Board Game News

New Game Round-up: The Nazgul Near Infiltration of Goa & Zombies, Zombies and the Devil from Twilight Creations

• U.S. publisher Twilight Creations, Inc. has announced a trio of new titles due out in 2012, but despite what you might expect only two of them involve zombies, the first of which is...

Designer Diary: Richelieu – To Know How to Disguise Is the Knowledge of Kings

Inspiration for the GameBefore starting the Richelieu project, I had been designing games for about two years – and before having an interest in board games, I was very much into RPGs,...

Links: Uwe Eickert and Jerry Hawthorne Talk About What They Do, How to Fix Origins & The Long View

• Uwe Eickert of Academy Games was interviewed in late May 2012 on The Wargamer. An excerpt: "We have a unique [design] process, I believe, based on our engineering backgrounds. Every game must...

New Game Round-up: Multilingual Bits, Chemistry Game Play Compounded & Dungeon Fighter Redux

• Two years after the game's German-only debut, Ravensburger has now released Reiner Knizia's BITS in a multilingual version with rules in English, German, French, Dutch and Italian.• Steve...

New Game Round-up: Relive the Titanic Experience, A Second Awakening & New Frontiers for Aliens

• Collapsible D: The Final Minutes of the Titanic, designed by Gianluca Santopietro and published by Sir Chester Cobblepot – which despite the name is an Italian publisher – is not entirely...

New Game Round-up: Dominion's Dark Ages, Deck-Building with the Classics, Game Designer Clique & Mushrooms!

• As noted on BGGN in early April 2012, the next Dominion release would be titled "The Dark Ages" and now U.S. publisher Rio Grande Games has finally dropped info on the game, albeit not a...

Links: The History of Dice, Behind the Scenes at Zoch & Faidutti Packs It In?

• Kevin O'Sullivan interviews Albrecht Werstein, CEO of German publisher Zoch Verlag. A (lightly edited) excerpt:Quote:Germany was one of the biggest markets for board games in the 1980s and...

New Game Round-up: Bananas, Pennies, Flowers, Geishas – But No Glory

• French publisher Jactalea has announced the next release in its line of tiny games, which already includes The Blue Lion and Button Up! As with that latter game, Okiya is from designer Bruno...

New Game Round-up: New Life for 12 Realms, Roll Skyscrapers in Skyline & Yes, Finally, Nefarious

• Greek publisher Mage Company, which has Wrong Chemistry on Kickstarter right now, has announced that it's picked up the cooperative game 12 Realms from designer Ignazio Corrao, although it...

News from Italy: Aztlàn, Micro Monsters, AstroNuts, iPad/iPhone news and Italian Master

Here I am with another round-up of news from Italy:Ares Games: Aztlàn, an Euro-style game from Leo ColoviniAres Games announces its debut in the Eurogame category with the upcoming board game...

New Game Round-up: More Worlds to Core, Noah Sails to North America & A Peek at 3012

• U.S. publisher Stronghold Games has announced an expansion for Andrew Parks' Core Worlds, due out Q4 2012. Here's a rundown of what you'll find in Core Worlds: Galactic Orders:Quote:In Core...

Nominees for the 2012 Spiel, Kennerspiel & Kinderspiel des Jahres

The nominees for the most influential award in boardgaming – the Spiel des Jahres, Germany's "game of the year" award – were announced today by the jury of eleven German journalists who have...

Links: Awards in the Netherlands and Switzerland, Play the Universe & How Valid Are Game Genres Anyway?

• On May 12, 2012 the nominees for the 2012 Nederlandse Spellenprijs were announced:-----–Lancaster, by Matthias Cramer (Queen Games)-----–Mondo, by Michael Schacht (White Goblin...

Links: Guess the 2012 Spiel des Jahres Nominees, The Gamer Lifecycle & More on The Wheaton Effect

Let's reboot following yesterday's comment onslaught and repost the non-tentacle-related items so that they can get a bit of attention:• Writers on the Opinionated Gamers, including yours...

Designer Diary: Making Tahiti Tahiti

Most of the time when I design a game I start with a very basic concept, possibly pairing a theme or game type with a mechanism I think will be interesting, such as a train game with a modular...

