Board Game News

Mayfair's Automobile Makes It Off the Factory Floor

Mayfair Games has announced that its version of Martin Wallace's Automobile – first released by Wallace's own Warfrog Games through its Treefrog imprint – has finally arrived in house and...

Chickens, Princesses and Ass Bombs – Zoch's Line-Up for Q1/Q2 2011

German publisher Zoch Verlag has released basic info on its line-up for the first half of 2011. Here's the rundown on what you'll see:• Arschbombe from the design team of Bernhard Lach and Uwe...

Teuber Brings Catan to Cards Once Again

In 2010, designer Klaus Teuber overhauled the two-player Catan card game with the release of The Rivals for Catan – released in Germany as Die Fürsten von Catan – and in 2011 Teuber and...

Gen Con 2022 Preview Is Now Live

I realize that Origins Game Fair 2022 is opening this week, but not everyone is going to Origins — heck, statistically speaking almost no one is going to Origins given that attendance in 2021...

Game Overview: Top Ten, or Playing to the Crowd

At the Spielwarenmesse 2020 trade fair, I got to sample Aurélien Picolet's Top Ten from Cocktail Games and called the game "my pick of the show".For more detail, here's all that I wrote about...

Prepare to Plunder a Dominion, Then Cross Oceans to Ride the Texas & Pacific

• U.S. publisher Rio Grande Games has announced a new Dominion expansion from designer Donald X. Vaccarino, with Dominion: Plunder containing forty new Kingdom cards. Here's the (mostly...

Ravensburger to Release Disney Lorcana TCG in 2023

Ravensburger has had a relationship with Disney for years, with the 2018 release of Disney Villainous proving to be a huge success for the game publisher, which has followed that title with...

Designer Diary: Retrofitting Mad King Ludwig's Castle with Towers, Decrees, and a Fifth Player

I've been noodling around on various Castles of Mad King Ludwig expansions since the original game was sent off to the printer in the middle of 2014. Some of those — moats, swans, and secret...

Game Overview and Re-Boxing: Die Seher von Santiiba, or Seeing Through You

In February 2021, I posted a video overview of Die Seher von Santiiba from Leo Colovini, Teodoro Mitidieri, and Zoch Verlag — but for some reason now unknown to me, I didn't post that video...

Treats Galore with Veggies, Hot Peppers, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

One of my last stops at Gen Con 2022 was at the Trick or Treat Studios booth, a company I had covered just ahead of that show thanks to the debut of Nightmare Productions, its new horror-themed...

Designer Diary: Akropolis, or Crafting the Cake

When I work on a prototype, my entire concentration is often focused on a game mechanism that I want to develop — but with Akropolis, this process happened differently. I was instead thrust...

Candice's Gen Con 2022 Round-Up/Discoveries: Part 3

Just minutes before thousands of eager gamers stormed into the main exhibit hall on opening morning at Gen Con 2022, I had a brief, yet heartwarming encounter with David Thompson, who I was so...

Rise to SPIEL '22 with Joan of Arc: Orléans Draw & Write

• BGG's SPIEL '22 Preview now lists more than 650 titles, with the newest entries being two titles from German publisher dlp games, one of which is Joan of Arc: Orléans Draw & Write, which...

Found Findorff with Friese, Then Fetch Fancy Feathers

• German publisher 2F-Spiele has announced details on its two new games from designer Friedemann Friese, games that will debut at SPIEL '22 in early October, then head to retail outlets, with...

Rules, Death, Happiness, and Schadenfreude: UNO and the Art of Game Design

I want to tell you a story.I want to tell you a story about a board game experience that began to open my eyes to what board games are, what they do, and what they tell us about ourselves and...

Game Overview: What Were You Thinking about Green Team Wins and Herd Mentality?

I love thinking about games at different conceptual levels. In one sense, games boil down to being first, last, or most — that is, being first to a goal, being the last one standing, or holding...

Designer Diary: Revive, or How to Design the "Ideal Game"

Lead your tribe and revive civilization five thousand years after the fall of humankind.That is the premise of Revive, a game I began designing four years ago with Helge Meissner and Anna...

Support Mozart, Even in Death, in Lacrimosa, and Find Balance in Bamboo

• Spanish publisher Devir surprised folks at Gen Con 2022 by debuting at the show The Red Cathedral: Contractors, an expansion to 2020's The Red Cathedral by designers Isra C. and Shei S.. The...

Designer Diary: Évora, or The Birth of an Idea

On October 28, 2018, I was in Évora at my friend Carlos Ramos' boardgame store B de Brincar. There was a small tournament of the board game O Palácio do Marquês of which I am the designer and...

Game Preview: Halls of Hegra, or Solo Struggles from a Snowy Fortress

Halls of Hegra is an immersive solitaire game from Norweigan designer Petter Schanke Olsen, where you command a group of Norwegian defenders against German forces in the early days of World War...

Designer Diary: Woodcraft, or A Diary Glued Together from Two Parts

In January 2021, I received a BGG message from Ross Arnold asking whether Delicious Games accepts game submissions. After we briefly check out the theme and mechanisms of the prototype, we...

Teasers from Gen Con 2022: Ark Nova: Aquarius, and a Stefan Feld Six-Pack

• Just ahead of the opening of Gen Con 2022, U.S. publisher Capstone Games revealed a surprise release for that show — Ark Nova: Zoo Map Pack 1, an expansion for Mathias Wigge's Ark Nova that...

Discover What Happened in Flashback: Zombie Kidz, and Settle Jupiter's Moons in Galileo Project

Hachette Boardgames had a massive Gen Con 2022, moving lots of copies of Akropolis and Turing Machine ahead of their U.S. retail releases on, respectively, August 24, 2022 and November 2022.Like...

AEG Wants You to Build Wormholes, Cities, Green Spaces, Travel Plans, and Waffles

Meeting with publishers at Gen Con 2022 was a mix of new-and-old for me, partly because I attended GAMA Expo 2022, which meant that some of what was being previewed was already familiar to me....

Designer Diary: Sabika

Hello, everyone, I'm Germán P. Millán, designer of Bitoku. My new game, Sabika, will debut in October at SPIEL '22 from Ludonova, and I would like to share with the BoardGameGeek community some...

Reflections on Gen Con 2022

In addition to writing about what I saw at Gen Con 2022, I thought I'd share a few thoughts on the show and industry at large as viewed through the happenings of that event.I realize that I come...

Candice's Gen Con 2022 Round-Up/Discoveries: Part 2

• At Gen Con 2022, I was especially pumped to join Eric for a meeting with Czech Games Edition to hear more about Deal with the Devil, an intriguing, 4-player heavy eurogame with asymmetrical...

Release Business Sharks Once Again, and Make Money from Expeditions and Fake Art

In March 2022, I wrote about a new edition of The Princes of Florence hitting the market courtesy of Korea Boardgames. Turns out that's not the only older game seeing a comeback courtesy of KBG...

Avalon Hill on Display at Gen Con 2022

Just ahead of Gen Con 2022, Avalon Hill surprised the gaming world with the announcement of HeroScape: Age of Annihilation, a new standalone "Master Set" for the beloved HeroScape game line that...

SPIEL '22 Preview: Sea Salt & Paper, and Look at the Stars

To follow up my preview of Splendor Duel, I'll now detail the other Bruno Cathala co-design that captivated me at Gen Con 2022: Sea Salt & Paper, co-designed with Théo Rivière and due out from...