Board Game News

Crowdfunding Round-up: Vampires, Dragons, Trains and Cthulhu, Plus Several Other Overused Gaming Tropes — Ehhh, I Mean, Original Ideas!

So it has been a month since I wrote and W. Eric has been occupied with REAL news and has not done one of these here crowdfunding round-ups, so for once I have a full slate of games from which to...

PAX East 2014 – Kickstarter Projects & Successes: Attack the Darkness, High Heavans, Mix, Pleasant Dreams, Kobolds, Resistor & Runes and Ruin

PAX East 2014 was a fantastic event, bringing together gamers and games from around the world. In this report, we take a look at games currently raising funds on Kickstarter or previously...

Game Preview: Pagoda, or European Simplicity Heads East

The Hippodice Spieleclub hosts an annual game design competition, and the winning games have a good record of being published in the following years — which shouldn't be surprising given that...

Game Preview: Madame Ching, or Sailing the China Sea One Card at a Time

In early 2013, Swiss publisher Hurrican released Paolo Mori's Augustus, a quick-playing family game with gorgeous art by Vincent Dutrait that went on to become a Spiel des Jahres nominee.On May...

New Game Round-up: Multiplying Mages, Multilingual Builders & Multidental Care

• In addition to the June 2014 release of Mage Wars: Forged in Fire (BGGN), Arcane Wonders plans to release a new edition of Sérgio Halaban and André Zatz's Robin Hood under the name Sheriff...

New Game Round-up: More for Machi Koro, Hamster-Driven Storytelling & Firefly Welcomes Serenity, Browncoats

• IDW Games and Pandasaurus Games have announced a promotional expansion for the July 2014 release of a new edition of Masao Suganuma's Machi Koro, and this expansion — consisting of five...

PAX East 2014 – Game Previews II: Student Bodies, Hot Tin Roof, VOLT, Heavy Steam & Mars Attacks: The Dice Game

PAX East 2014 was a fantastic event, bringing together gamers and games from around the world, and here's a look at four upcoming games — and one recently released title — that were on...

New Game Round-up: Trapped in a Labyrinth, Riding into the Animated Past & Playing in the French Countryside

• The Daedalus Sentence is a large design from designers Tom Bleys, Ian Van Gemeren and Bart Waeterschoot that Eagle Games plans to release in late 2014, and if the name "Daedalus" rings a...

PAX East 2014 – Game Previews I: Zombies Keep Out, Villainy, Heat & Myth

PAX East 2014 was a fantastic event, bringing together gamers and games from around the world, and here's a look at three upcoming games and one newly released title that were on hand at the...

New Game Round-up: Cool Mini Or Not Preps Dogs of War & Updates on Upcoming Games

• Cool Mini Or Not has revealed its next game project: Paolo Mori's Dogs of War, produced in co-operation with Spaghetti Western Games. Here's a rundown of the setting and gameplay:Quote:Dogs...

Game Previews: Time Stories (Again) & Black Fleet

What's that, you say? We're previewing Spiel 2015 already? Aren't we still a handful of hours away from Spiel 2014 opening to the public?Oh, wait — that opening isn't going to work this time....

Game Preview: Marvel Dice Masters: Avengers vs. X-Men

The U.S. release date for WizKids Games' Marvel Dice Masters: Avengers vs. X-Men, designed by Michael Elliott and Eric M. Lang, is today, April 23, 2014, and if all goes according to plan,...

New Game Round-up: Villainy from Mayfair Games & Lost Legacy x3 from AEG

• Days after its announcement of Bedpans & Broomsticks, U.S. publisher Mayfair Games has another title to announce: Villainy, from first-time designer Nicholas Trahan with art by Canadian...

New Game Round-up: Ride with the Sons of Anarchy, Trek with the Borg Queen & Restock with Finn, Jake and Marvel Superheroes

• Sons of Anarchy: Men of Mayhem is due out in June 2014 from Gale Force Nine, publisher of the previous media tie-in titles Firefly: The Game and Spartacus: A Game of Blood & Treachery. The...

