, along with nominees for the 2014 Kennerspiel...

New Game Round-up: Zooloretto Returns to Print, Thunderstone Brings Back Old Thunder & Factory Fun Gets Hexed

• Z-Man Games has announced that it will bring Michael Schacht's Zooloretto back into print starting in Q3 2014. This "King of the Beasts" edition mirrors the 2013 revised "Löwenedition" of...

Game Preview: Istanbul, or Surround Yourself with Your Rubies, Not Constantly in Opals

When you think about winning conditions in games, in general only three such conditions exist: first, most, or last — that is, being the first to achieve some condition (i.e., a race game),...

New Game Round-up: Prototype Edition - Pandemic Legacy, 7 Wonders Duel, To Recourt the King & More

• On Plaid Hat Podcast #134 in April 2014, the speakers discussed which games could be Legacy-ized — that is, which games could receive the Risk Legacy treatment, memorializing the results of...

New Game Round-up: Time-Travel Edition — Uncanny X-Men, Prescience & Robots That Bake

• In the "gazoinks, does that really exist?" category, I present Ryan Oliver's Time-Travelling Robot Bakery, self-published via The Game Crafter. Here's the Quote:In Time-Travelling Robot...

Mercury Games Adds More Walls to More Cities and Prepares for Foreclosure

• North American publisher Mercury Games has revealed that the previously announced game The Walled City: Londonderry from designers Daryl Andrews and Stephen Sauer will now be released in...

New Game Round-up: Dorn Enlists Hobbits, Lehmann Reclaims The City & Mayer Unleashes Shinobi Clans

• Rüdiger Dorn's Istanbul, released in Germany in March 2014, is getting buzz as a possible Kennerspiel des Jahres nominee — and I'll post a detailed overview of that game on BGGN soon —...

New Game Round-up: Summoning New Ways for War, Riding and Robbing the Rails & Dining Anew on Old Games

• Plaid Hat Games plans to release the Summoner Wars: Alliances Master Set in August 2014, with the set combining existing factions in a new way:Quote:Summoner Wars is a fast-playing,...

Crowdfunding Round-up: Finding the Hooks in Maha Yodha, Cthulhu's Vault, Husarengolf & Much More

Time to follow up Matt Riddle's c.f. post with one of my own, one that will attempt to blitz through the dozens of game-related crowdfunding projects he didn't cover in order to drop a few bons...

Game Preview: Shinobi WAT-AAH!

Can you believe that I still haven't posted all of the game preview videos that John and I recorded at Spielwarenmesse in February 2014? I can because I'm looking at them right now and marveling...

New Game Round-up: Krahulik and Holkins Envision Thornwatch, Bauza Readies Samurai Spirit & Fowers Preps to Reprint Paperback

• Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins from Penny Arcade are working on a large board/card/role-playing-ish crossover game titled Thornwatch that they expect to release in 2015. Here's an overview...

Links: Rio Grande Gets Placed, Kory Heath Gets Patronized & TableTop Gets Promoted

Man, I haven't done a links round-up in forever and a day. Partly that's due to all the games that designers and publishers are announcing right now, even in the off-season between conventions,...