Board Game News

Spielwarenmesse 2014 — Game Previews VI: Istanbul, Camel Up, Hook!, Port Royal, Pagoda & More form Pegasus Spiele

• Now that all of the videos that John K. and I recorded at Spielwarenmesse 2014 — the annual toy and game fair in Nürnberg, Germany — have been processed (albeit not yet made public on...

Spielwarenmesse 2014 — Game Previews V: Han, Limes, Tortuga, Friday the 13th & Oink!

• Another day, another batch of preview videos recorded at Spielwarenmesse 2014 — the annual toy and game fair held in Nürnberg, Germany — by me and my cameraperson John K. (Every time I...

Spielwarenmesse 2014 — Game Previews IV: Helios, Brügge: Die Stadt am Zwin, Carcassonne: Schafe und Hügel, Xalapa & Zombeasts

• At Spielwarenmesse 2014 — the annual toy and game fair in Nürnberg, Germany — my cameraman John K. and I recorded dozens of preview videos of games just out on the market or due out...

New Game Round-up: Tentacles from the Depths, Cities in Space & Cathala and Days of Wonder Together Once Again

• French gaming site TricTrac has a teaser of the next release from Days of Wonder.Wait, what? Yes, Days of Wonder has dropped its notoriously control-freaky ways — or at least modified them...

Spielwarenmesse 2014 — Game Previews III: 7 Wonders: Babel, Mascarade Expansion, Ca$h'n Gun$ Redux & Qwixx and Basari: Das Kartenspiele

• Time for more game previews from Spielwarenmesse 2014, the annual toy and game fair in Nürnberg, Germany. Belgian publisher Repos Production expects to release three items in 2014: two...

Game Preview: Adventure Time: Card Wars - Finn vs. Jake

• In July 2013, U.S. publisher Cryptozoic Entertainment announced the release of Adventure Time: Card Wars, a card game from Matt Hyra and Cory Jones based on the in-show game "Card Wars"...

Spielwarenmesse 2014 — Game Previews II: Andor II, Faulpelz, Geisterei, Kakerlakentanz & Samurai Sword: Rising Sun

At Spielwarenmesse 2014 — the annual toy and game fair in Nürnberg, Germany —KOSMOS' Arnd Fischer talked a bit about Die Legenden von Andor: Teil II - Die Reisen in den Norden, a release...

New Game Round-up: Turtles and Tiles from ThinkFun & The Return of Prophecy and Lewis & Clark

• U.S. publisher ThinkFun has picked up the self-published game Robot Turtles from designer Dan Shapiro and plans to release a revised version of the game in June 2014.Robot Turtles is a game...

Spielwarenmesse 2014 — Game Previews I: La Isla, La Granja, Start Frei, Gib Gas! & Something Mysterious from Czech Games Edition

• My cameraman John K. and I recorded previews of 91 games (!) at Spielwarenmesse 2014, the annual toy and game fair held in Nürnberg, Germany. Boy, is my mouth tired! Thankfully I only have...

New Game Round-up: St. Petersburg and Romans Return, Cats Take to the Roof & Players Make Maps Match in Akrotiri

• German publisher Hans im Glück plans to crowdfund a new edition of St. Petersburg starting March 21, 2014 on the German site Spieleschmiede. In a news post announcing the project, HiG says...

Spielwarenmesse 2014 — Overview of Madame Ching & Images of Enigma, Onirim, Fairy Tale and More

At Spielwarenmesse 2014 — the annual toy and game fair in Nürnberg, Germany — my cameraman John and I recorded several dozen game preview videos, with an exact count still to come once I...

Spielwarenmesse 2014 — Images from Nürnberg: La Isla, Brügge: Die Stadt am Zwin and More

We've finished our first full day at Spielwarenmesse 2014, the annual toy and game fair in Nürnberg, Germany, and my cameraperson and I recorded 37 game videos today. Granted many of them are...

New Game Round-up: Nürnberg 2014 — Hans im Glück Brings Sun, Sheep and Stadte, While Teuber Sets Sail

• Now that Spielwarenmesse — the annnual toy and game fair in Nürnberg, Germany — has opened, more information about new games has been revealed by publishers previously holding things...

Game Overview: Terzetto, or Making Marble Matches Matter

U.S. publisher Gamewright released Terzetto in 2013, "terzetto" being Italian for "threesome" — which is a little odd since Terzetto is strictly a two-player game, but you're either placing or...

