Board Game News

New Game Round-up: Garden Building, Doodle Jumping and Safe Cracking from Ravensburger & Nuggets Returns as Armadöra

• These days I'm bouncing back-and-forth from Gen Con to Spiel, trying to write up what I saw at one convention while prepping for what's to come at the next. Let's turn our attention to Spiel...

Designer Diary: The Adventure of Designing Artifact

Prologue: A rugged archeologist sets off through the unknown on a journey through uncharted wilderness with a pack of provisions, an aged antique map, and a mysterious hand-written guidebook with...

Gen Con 2013 – Game Demos from the Convention Floor: SOS Titanic, Lewis & Clark, Goblin Vale, Airborne Commander & Ryan Laukat's Eight-Minute Empire

• Continuing with game demonstrations recorded on the show floor at Gen Con 2013, we have designer Bruno Cathala with SOS Titanic, which was co-designed with Ludovic Maublanc and is coming from...

Gen Con 2013 – Wil Wheaton Away from the TableTop & Game Demos from the Convention Floor: Cthulhu Wars, Heroes of Metro City & A Set Enterprises Trio

• In addition to filming game demos away from the BoardGameGeek booth at Gen Con 2013, Beth Heile and I looked for other things going on at the con. At one point, she spotted Wil Wheaton,...

New Game Round-up: Gain Infamy, Thwart Aliens, Build New Civilizations & Keep the Grannies in Line

• North American publisher Mercury Games has announced a second title, in addition to The Capitals, that it plans to release before the end of 2013: Travis R. Chance's Infamy. Here's an...

Gen Con 2013 – Reports from BGG and Elsewhere, Renaissance Man Overview & The Perils of Playing at Conventions

For once I thought I'd publish a convention round-up before weeks have passed and everyone has already moved on to the next convention – Spiel 2013, in this case.The convention in question is...

Gen Con 2013 – Game Demos from the Convention Floor: Flying Frog Productions

• Let's start the mobile video coverage of Gen Con 2013 with a round-up of titles from Flying Frog Productions, with Last Night on Earth: Blood in the Forest being the first title under...

New Game Round-up from Gen Con 2013: Munchkin Adventure Time, Plants vs. Zombies, The Walking Dead, DC Superheroes & BGG Favorite My Little Pony

• At Gen Con 2013, U.S. publishers Steve Jackson Games and USAopoly were both teasing an announcement for Friday night, and that announcement came at SJG's Munchkin Tavern while designer Steve...

New Game Round-up: Chvátil Summons Tash-Kalar, Arévalo Reinvents Seven Samurai & Keyflower and Eclipse Get Bigger

• With Gen Con 2013 out of the way (albeit with additional write-ups and news still to come), let's turn our collective heads to games being featured at Spiel 2013 in October, starting with...

New Game Round-up: BattleLore and Diskwars Return, While Legendary Breaks Out in New Directions

• Time for some catching up on new game announcements, starting with a game announced prior to Gen Con 2013 and then on display during that convention, namely the second edition of BattleLore...

Links: Running for Relics, Digging Up Relics & Games Not Lasting Long Enough to Be Relics

• On MeepleTown, first-time designer Matthew Dunstan talks about Relic Runners, coming from Days of Wonder in September 2013 and available for demo games at Gen Con 2013 in mid-August. How did...

Publisher Diary: BattleCON: Devastation, or The Six Lessons You Learn Between Your First Game and its Sequel

In early 2012, Level 99 Games became a "real" board game publisher when we produced our first boxed game: BattleCON: War of Indines, a head-to-head fighting card game. BattleCON has been...

Crowdfunding Round-up: Steaming to Atlantis, Stashing in an Abbey, Fighting the Aliens & Landing Mr. Right

• Incredible Expeditions: Quest for Atlantis is the first design from Liz Spain and her Voodoo Bunny Co. LLC, and she's apparently used all her might to infuse the game with 100 megagallons of...

Gen Con 2013 – Final Preparations and Thoughts on New Games

As is the case for every convention that I attend, for Gen Con 2013 – which takes place August 15-18 – I'm not so much ready for the convention but simply out of preparation time.Starting...

Designer Diary: Asgard's Chosen, or Creatures and Heroes and Gods, Oh My!

Building My Dream HouseI'm not sure how other designers approach games, but I tend to design games out of desperation. Usually it comes from a certain level of frustration when I want a kind of...

