Board Game News

Work Your Quirk to Win My Hero Academia CCG

• In July 2019, I set up a BGG game page for My Hero Academia Collectible Card Game from Jasco Games as the company planned to tease this release at Gen Con 2019.BGG then recorded an overview...

Developer Diary: Unforgiven

Unforgiven by Tom Butler and Green Feet Games was delivered to Kickstarter backers in February and March 2021 and hit retail outlets on March 12, 2021. Tom had asked me to come on board as a...

Asmodee USA to Distribute Games from ThunderGryph, Fantasia, and Tabletop Tycoon

In 2020, the BGG team spent half its time at GAMA Expo dousing ourselves with hand sanitizer and wondering why we were there. In 2021, we've looped back around to the starting point of the...

Build a Star Realms Faction and Fight in Richard Garfield's Arena with Wise Wizard Games

U.S. publisher White Wizard Games has announced a quartet of new games — two based on previous releases, two brand new — for release at some point down the road, as well as a re-branding of...

Links: Solving Pandemic Puzzles, Dissecting Games, and Leaving Your Body Behind

• You might not have known, but January 29 is National Puzzle Day in the U.S., and to celebrate the occasion Z-Man Games published its first "Pandemic Puzzle" — "Operation: Archival Expert"...

Welcome X-Men to Marvel United, Solo Play to Keyper, and Miserable Family Members to Gloomier

• Richard Breese of R&D Games first started talking about Keyper at Sea — an expansion for 2017's Keyper — in January 2019, and he first revealed graphics for the item in February 2020,...

Celebrate the Year of Moloch, Lead Your Colony to Survival in the Cold, and Fight Mutants on Your Journey Home

On September 5, 2020, Portal Games announced and opened pre-orders for Neuroshima Hex! 3.0: The Year of Moloch, a fancy, new limited edition of its best-selling Neuroshima Hex! from designer...

Asmodee Group Acquires Plan B Games

In mid-2016, the Asmodee Group acquired F2Z Entertainment from owner Sophie Gravel, picking up publishing studios Z-Man Games, Filosofia Éditions, and Plaid Hat Games in the deal. (Plaid Hat...

Build Empires Through Space in Stellaris, and Build a Monster in Water in Block Ness

All too often, game announcements these days send me Googling to figure out the history of what I'm going to write about since I know almost nothing about video games, and that's the case once...

Design Diary: War Chest: Siege, or Buildy-Buildy, Smashy-Smashy

Hi, all! After much delay, War Chest: Siege, the second expansion for War Chest, is being released on March 19, 2021. Like War Chest: Nobility, it adds an entirely new element, plus four...

Getting Fancy with Robinson Crusoe, and Bringing Flamethrowers to Normandie

Crowdfunding is a regular part of business for many game publishers these days, but given the number of projects hitting Kickstarter, I'm not surprised to see publishers taking new approaches...

Race Through Whirlpools in Greece, and Escape the Chains of Sleep

Greece Lightning feels like it's attempting to win a "dad joke" competition, while also describing the action in this 2-4 player racing game from Kathleen Mercury and Mark Sellmeyer that WizKids...

WizKids Invites Us to Combo Cursed Items, Build Sci-Fi Arks, and Guide Penguins Around the City

• In my previous post I mentioned Blitzkrieg! was one of my favorite filler games, but another great filler game that has always been a crowd-pleaser at my game nights is Bruce Glassco's...

Spin Shells Your Way, Take Your Chances with Rats, and Fight for Room in a Small World by Yourself

• Moonshell is a 1-4 player strategy puzzle game from designer Calli Wright and first-time publisher Unfiltered Games, which is crowdfunding this title (KS link) through March 21, 2021.Here's...

Give Others a Gift of Tulips, and Play a Crystal-Mining Jonah in So, You've Been Eaten.

• Gift of Tulips is the first design from Sara Perry, with publisher Weird Giraffe Games crowdfunding this design (KS link) ahead of a Q1 2022 release date.The game is for 2-6 players, plays in...

Hachette Boardgames Acquires Sorry We Are French & Scorpion Masqué

In February 2019, I wrote about how Hachette Livre, the largest book publisher in France and the owner of the Hachette Book Group in the U.S., was taking steps to purchase French game publisher...

Black History Month 2021: A Postscript

In case you missed any of the shoutouts to the designers, artists, publishers, and content creators featured on BGG during Black History Month in February 2021, you can find links to all of the...

Interview: Ted Alspach, Designer of Suburbia and One Night Ultimate Werewolf

Editor's note: This interview was first published on Diagonal Move on January 29, 2021. —WEMTed Alspach, the founder of Bézier Games and the designer of Suburbia, Castles of Mad King Ludwig,...

Get a Relief Column to Peking, Resolve Russian Civil War Crises, and Battle in World War II in Twenty Minutes

Deluxe Edition(not final)• Wargame aficionados, in February 2021 Worthington Publishing launched a Kickstarter campaign (KS link) for a new deluxe edition of John Welch's solitaire gem Keep Up...

Race, Marry, Crawl, Meditate, Fight, and Dominate the Forest

I moved away from regular Kickstarter update posts a while ago, yet when I look at my inbox this week, recently announced Kickstarter projects dominate that space. Let's take a glance at a few of...

In Space, No One Can Hear You Complete Objectives

Game publisher Ravensburger has become well-known for its licensed adaptations of movies, comics, cartoons, and theme park attractions, and following the release of two such titles in the U.S. in...

Faiyum: Crafty Card Combos and Crocodiles in Ancient Egypt

In 2020, Friedemann Friese and his publishing company 2F-Spiele invited us all to relax with his uniquely-themed, "after"-worker placement game Finishing Time — but now it's time for us to get...

Metal Gear Release Plans Less Than Solid, and UNO Gets Remixed

• At PAX Unplugged 2018, IDW Games announced Metal Gear Solid: The Board Game from designer Emerson Matsuuchi, teasing the game as "Coming 2019" in a tweet from the show.Yet 2019 has come and...

Revisit Great Western Trail, Then Follow Trails Elsewhere

Plan B Games, which owns the eggertspiele brand, has announced a second edition of Alexander Pfister's Great Western Trail, which debuted in 2016.You can see the changes immediately from the box,...

Designer Diary: Inkling

This is a short designer diary about the development of Inkling, a word card game designed by me and published by Osprey Games in February 2021.To help make sense of a game you are unlikely to...

Asmodee Group Acquires Board Game Arena: An Analysis

Well, here we are again, reading about another acquisition by the Asmodee Group, specifically the acquisition of the digital multiplayer board game platform Board Game Arena (BGA).BGA was founded...

Welcome New Factions to the Woodland, Survive on Mars, Prepare for a Siege, and Return to the West Kingdom

• Patrick Leder, Cole Wehrle, and the creative team at Leder Games have cooked up yet another savory Root delight: Root: The Marauder Expansion, which I'm thrilled to announce is coming to...

Collect Coins — and Trophies — in The Witcher: Old World

Polish game publisher Go On Board has announced a deal with video game developer CD Projekt RED to release a new board game set in the world of The Witcher. Here's what you can look forward to in...

Designer Diary: Waddle, or How I Learned to Love Penguins

Waddle was designed by Raph Koster and Isaac Shalev. Raph's part of the story comes first.Raph's StoryHi! As you read this Waddle is just hitting the market from WizKids. It is my first published...

Throw Planes, Relive Stonewall, and Survive on a Frozen World

• U.S. publisher Z-Man Games has announced a new title from designers Tom Jolly and Luke Laurie, who had previously worked together on 2016's The Manhattan Project: Energy Empire.Cryo is a 2-4...