Board Game News

Links: A Village Song, A Meeple Pile & A Theory about Board Game Collections

• How do you get publicity for your games? Put them in front of famous people and let the media do their thing. To wit, German publisher Hans im Glück has posted a shot of Saxony's...

Designer Diary: Credit Mobilier

There are lots of reasons for going to the trouble of designing and testing game designs, such as the mental and creative challenges, or the feeling that you've solved an exceptionally...

New Game Round-up: A Handful of Games from Rio Grande, Equilibrion Becomes Urbion & Trajan Comes to the U.S.

  • U.S. publisher Rio Grande Games has a number of titles – some new and some new-ish – due out in June and July 2012, according to ACD Distribution. Titles due out in June 2012...

Links: Interviews with Giulia Ghigini and Larry Roznai, The Making of Burdigala & The Future of Gamification

• In his "bruno-des-montagnes" blog, designer Bruno Cathala details (in French) the creative and manufacturing process for Burdigala, published in 2011 by Id&aL Editions, with a series of...

Crowdfunding Round-up: A Sid Sackson Trio, Urbanization, Kill the Overlord! & Tooth & Nail: Factions

Kickstarter is obviously a huge deal. Multiple game publishers now use the crowdfunding site for all or nearly all of their releases; well-established publishers are using the site as a preorder...

BoardGameGeek at Origins 2012 – Day 2: Mice and Mystics, Doctor Who: The Card Game, Stefan and Dale Dance, and more...

Hi, everyone,Saturday was another busy day at the 2012 Origins Game Fair. We met with several more great publishers, and highlights from our second day at Origins include:-----• Funny...

Links: Awards for Lancaster and Schnappt Hubi! & Michael Schacht and Kevin Brusky Talk Games

• Matt Faul at Diehard Game Fan interviews APE Games' Kevin Brusky about the origins of duck! duck! Go!, the unbelievably large Order of the Stick Kickstarter campaign, and more. A (lightly...

New Game Round-up: More on the Z-Hans/Rio Split, Iota Gets Bigger & New Nations in 2013

• To follow up the June 6, 2012 announcement of Hans im Glück moving to Z-Man Games as its English-language publishing partner, I asked Rio Grande Games' Jay Tummelson whether the German and...

BoardGameGeek at Origins 2012 – Day 1: Samurai Battles, Morels, FlowerFall, Glory to Rome, and more...

Hi, everyone,In late May and early June, Chad Krizan and I had the opportunity to attend the 2012 Origins Game Fair and meet with many publishers. Below you will find the videos from our first...

Links: More from Origins 2012, Science Fiction in Games & Playing Extra-Extra-Extra-Extra Innings

• Coverage of the 2012 Origins Game Fair continues with a report on Games & Grub that included this (lightly edited) thought:Quote:I like Kickstarter, I really do. However, I'm concerned that...

News from Italy: Early Previews of 1969, Gladiatori and Swordfish

Here I am again with news from Italy. My city of Modena and nearby towns have been shaken hard by an earthquake in recent days – the last big shake, as of this writing, registered a 5.1 three...

Publisher News from Origins 2012

[NB: I'm doing double duty here, reporting on news I heard at the 2012 Origins Game Fair for BGG News while posting a photo report of the things that I saw while at Origins on the Opinionated...

Links: Gamecentric Crowdfunding, Two Release Dates for Alderac & Games Killed by the iPod

• Tom Curtis at Gamasutra writes about Gambitious, a new crowdfunding site devoted solely to games – albeit video and computer games from the look of projects already underway and the nature...

Links: 2012 Origins Game Fair Round-Up

Time for a round-up of posts and reports related to the 2012 Origins Game Fair, which ran from May 30 to June 3 in Columbus, Ohio.• Let's start with the much-maligned Origins Awards, and since...

Hans im Glück Changes Publishing Partners: Rio Is Out, Z-Man Is In

On June 6, 2012, German publisher Hans im Glück announced that by the end of 2012 Rio Grande Games will no longer be its English-language license partner; instead Z-Man Games, which is owned by...