New Game Round-up: Young Magicians from Lang and Wilson, Firefly at Gen Con & Reliving Ender's Days at Battle School

• In 2014, U.S. publisher Th3rd World Studios plans to release Generation Hex by designers Kevin Wilson and Eric M. Lang, a "board game of magical melee for 2-4 players that pits young...

BoardGameGeek & GeekBuzz are Headed to Gen Con 2013!

BoardGameGeek is attending Gen Con 2013 for the first time, so I recorded a video outlining what we are doing next week at our booth - #167 - please check it out and stop on by if you are able....

New Game Round-up: Treasure Hunting in Germany, Invaders from White Goblin Games & a Release Update from Rio Grande Games

• Dutch publisher White Goblin Games has already announced a lengthy line-up for release at Spiel 2013 in October, as covered in June 2013 on BGGN here and here, but now one more title has been...

Crowdfunding Round-Up: Feudal Japan, Old Timey Planes, Firefly, and Water Balloons... I Got Nothing

Hey there! I was so late last month that this month really snuck up on me! Luckily it was a slow month in crowdfunding. Nothing of importance at all going on really; nope, no special projects or...

New Game Round-up: Fighting Critters, Thieving Pirates, and Hard-Working Settlers from R&R Games; Collect, Find Animals in AMIGO's Arche Noah and Pipifax

• U.S. publisher R&R Games has released information about three titles due out in late 2013 and aimed for a Spiel 2013 debut, the first being Plunder from designer Jonathan Franklin. The title...

Links: Dominion's Secrets Revealed, Bauza and Menzel on Their SdJ Victories & More

• Designer Donald X. Vaccarino is commemorating the coda of his Dominion card game series from Rio Grande Games by returning to the game's beginnings with "The Secret History of Dominion", a...

New Game Round-up: Collecting Turtles, Stacking Cheese, Arranging Cups and Sorting Cards – AMIGO Spiel Puts You to Work in Late 2013

• German publisher AMIGO Spiel has unveiled its game release line-up for the second half of 2013 – with all the games listed below due out in September 2013 – and I've starting adding these...

Designer Preview: Pandemic: In the Lab

Pandemic: In the Lab is the second expansion for Pandemic (after On the Brink), providing more roles, more events, and several new ways to play Pandemic, including a Lab challenge, a solo game,...

New Game Round-up: IELLO Presents Speedy Zombies, Amusement Park Business Dynamics & Hot Death on the Beaches of Normandy

• In addition to demoing and selling Titanium Wars, The Phantom Society and The Three Little Pigs at Gen Con 2013, French publisher IELLO will show off four releases due out in Q4 2013:...

New Game Round-up: Ostriches, Acorns and Monsters from Japan & A Heavy Dose of Eldritch Horror from Minnesota

• August has only just started, but the details of games available at Spiel 2013 keep coming. Here are three titles that Japon Brand – a company that works with independent Japanese designers...

New Game Round-up: Evolution Comes to the U.S., Deep Space 9 Comes to Star Trek: Attack Wing & Doom Comes to Atlantic City After All

• On July 23, 2013, Erik Chevalier of [company=22549]The Forking Path, Co.[/company] announced that his publishing efforts to bring The Doom That Came to Atlantic City to market had gone bust...

New Game Round-up: Conquering Desktopia, Learning Ascension & Reworking Fairy Tale

• Normally I post descriptions of games undergoing crowdfunding in a standalone BGGN post so that those who disapprove of such undertakings or who don't want to be tempted can ignore the...

Crowdfunding Round-up: Pack of Heroes, The Agents, Keep Cool, Freedom & More

• Brian Mayer's Freedom: The Underground Railroad from Academy Games hit Kickstarter and more than doubled its funding goal in just two days, adding a mini-expansion of additional abolitionist...

Designer Diary: Star Trek: Attack Wing, or How to Overcome Tribbles in Game Design

Getting StartedWhen I was first asked by WizKids Games to design Star Trek: Attack Wing, my mind began to race at Warp Factor 10. This was going to be a gigantic project that involved taking the...

New Game Round-up: Become the Chosen of Asgard, Pick Up Rocket Fragments in Days of Honor & Revisit Omen and Hemloch

• U.S. publisher Mayfair Games has announced a new title for September 2013 from designer Morgan Dontanville, with Dontanville providing a detailed description of the game and sample images of...