New Game Round-up: Titans in Cyclades, Cards in Kniffel & Spielworxx in Development

• Bruno Cathala, who co-designed Cyclades with Ludovic Maublanc, has been tweeting images of a second expansion for the game, which Matagot rep Fabien notes will be released in Q3 2014 and...

Game Overview: Coconuts, or As Much Fun As Four Monkeys in a Barrel

Okay, time to start posting a video game overviews again, just in time for me to head off to Nürnberg, Germany where I'll record dozens more such overviews at Spielwarenmesse 2014, the annual...

Designer Diary: Seven Swords

The first idea for Seven Swords came to me six or seven years ago after watching, for the fourth time, the Akira Kurosawa movie Seven Samurai. I took my notebook and started with a draft of the...

Designer Diary: Sigismundus Augustus, or How to Turn Your MA Dissertation into a Board Game

Since I was a child, I have wanted to be a history professor. This was one of my first dreams, and despite the time passing by, it has not changed. This is why, when choosing my studies, I did...

Crowdfunding Round-up: More Crowdfunding Games in One Post Than I Ever Thought Possible

• Since I'm prepping for a trip to Nürnberg, Germany at the end of January to cover the games being previewed at Spielwarenmesse, I'm going to catalog as many crowdfunding games as possible in...

New Game Round-up: New Edition Assembled for Patchistory, Vikings Sail Again & New Nemesis for Not-So-Old Relic

• Eric Reasoner, formerly of Japanime Games, has started his own publishing house — StuntKite Publishing — and announced his first release: a new edition of Spiel 2013 wunderkind...

New Game Round-up: HUCH! & friends - Kamisado Large and Small, Take Commands from an Oracle, Roll Your Dung into a Ball, & The Burj Khalifa Is How Tall?

• Peter Burley's Kamisado, first published through his own Burley Games in 2008, is a delightful abstract strategy game, one of those in which the rules are almost invisible because you can...

New Game Round-up: Lewis & Clark Sail Again, Formula D Gets New Tracks & Dirty Pigs Await Your Attention in Putz die Wutz

• Cédrick Chaboussit's Lewis & Clark, released at Spiel 2013 in October by French publisher Ludonaute, has been picked up for distribution by Asmodee (after previously being handled by Game...

Treefrog Games Returns with Mythotopia, Ships & A Game to Be Named Later

• Let's take a break from the publisher-centered round-ups I've been posting for most of January 2014 in the run-up to the annual toy and game trade fair in Nürnberg, Germany — previewed...

New Game Round-up: Gamewright — Dice for Counting, Dice for Dodging, Dice for Storytelling & a Super Sushi Sandwich Slam

• Steffen Benndorf's Qwixx garnered a Spiel des Jahres nomination in 2013, and while it failed to take home the big prize, like SdJ winner Hanabi it's been picked up by publishers around the...

New Game Round-up: ABACUSSPIELE — China Begins a New Dynasty, Cities Finds New Boundaries & Players Need to Squeal

• Another day, another round-up of what's coming from a German publisher in the first half of 2014, with ABACUSSPIELE being the publisher in the spotlight this time around. Since the middle of...

Crowdfunding Round-up: My Kingdom for a Bowl of Soup, Then Another Kingdom, and Then One After That — Lots of Kingdoms...and Maybe a Zombie

Whoa! It's the middle of January already! Man, it was just Christmas yesterday! Okay, so I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays and are in progress of a Happy New Year and if...

New Game Round-up: Zoch Verlag - Europe-Bound Enigma & Five Other Enigmatic Boxes

• In April 2013, I posted a video overview of Touko Tahkokallio's Enigma, which was published in 2012 by Finnish publisher Competo and hard to acquire if you didn't live in Scandinavia....

New Game Round-up: KOSMOS - Tricky Stacking, Uncertain Sacking, Flower Packing & Crazy Cat Attacking

• In January 2013, while introducing some of the titles that German publisher KOSMOS planned to release in the first half of that year, I boldly predicted that Inka and Markus Brand's La Boca...

New Game Round-up: KOSMOS - Teuber Sans Catan, Mensa Winners auf Deutsch & Dorn on His Back

• For years, gamers have wondered when famed Settlers of Catan designer Klaus Teuber would release something not related to Catan, and for years they've been treated to, well, all sorts of...

New Game Round-up: Ravensburger - Foxy Card-Playing, Crafty City-Running, Sneaky Dungeon-Crawling & Inexplicable Frog-Tapping

• In a January 6, 2014 BGGN post, I included an overview of Wolfgang Kramer and Michael Kiesling's Abluxxen that went something like this: "In Abluxxen, you take turns playing number cards, and...