Board Game News

New Game Round-up: Railways Expansions, New Flicking Armies & Munchkin + Conan

• Eagle Games has announced three new items, with the first two debuting at the Origins Game Fair in late June 2011 and the third item being released in July 2011:-----* Railways of the World:...

Designer Diary: Kingdom of Solomon

Looking for a ThemeDuring the summer of 2008 I was waiting for Revolution! to be released and playing a little Caylus. This game really introduced me to the concept of worker placement. Soon I...

Designer Diary: Charon Inc. – Moving Markets to the Moon

The idea of Charon Inc. came to me just after Hermagor was released in 2006. Hermagor received good feedback, but there were two main concerns:-----1. The theme did not appeal to a significant...

Links: FFG Wants You, Designing Achievements & Connect Four's Co-Designer?

• To follow-up on the news from May 26 that Hasbro is creating a "Center of Excellence for Games" – which entails firing half the workforce in East Longmeadow, Mass. prior to moving the...

Designer Diaries: Coming Down with Startup Fever

In Fall 2010, two incidents – watching a friend design a board game and coming across Mob Ties on Kickstarter – triggered the sudden urge in me to create a board game of my own. In...

Links: Ryan Laukat Does Double-Duty, Knizia on Trek & Hasbro's Center of Excellence for Games

• Dice Hate Me interviews Ryan Laukat about Empires of the Void, the first game from this artist for Dominion, Bridge Troll and other games.• Derek Thompson at Meepletown interviews designer...

Fantasy Flight Games Releases for August 2011

U.S. publisher Fantasy Flight Games has unloaded a huge list of titles bearing an August 2011 release date, i.e. probably debuting at Gen Con. Let's group them by category for easier...

Three Times Three Spiel des Jahres Nominees for 2011

The Spiel des Jahres juries have spoken, issuing the nominees for Spiel des Jahres (SdJ, Germany's game of the year award), Kinderspiel des Jahres (KdJ, children's game of the year) and the...

New Game Round-up: Olympos for Two, Hannibal's Dad & Richard Launius Wants You to Die

• Designer Touko Tahkokallio has posted a rules draft for his Eclipse, due out in 2011. Tahkokallio is also up to designer note #9 in his history of the game design. Links to the earlier notes...

Designer Diary: A Mouth-Watering Idea, or Serving Up a Piece o' Cake

I've always liked the concept of "pie division" in a game, and the only real example of that kind of mechanism that I had ever come across was in Alan Moon and Aaron Weissblum's San Marco and the...

Links: Catan for Android, Kennerspiel Details & a New Wonder for 7 Wonders

• Catan.com reports that The Settlers of Catan app is "almost ready" for Android, with an expected release date of June 2011.• Hans im Glück has posted a six-part video tutorial in German...

Publisher's Diary: Kicked to the Stars, or How Eminent Domain Seized Your Property

For those of you that do not know, Eminent Domain raised $48,378 on Kickstarter, the most ever raised for any game (board or otherwise), and it will likely hold that record for awhile. This is...

Announcing The Walking Dead Twins

If an idea is good enough, expect to see it repeated. Thus on the same day – May 19, 2011 – two publishers announced board games based on The Walking Dead, with Z-Man Games releasing The...

Links: Old News, SdJ Guesses, Catan Card Creator & More

And here's the hazard that comes from compiling a news overview with links to many different things – sometimes the news ages more quickly than you'd expect. (It doesn't help that I'm preparing...

Designer Diary: Eminent Domain

I have been working on and playing Eminent Domain for more than a year. Since the game is finally in production and due out July 2011, I thought people would be interested to read some of what...

New Game Round-up: More D&D Games from Wizards of the Coast, Odd Marketing & More

• In a May 13, 2011 post on the Wizards of the Coast website titled "New Frontiers: D&D and Board Game", Bill Slavicsek writes about a few titles that gamers will likely already know about –...

Designer Diary: PostHumous Z – Song from a One Man Band

A few weeks ago I finally finished – and I do mean finished – PostHumous Z. I packed up the pre-orders and shipped them out myself. There was much rejoicing.For those of you new to this whole...

Links: Kickstarter Game Survey, Making Achievements Work & a Glitzy Puerto Rico?

• On Purple Pawn, Yehuda Berlinger has surveyed successful and failed board game funding projects on Kickstarter and compiled feedback from more than a dozen designers/publishers. Lots to mull...

Designer Diary: Dark Minions – from Zero to 60 in Nothing Flat

My design history extends back to 1974. In that long span of time, I've designed dozens of games — board games, children's games, action games and computer games, some of which were...

Test of Fire: Bull Run 1861 – New Wallace from Mayfair Games

Mayfair Games has announced a new release from designer Martin Wallace – Test of Fire: Bull Run 1861, which is due out July 21, 2011 to commemorate the sesquicentennial of the first land battle...

Designer Diary: Venture Forth

Venture Forth, to be released by Minion Games in late 2011, is my second published game. The publisher, Minion Games, has set up a Kickstarter campaign to help fund its printing, so I thought I...

Links: A Handful of Czech Games, Catan: McDonald's Edition & Scrabble Grrrls

• Tom Rosen at Opinionated Gamers has a loooong preview of four new games coming from Czech Games Edition in 2011 – Dungeon Petz, Last Will, "Galaxy Trucker Expansion #2" and Pictomania –...

Fantasy Flight Games July 2011 Releases & Beyond

So in the category of "things that I thought I had posted about but instead overlooked on the desktop for ten days" we have exhibit A: the July 2011 releases from U.S. publisher Fantasy Flight...

Links: Designers Talk, Gaming World Records & Are Your Gaming Preferences Holding You Back?

• Designer Bruno Faidutti has posted a report of the XVIIth Ludopathic Gathering, an event he organizes annually in Etourvy, France, which looks like the nicest countryside setting you'd ever...

Designer Diary: Race for the Galaxy: The Brink of War

The first two expansions for Race for the Galaxy – The Gathering Storm and Rebel vs Imperium – expanded the game by adding start worlds, new cards, more players, and two new but optional...

New Game Round-up: Evo's New Look, Andrew Parks Goes to Space & More from Asmodee

• The revivified Studio Descartes has a blog (in French) in which someone from Descartes, which is now owned by Asmodee, is detailing the redesign of Philippe Keyaerts' Evo, which will be the...

New Game Round-up: Tanto Cuore in English, Glenn Drover Builds an Empire & More

• An English version of Tanto Cuore – the Japanese deck-building game from Masayuki Kudou in which players aspire to become King of the Maids – will soon be available in U.S. stores via...

Designer Diary: Hornet, from Politics to Pests

Hornet, released in September 2010, is the first published game by us, the Moliis Brothers. Hornet is also the first original game from the Finnish boardgame company Lautapelit.fi, with Z-Man...

Cranio Creations Brings New Edition of Horse Fever to the Finish Line

Italian publisher Cranio Creations has announced a June 2011 release date for the new edition of Horse Fever, with Heidelberger and ElfinWerks distributing the game, which now includes rules in...

Links: Can't Stop the Polling, Origins Prep Work & a New Way to Visit Essen

• Trask at LivingDice.com has posted descriptions of and links to nearly every company or individual that will have a booth at Origins 2011. Time to plan ahead if you're attending!• The...