New Game Round-up: What's in Who, Hexy Dancers for Neuroshima & Expansions for Qwirkle

• BGG user Brian Pilnick describes Martin Wallace's Doctor Who: The Card Game in one of his 2012 KublaCon reports. I've summarized his write-up for a new game description:Quote:In Doctor Who:...

Days of Wonder Launches Huge Equipment Pack for Memoir '44

Sixty-eight years after the invasion of Normandy by Allied troops during World War II, U.S./French publisher Days of Wonder has announced a huge new expansion for Richard Borg's Memoir '44 game...

New Game Round-up: Night Falls Again, Lions Become Robots & Building Spaceships, Building Space Stations

• Theme reboot: The instructional game Let's Catch the Lion!, which is meant to teach Shogi on a 3x4 board, has been published by Egmont in Poland as Pojedynek Robotów, complete with adorable...

Designer Diary: Divinare – It's Better to be Lucky than Smart

People keep asking me, "Where did the idea for Divinare come from?" and I don't have any good answer for them. I doubt many game designers can fully articulate exactly how they acquire the...

Links: Become a Hive Master, Five & Dime 2011 & China Goes Back to China

• John Moller at Cartrunk Entertainment's Unpub site details the not-yet-published and relatively-soon-to-be-released titles that were available for playtesting in the Unpub area at the 2012...

New Game Round-up: Kremlin Reborn, Storytelling with Cthulhu & Equipment for Memoir '44?

• Rumor alert: BGG user BradyLS has posted the following in the Memoir '44 forums:BradyLS wrote:My FLGS received this notice from their distributor and asked if I wanted to pre-order the...

Links: Nominees for the Diana Jones Award and the Deutscher Lernspielpreis & Games Workshop vs. 3D Printers

• Nominees for the 2012 Deutscher Lernspielpreis – an award meant to highlight the best games for children to both play and learn – have been announced, and the nominees in each category...

Publisher Diary: Diablo III, Kickstarter, Finance Logistics, and Bears – OH MY!

Okay, so there won't be anything about bears in this post – and speaking of which, I don't understand why we make plush versions of animals that could rip your arm off for our kids to sleep...

Designer Diary: Courtier – Calamitous Court Intrigue from Concept to Completion

The Beginnings of IntrigueCourtier began its game life as Henry the Great. This title immediately brings to mind Henry VIII of England – however, my game was about the much-revered Henry IV of...

New Game Round-up: June 2012 Releases from Flying Frog and Queen, More Items for Panic Station & More Characters at The Red Dragon Inn

• Flying Frog Productions' Last Night on Earth: Timber Peak and A Touch of Evil: The Coast are both due out in June 2012, according to ACD Distribution, and not Q3 2012 as previously noted on...

Links: Dungeon Twister on Playstation, Très Belle Notre Dame & Good Game Endings

• Dungeon Twister will arrive on Playstation 3 "this summer in the USA, Europe and Australia", according to a press release on DungeonTwister.com. Here's the launch trailer for the video game,...

New Game Round-up: Sifting in the Sand for Fun, Print-and-Play Thunderstone & Martin Wallace Says Who

• Skeleton Island – designed by Florian Fay, published by Ilopeli, and due out in mid-June 2012 with rules in five languages – is the first game that I can think of in which one can blow on...

Designer Diary: The Lord of the Rings: Nazgul - How to Keep Pesky Hobbits from Wrecking Your Plans

When Justin Ziran (friend and fellow WizKid) and I heard that WizKids had the opportunity to do a game based on The Lord of the Rings movies, it evoked memories of riding in the very back of my...

Mid-2012 Release Update for Asmodee; Marabunta Swarms the Game Table

In February 2012, I posted an overview of what Asmodee expected to publish and distribute in North America in 2012, with some coverage given to Asmodee's French and German releases as well.Time...

Fantasy Flight Games' Line-up for July and August 2012

 Time for another doubleplusgood round-up of upcoming releases from Fantasy Flight Games, many of which have already been covered on BGGN and all of which – or at least most of which –...