Board Game News

Designer Diary: Yggdrasil – The Genesis of a Divine Game

The story begins with a board game night with Cédric Lefebvre and his wife Anne-Cécile, a.k.a. the publisher Ludonaute, sometime between July and October 2008. (I must confess that I have a...

Game Preview: Trajan -or- Stefan Feld Reinvents Mancala

Stefan Feld's Trajan is the first release from new German publisher Ammonit Spiele, but if you didn't see Feld's name on the box, you'd probably recognize his design style once you learned more...

Game Preview: On the Catwalk with Ignacy Trzewiczek and Prêt-à-Porter

I like all the games I've tried from Portal Publishing and I've been thrilled by almost all of Ignacy Trzewiczek's designs, but I was surprised when I first saw his Prêt-à-Porter – released...

GameWorks Wants You to Fight Monsters for Candy

Okay, not really – but if you could somehow merge the two new releases coming from Swiss publisher GameWorks – TSCHAK! and Bonbons, both debuting at Spiel 2011, which takes place October...

Designer Diary: Revolver – or – I mean to kill you in one minute, Colty, or see you hanged in Fort Wallace at Judge Stonehill's convenience. Which will you have? // Game Preview

Greetings to ya. Let me take your coat and hat, pilgrim – then pull up a pew while I have fetch ya some sarsaparilla to chase away the bitin' cold, but mind, I don't take me any sass.Shucks, I...

New Game Round-up: Spiel 2011 Releases – Fish from Fragor, A Bigger Olympos & More

• Ystari Games will release an Olympos Expansion at Spiel 2011, and as Cyril Demaegd describes it, the expansion is along the lines of a Small World expansion as it is by no means essential to...

Spiel 2011 Preview

The Spiel 2011 Preview is now live on BoardGameGeek. As I note in the header of that list, BGG wünderkind Daniel Karp has modified the Geeklist format in order to (1) take advantage of the BGG...

New Game Round-up: Risk Anew, Antike Transformed & Two Titles Escape JKLiMbo

• Risk Legacy is the next evolution in this long-lived combat/area control series of games, with Rob Daviau and Chris Dupuis in charge of the design. (The German version, titled Risiko...

Links: Awards, Awards, Awards & Gloom

• Designer Keith Baker talks about Cthulhu Gloom on DiehardGameFAN.com. For more on the game, check out Baker's designer notes (PDF) posted by publisher Atlas Games, which include "tips and...

New Game Round-up: More Thunderstone in More Environments, Bronze to Cardboard & New Allies for Axes

• Alderac Entertainment Group has announced a new expansion for Thunderstone from designer Mike Elliott. Thunderstone: Heart of Doom features seven new heroes, five new monster groups and...

Designer Diary: Carnival - One Heck of a Ride // Game Preview

If you had asked me five years ago what I'd be doing today, "Designing a game!" is not something I would have said. If you asked me the same question five months ago, I still would have responded...

Designer Diary: The Founding of Singapore // Game Preview

Some people might not like long introductions, so let's start right away. Singapore was founded on three principles:-----1. Merchants received land from the British goverment for free, but they...

Links: More Gen Con 2011 Reports, CPSIA Update & Does a Bear Play in the Woods?

First off, a handful of Gen Con 2011 reports filed since the previous round-up:• io9 posted a pic-heavy summary of the "coolest and craziest stuff" at the con.• Derek Thompson has a Gen Con...

New Game Round-up: 1830 Arriving Later, K2 Gets a New Peak & Second Editions of Peloponnes and Friedrich

• Polish publisher REBEL.pl will have an expansion for K2 at Spiel 2011. Details in a thread on the BGG game page.• Mayfair Games has announced an October 2011 release date for its version of...

Designer Diary: Bringing the Heat to Flash Point: Fire Rescue

 The Case for Cooperative GamingI discovered cooperative board games fairly late, starting with Pandemic. After many years of gaming, here was a revelation: Players don't have to compete to...

Links: Reports on Gen Con 2011, Contract Negotiation & Chocolate Meeples

Let's kick off with lots of reports on Gen Con 2011:• U.S. publisher Fantasy Flight Games posted a separate video covering each of the four days of Gen Con, with highlights of Descent: Journeys...

James J. St. Laurent Passes Away

Designer James J. St. Laurent, whose only published design – Crude: The Oil Game from 1974 – was a highly-desired "grail" game for decades before Stronghold Games announced a new edition...

IGA Multi-Player & Two-Player Finalists Announced for 2011

The finalists for the 2011 International Gamers Awards have been announced in both the multi-player and two-player categories, and those finalists are:Multi-player• 7 Wonders, by Antoine Bauza...

Designer Diary: Fealty – Getting Fast to Be Deep

Fealty is a game of positioning and territory control that packs lots of strategy and forethought into a short playing time. Pieces (such as Knights, Scholars, Generals and Nobles) are placed on...

New Game Round-up: Revised Versions of Descent, Wiz-War & D*ne, Even More Munchkin & Irongames for Spiel

• At Gen Con 2011, Fantasy Flight Games sprang details of three upcoming titles – all of them more new-ish than new – starting with a second edition of Descent: Journeys in the Dark...

Links: Talks with Pegasus and Sit Down!, Monopoly as National Threat & More

• Carlos Abrunhosa has posted two interviews of interest on JogoEu:-----* Christian Stenner from Pegasus Spiele covers what you can expect to see from the publisher through the end of...

Designer Preview: The City

The City is a quick card game for 2-5 players, in which players build tableaus using cards that represent various parts of a city: Skyscrapers (Wolkenkratzer), Stadium, Hospital, Luxury Homes,...

Designer Diary: Phoenicia

Phoenicia is a game of economic growth and advancement for two to five players. Each player guides the development of a village into one of the great Phoenician city-states: Tyre, Sidon, Byblos,...

War of the Ring Returning from Ares Games

Ares Games is a new Italian publisher that will debut in 2011 with a second edition of War of the Ring, the highly acclaimed board game from designers Roberto Di Meglio, Francesco Nepitello and...

Designer Diary: Experience the Nighttime Glow of Election Night

When you see a game described as "two-player, card-driven", you can be fairly sure you've entered wargame territory. There are exceptions, though, such as 1960: The Making of the President, and...

Fantasy Flight Games Announces Star Wars License, Two Games for 2012

U.S. publisher Fantasy Flight Games has announced "a comprehensive licensing partnership with Lucasfilm Ltd. for the worldwide rights to publish card, roleplaying, and miniatures games set in the...

Links: Van Ness at Gen Con 2011, Life-Sized Gaming at MoMA & Game Design as Resource Management

• Magic: The Gathering head designer Mark Rosewater has an interesting column on resource management in game design - that is, the management of resources available to a designer for a...

New Game Round-up: Sherlock's New Look, Another Visit to Middle-earth & More

• Moonster Games has posted images of the "Dragoon" clan from Gosu: Kamakor, due out late August/early September 2011 in Europe and one month afterwards in North America.• Flying Frog...

Designer Diary: Quarriors – Rolling with Inspiration

(This diary is a companion piece to the one from Mike Elliott that ran on BGG News in early July 2011. Enjoy! —WEM)One fateful evening in 2009, Mike Elliott called me:"Dice-building game," he...

Links: Spiel Expands for 2011, China in the Mediterranean & More

• Late news from late June 2011: Martin Wallace's Boże Igrzysko – the Polish version of Wallace's God's Playground from Phalanx Games that can accomodate 3-4 players – won Gra Roku 2011,...