Board Game News

Explore Bangalore, Hagen, and Marrakesh on Your Tabletop

• Indian publisher Dice Toy Labs has released a tile-laying, city-building game in honor of its hometown of Bangalore, with the 2-4 player game Namma Bengaluru taking 30-45 minutes to...

Peter C. Hayward and Pandasaurus Reminisce Over That Time You Killed Me

For months, U.S. publisher Pandasaurus Games has been teasing a forthcoming release with tweets such as this one:why... Why... WHY!!!This question echoes throughout Spacetime, reaching your past,...

Create a Modern Zoo in Ark Nova, and Administer a Coal Mine in Schichtwechsel

• BGG's SPIEL '21 Preview now lists more than 250 titles, and I imagine one of the more anticipated titles will be Mathias Wigge's Ark Nova given that it's being developed and released by...

Prepare to Explore Dice Realms in December 2021

At Gen Con 2019, designer Tom Lehmann visited the BGG booth to present overviews of three upcoming projects: Res Arcana: Lux et Tenebrae, New Frontiers: Starry Rift, and Dice Realms.The first...

Game Overview: Tutankhamun, or No One Ever Plays in the Same River Twice

Tutankhamun from U.S. publisher 25th Century Games is a new edition of the similarly named Tutankhamen, with the latter game dating to 1993 near the start of designer Reiner Knizia's career.Like...

Load Cards Quickly, Bike at Varying Speeds, and Manipulate Mouse Cheese Cat Cucumber

• I love learning about games that are as much a concept as anything else. A designer has an idea, then sees whether a game can be formed around that idea.I'm not sure whether Marc Paquien's...

Explore Arydia, the Lands of Galzyr, and Other Lands Betwixt and Between

• Updates to the SPIEL '21 Preview — not to mention all of the other previews and game release lists — continue, with one of the newest titles on the list being Betwixt and Between, an...

Fix Lativ’s Weather Machine, Manage Beta Bots, Control Ancient Relics, and Explore the Deep Sea

Lativ, the mad scientist, and his minions• Lovers of heavy euros, brace yourselves for Weather Machine, Vital Lacerda's next big release from Eagle-Gryphon Games, which is coming to Kickstarter...

Sophie Gravel to Again Lead Z-Man Games

In 2016, Sophie Gravel sold F2Z Entertainment — a Canadian publisher/distributor that owned the Z-Man Games, Filosofia Éditions, Pretzel Games, and Plaid Hat Games studios — to Asmodee.Less...

Uwe Rosenberg Challenges You to Line Up Tulips and Smash Melodies into Physical Form

• In July 2021, German publisher AMIGO did a soft announcement of the titles it plans to release in September 2021. As of August 2021, AMIGO has revealed more details about these games, so I...

Face Betrayal in Dune, Become Number One in SPECTRE, and OBEY the Rules of UNO

After years of a Dune shortage on the game table, the impending release of the new film adaptation of Frank Herbert's novel is bringing a flood of related games.Following news of Dune: A Game of...

Be Horrified by American Monsters, and Return to Puerto Rico...Again

• In 2019, the U.S. branch of Ravensburger released the co-operative game Horrified from the Prospero Hall design team. In this game, which was well-received in both hobby and mainstream...

Develop Boonlake from Alexander Pfister, Then Participate in Maracaibo: The Uprising

• U.S. publisher Capstone Games has announced two Alexander Pfister titles that will be hitting the market before the end of 2021, one already known and one previously unannounced, so let's...

Game Overview: Juicy Fruits, or Spam Those Bananas!

Juicy Fruits from Christian Stöhr and Deep Print Games brings the spirit of the 15 sliding puzzle and Sokoban to the tabletop.At the start of play, you have a personal island that looks...

Japanese Game Round-up: Predict the Future, Create Your Own Cards, and Discover a Kindly World

• Japanese creators continue to make in-roads on Kickstarter to introduce their creations to audiences far outside the limits of Game Market, as with KUJIRADAMA's first crowdfunded project on...