Links: Tentacle Bento Boxed by Kickstarter, Guess the 2012 Spiel des Jahres Nominees & More on The Wheaton Effect

• In a new game round-up in late March 2012, I mentioned a forthcoming release from Soda Pop Miniatures titled Tentacle Bento, which was described as follows by retailer The Castle's Ramparts:...

Gigamic Unloads a Half-Dozen Titles, Promising Tea, Panic, Crabs & More

In the middle of 2011 I posted a round-up of what French publisher Gigamic had recently released or had on the schedule. Since Gigamic has a half-dozen new offerings hitting the market on May 18,...

New Game Round-up: Revolving Expansions, Orwellian Game Play & Monetary Dis-Unity?

• Dutch publisher White Goblin Games has announced a series of small expansions for Mark Chaplin's Revolver, which WGG debuted at Spiel 2011 and which appeared on the North American market in...

New Game Round-up: Plaid Hat Offers Mice and Cheese, Cryptozoic Offers a Millennium of Deck-Building & Get Ready to Battle for Dungeon Command

• In addition to revamping its website, U.S. publisher Plaid Hat Games has announced an August 2012 release date for Jerry Hawthorne's Mice and Mystics. Here's a description of the game from...

Director Diary: What's the Story in Going Cardboard?

Hey there, BGG readers. My name is Lorien Green, and I'm a boardgame lover/BGG lurker around these parts. I also made the tabletop gaming documentary Going Cardboard. Today I wanted to share with...

New Game Round-up: Netrunner and Alchemy Reborn, Warriors Travel to Italy & Clash of Cultures in 2012

• For those who don't already know the news, Fantasy Flight Games has announced a new version of Richard Garfield's Netrunner collectible card game, first released by Wizards of the Coast in...

Designer Diary: How Vegetables Became Animals, or My Happy Farm

At the start of summer 2011, Oleg Sidorenko and I had the idea of creating a game which could display the life of a small farm in a light and accessible form. We wanted to show the seasonality of...

Links: Glory to Rome Has Strategy?, Wil Wheaton Drives Sales & duBarry's Courtier History

• "GeekInsight" at Giant Fire Breathing Robot answers the question "Is Glory to Rome a Strategy Game?" The answer, although written in a more GtR-specific manner than my interpretation below,...

New Game Round-up: Bauza Returns to the Far East, Colovini Does Mesoamerica & Teuber Gives Us (More) Catan

• French publisher Funforge will release Tokaido, an Antoine Bauza design at Spiel 2012. Here's an overview of the game which is long on theme and setting and light on game play...

Links: Not-So-Exclusive Distribution, Dave Arneson's Stuff & Gaming Homework

• In March 2012, Z-Man Games announced an exclusive distribution deal with Alliance Game Distributors, as covered on BGGN at the time – yet ACD Distribution, one of Alliance's U.S....

New Game Round-up: Variable Kings of Tokyo, A Quartet of Age of Steam Expansions & Cthulhu-Opoly (Sort Of)

• "Giving people a customized die is very sexy." —Richard GarfieldKing of Tokyo has an expansion due out in the near future, with it ideally being released at Gen Con 2012, according to the...

New Game Round-up: Building One Town, Stealing from Another & Destroying a Third

• Designer Alban Viard has released a number of Age of Steam expansions over the years, starting with The Moon in 2005 and Mars in 2007, then moving closer to home. For 2012, however, Viard is...

Designer Diary: Do You Want to Play Basketball? Play BASKETmind

This is a summary of why and how I designed BASKETmind back in 1981, how the game has evolved over time, how I made the most recent prototype, and how things changed during the production process...

New Game Round-up: Cardinal Richelieu Still Causing Trouble, Schacht Releases a Handful & Game Release/Delay Updates

• Dutch publisher White Goblin Games has announced Olivier Lamontagne's Richelieu for release in June 2012. Here's a description from the publisher of Richelieu, which won the annual Plateau...

Designer Diary: A Brief History of Tammany Hall

My friend Aaron Lauster invites me over to the house one evening. I show up, he smiles, reaches behind him into a big plastic box, hands me sheets of printed pages and a pair of scissors, and...