New Game Round-up: Monasteries for Carcassonne, Rats for Ascension & Retirees for Bedpans and Broomsticks

• U.S. publisher Mayfair Games has announced a new title from Frederic Moyersoen, one that sounds reminiscent of his Nuns on the Run at first read given that players are trying to escape from a...

Game Preview: Chimera, or Three-Legged Tichu

For many gamers, Urs Hostettler's Tichu is the go-to title when you have four at the table and want to play a trick-taking game, or a card game, or, well, anything. In the mid-2000s, for example,...

Game Previews: Heat & Loop Inc.

• Instead of a standalone game preview, this post presents overviews of two upcoming titles because (1) I don't have lots to say about each game as I've played each only once and (2) the games...

Game Preview: Funkenschlag Deluxe: Europa/Nordamerika

In March 2014, designer Friedemann Friese announced Funkenschlag Deluxe: Europa/Nordamerika, a revamped version of Power Grid due out from his own 2F-Spiele in October 2014.As noted in the BGGN...

New Game Round-up: Wallace Takes You Onward to Venus, Dice Go to Battle in Unita & Details on New Trains from AEG

• I'm continually surprised by the number of announced games from established publishers that have slipped past me, despite me being something of a funnel of information between publishers and...

Game Preview: Five Tribes, or Mastering Meeple Movement in the Middle East

Days of Wonder is normally super-secretive with its game announcements, but it's taking a different approach with Bruno Cathala's Five Tribes, due out in September 2014. Why the change of...

New Game Round-up: Bleasdale's Black Fleet, Conan's Return to Game Tables & Håkansson's Nations of Dice

• This cover for Sebastian Bleasdale's Black Fleet, due out in August 2014 from Space Cowboys, makes me swoon. Do I need to mention that the publisher is French? Probably not since French...

Game Preview: Contagion, or Viruses on the Attack

One of the other upcoming games on display at Z-Man Games HQ during International TableTop Day was Carey Grayson's Contagion, which might end up bearing the Pandemic banner and being part of that...

New Game Round-up: Erecting Walls in Londonderry, Bringing The Crow Back to Life & Pulling Pints Not Fit to Drink

• North American publisher Mercury Games plans to release The Walled City: Londonderry, a design from Daryl Andrews and Stephen Sauer with art by Josh Cappel, in August 2014. Here's an overview...

Game Preview: Tragedy Looper, or A Player's Hope Springs Eternal

One of the other games I got a preview of during Z-Man Games' International TableTop Day event on April 5, 2014, was Tragedy Looper, first released in Japan in 2011 from BakaFire Party. This game...

BGG at PAX East 2014! Panel, recording demos, and more...

Hi Everyone,I will be at PAX East on behalf of BGG. This is becoming an awesome tabletop convention and we hope to see many of you there. Here's what's going on BGG-wise at the show:Panel: Lost...

Cocktail Games Challenges You to Find Stuff, Draw Stuff, Mime Stuff & Hold Stuff Close to Your Body

French publisher Cocktail Games has three classifications for its games — family, party and educational — with most of the games coming in small square or rectangular metal tins. Typically it...

Game Preview: The Battle at Kemble's Cascade, or Scrolling Intergalactic Death Blasters

This past Saturday — April 5, 2014 — was International TableTop Day, and I hope that all of you were able to get in a few games with family, friends or strangers.For my part, I was at Z-Man...

Designer Diary: Pay Dirt, or from Alien Frontiers to the Last Frontier

In February 2014 I was perusing the Geek, as you do, and I stumbled across a shocking GeekList: Designers who are One-Hit Wonders. The shocking element? I was on the list! Me, Tory Niemann, the...

Game Overview: Ricochet Robots, or You Can't Keep a Good Robot Down

I've played Alex Randolph's Ricochet Robot a number of times over the years, and it's a game experience like no other, one that I've come to call "The Game of Staring" because that approximates...

Portal Games Offers Ruins for the 51st State, Imperial Settlers for a New World & Armies Galore for Neuroshima Hex

• Portal Games has announced a new expansion for both 51st State and The New Era, those being two titles from designer Ignacy Trzewiczek that can be played independently or combined into a...