Grow Trees and Shed Seeds, Dominate a Garden, and Toss Veggies for a Greek Salad

• I receive press releases for many game announcements, but I miss far more than I see, which means it's perhaps understandable that I've discovered Thomas Franken's Forests of Pangaia only two...

The Past Returns in Omega Virus: Prologue

U.S. publisher Restoration Games announced several upcoming releases during a press event in July 2021, but it had held back news of one additional forthcoming game, a game that will be preceded...

Control the Spice More Often, Trade Mysterious Artifacts, Rebuild Your Ancestral Village, and Survive on Plum Island

• In the past few months, Eric has mentioned a couple of exciting releases for Dune fans, including the upcoming co-operative, story-driven Portal Games release Dune: House of Secrets, as well...

Unboxing Catan: 3D Edition

In May 2021, publishers KOSMOS and Catan Studio announced a special 3D edition of Klaus Teuber's CATAN, and the world collectively rejoiced and said, "Finally, a game that we can play outside the...

Hunt or Be Hunted in Cryptid: Urban Legends

Hal Duncan and Ruth Veevers' Cryptid from 2018 is a delightful deduction game in which each of the 3-5 players holds a piece of information as to where a legendary creature is located, and the...

Bask in Summertime, Become a Hero of Undermountain, and Solve Crimes in Detective Rummy

• Designers Omari Akil and Hamu Dennis run their own publishing studio, Board Game Brothas, but in addition to releasing their own titles, they also pitch designs to others, and in July 2021...

Game Overview: Rocketmen, or Mars Ain't the Kind of Place to Raise Your Kids

Designer Martin Wallace has created several games that use a deck-bulding mechanism — that is, a system in which you start with a deck of cards and add more cards to the deck during the game to...

Return to Mankind's Past to Place Dominos, Place Polyominoes, and Flip Tokens on Six Continents

• Designer Klaus-Jürgen Wrede has visited prehistoric times previously in Carcassonne: Hunters and Gatherers, and now he's looking at the same period of time on a global scale in Fire & Stone,...

Links: Less Crowded Conventions, Popping Publicity, and Games in the Environment

• On July 5, 2021, Asmodee Deutschland noted that due to the "still uncertain health situation in 2021" and despite the increasing speed with which vaccinations are being delivered in Germany,...

Relive the French and Indian War, Manage Armies in 11th-Century Spain, and Revisit NATO/Warsaw Pact Conflicts

Considering that voting is open through July 31, 2021 for the 2020 Charles S. Roberts Awards and that I'm buzzing from an awesome weekend during which I finally got the opportunity to play...

Investigate Scandals, Create Works of Art, and Weave Victorious Patterns

• Ettana: The Looms of Kanchi is the first design from Madhu Sundar and the first release from new publisher Mad4Fun Games in Switzerland and India. The game is available for purchase online...

Cure the Pandemic of the Lich King, Flip Ships at Space Invaders, and Try Not to Get Bit...Again

• When Kane Klenko's Flip Ships was released in 2017 by Renegade Game Studios, many people said, "That seems like a cool take on Space Invaders."Apparently Space Invaders' owner Taito thought...

Designer Diary: The Accidental Game Design of Hashi

In the introduction to his short book Pure Drivel, Steve Martin writes about a large break in his film career: "During these years, in which I vowed to do nothing and leave myself alone about it,...

Game Preview: Top Pop, or The Game That Will Not Resolve Your Daddy Issues

My wife Linda and I started a Meetup group in late 2020 — great timing, I know! — to merge our interests: mine in games and hers in meeting new people.The intent of "Outside the Game Box" is...

MicroMacro: Crime City Wins Spiel des Jahres 2021, while Paleo Wins Kennerspiel des Jahres 2021

MicroMacro: Crime City by Johannes Sich and Edition Spielwiese has won the 2021 Spiel des Jahres, German's game of the year award, which is arguably the best known and most influential award in...