Board Game News

Nürnberg 2012: Vegas and Saint Malo from Alea & ToySmart's Voca!

The last three days of the Spielwarenmesse – the annual International Toy Fair in Nürnberg, Germany – have been a blur. Friday and Saturday were the busiest ever at the Gen42 Games booth,...

New Game Round-up: Strings and More from FoxMind in 2012, Get Animals on Board in Noé & More

• Canadian publisher FoxMind Games has unveiled its release schedule for the first half of 2012, some of which are localized versions of games already available in Europe and Japan and some of...

Nürnberg 2012: Days 1 & 2

Outside it is minus ten degrees, but inside day one of the Toy Fair is hotting up. The world has come to Nürnberg and business is good. The hours pass on fast-forward. There is no time to check...

Looking for Help with .MPG Files

At the risk of being inundated with offers of assistance, I'm looking for someone who might be able to assist me with .MPG files that Scott Reed, aka skelebone, has sent me from the Nürnberg Toy...

Links: China in Venice, Fresh Blood for Red November, Adam Sandler in Candy Land & a Top Prize for Poop

• Designer Michael Schacht continues his "12 months of China" project on his online gaming website with implementations of the China gaming system in the Soviet Union (which debuted in January...

Designer Diary: A Fistful of Penguins – A Fairy Tale Ending

A Fistful of Penguins is an opener/family/children's dice game that is fun, light, and cute. There is also an advanced version, which was actually the game's starting point.I have a soft spot for...

Nürnberg 2012 – Pics from Set-up Day

[Editor's note: As he did in 2011, Rob Harris (aka, whistleblower) is sending short reports from Spielwarenmesse, the International Toy Fair taking place in Nürnberg, Germany February 1-6, 2012....

New Game Round-up: Wallace Takes to the Sky, Germany Gets New Tickets & Crazy Creatures from Dr. Schacht

• Mayfair Games long ago announced that Martin Wallace's Steam and Automobile would be part of a transportation-themed trilogy and now the U.S. publisher has revealed the third title in that...

Designer Diary: VivaJava: The Coffee Game – Portrait of a Young Designer in Love

Hello, world. You don't know me, but you soon will because I have things to say that will excite you. Call me T. C. Petty III, designer of VivaJava: The Coffee Game. And I'm an elitist,...

Links: Free Rings, Shifting Origins, Revolutionary Strategy & Wood-for-Sheep on U.S. TV

• Alderac Entertainment Group has posted a free, downloadable version of its Legend of the Five Rings dubbed the "Kolat" edition. Says AEG's Todd Rowland, "In the attached PDF flyer, you can...

New Game Round-up: Six Months of Releases from 999 Games, Pixellated Gaming & Gorgeous Ships Burn in Serenissima

• Dutch publisher 999 Games has announced its release schedule for the first half of 2012, and while most of the games are Dutch-language versions of games originating from other publishers –...

New Game Round-up: Z-Man Releases in 2012, News on Santa Cruz and Mini-Carc Expansions & Tiny Hives

• U.S. publisher Z-Man Games has announced what it's releasing the first half of 2012 and its release schedule looks as follows, starting with three titles that German publisher Lookout Games...

New Game Round-up: Details on Schmidt Spiele's Grimoria, More Nürnberg News & Ticket to Ride: Germany?

• Schmidt Spiele editor Thorsten Gimmler has passed along a few details about Grimoria, that publisher's German version of Hayato Kisaragi's Grimoire. Like the Z-Man Games version, Grimoria...

Convention Preview Update: Competing Nürnberg and New York Toy Fair Previews!

For your viewing pleasure, I submit not one, but two convention previews: the previously available (and still growing) Nürnberg 2012 Preview and the newly published New York Toy Fair 2012...

New Game Round-up: Queen & Rio Grande Unveil Packed 2012 Schedules, Ora et Labora No Mora & Nürnberg 2012 Shapes Up

 • German publisher Queen Games has passed along details of nine titles on its 2012 schedule, and while info is scarce for a number of them, here's what I know so far. As I receive more...

Fantasy Flight Games' Line-up for April 2012

U.S. publisher Fantasy Flight Games has announced its April 2012 release schedule, which consists of two big announcements and the usual assortment of expansion packs for its line of Living Card...

Links: Looney Labs and Playroom Cut Distributors, How to Localize Game Rules & Games as Hobby, Investment or Addiction

• Publisher Looney Labs has announced that it's reducing the number of distributors it works with in the United States, going "from dozens of companies" in the hobby market, according to CEO...

Designer – No, Wait – Artist Diary: Crooks

An Offer I Couldn't RefuseIn February 2011 I had just finished working on artwork for eggertspiele's Principato and was making preparations for the trade fair in Nürnberg when I received an...

Catan Makes the Jump to Lightspeed

In early January 2012, I posted a teaser round-up of games that would appear on the Nürnberg 2012 Preview – a Preview that is now live, by the way, so feel free to see what German publishers...

Designer Diary: Crooks

"As far back as I can remember, I've always wanted to be a gangster."I started designing games in mid-2010, though I've been playing them since I was a child - first games like Scotland Yard and...

Nürnberg 2012 Preview Now Live

With Spiel 2011 a few months behind us and all of the games released at that convention consumed, forgotten, declared as broken, house-ruled out of playability, crushed accidentally when your...

New Game Round-up: Traps for Dungeon Twisters, Fluxx Goes Green (Sort Of) & More Kingdom Builder

• Among its other releases in early 2012 – Kairo, Edo, a new version of Wallenstein – German publisher Queen Games is releasing Kingdom Builder: Nomads, which includes four new game boards...

Origins 2011 – Part 2

Note: Since this report comes several months after Origins, I've updated the game information to be as current as possible. As mentioned in Part 1, the dates for Origins are changing in 2012;...

Undercover Work: Prepping for Nürnberg 2012

Apologies for the quietness these past couple of days. Information about games that will be shown at the 2012 Nürnberg Toy Fair has suddenly surged into my in-box and on other points online, so...

Designer Diary: Genegrafter – The Beginning Is the End Is the Beginning...

Let's start from the beginning, which is obviously the end: How do I win the game?It seems easy enough. For me, it's a bit like the way that I write. I know the ending, but I still have to write...

Links: Rules for New Power Plants, Building the Perfect Game & Money Flow in Game Publishing

• German publisher 2F-Spiele has released rules in both English (PDF) and German (PDF) for how to use The New Power Plant Cards, published in 2007, with all of the Power Grid expansions...

AI Game Design: The Shibumi Challenge

1. SummaryThis article describes an upcoming experiment in automated game design, a new game system called the Shibumi set, and a contest called the Shibumi Challenge intended to produce a range...

Designer Diary: Hibernia – Marching the Long Way Around

Currently, I am best known for designing fast-playing (and I like to think relatively meaty) filler games. However I do design larger games, and sometimes my little fillers start out as longer...

Designer Diary: Grill Party – Let's Grill, Everybody!

So we made it! Grill Party will be published by KOSMOS in 2012. How did it all began?Jordi Gené and I started to design games some years ago, founding a creative partnership called Piu Con Jocs....

New Game Round-up: Mage Knight Sells Out, Freeze Again & A First Peek at 7 Wonders: Cities

• WizKids reports that Vlaada Chvátil's Mage Knight has sold out at the publisher level, which means that copies might be available at distributors and stores, but once those supplies run out,...