Board Game News

Game Overview: Founders of Teotihuacan, or A Tile-Laying Game

Founders of Teotihuacan from designer Filip Głowacz and publisher Board&Dice bills itself as "a tile-laying game" in the subtitle on the box, and you do indeed lay tiles during play, so that...

Cast Spells, Make Crop Circles, Save Species, and Face Tough Calls with Fractal Juegos

Chilean publisher Fractal Juegos releases a large number of licensed games — Bohnanza, IKI, Marrakech, The Mind, Draftosaurus — but it also releases new editions of older games, such as...

Links: Czech Designers, Thor's Hammer, and Our Family Plays Games on Social Media

• Mik and Starla Fitch of Our Family Plays Games were featured in the documentary film The First Twenty: Social from Dehanza Rogers, a film on activism and Black cultural identity that debuted...

Stellarion Joins the Oniverse — Which Has a New Home at inPatience

Designer Shadi Torbey has announced a new entry in his Oniverse series of games: Stellarion, with this 1-2 player game being due out in Q3/Q4 2022.Here's a succinct overview of this design, which...

Designer Diary: Take a Seat

By designers Eloi Pujadas and Ferran RenaliasGreetings, all! Take a Seat has been published in Spain, and the game will be presented internationally at SPIEL '22. We thought it would be a good...

Take Part in the Taíno Resistance in Borikén, and Help Migrants Travel Safely in La Frontera

• Julio E. Nazario's first two published designs — Ctrl and Holi: Festival of Colors — were both somewhat abstract games about moving through space, but his work goes in a new direction in...

Escape from New York along the John Muir Trail on the Way to a Lunar Outpost

• Ravensburger has announced a June 2022 release date for Lunar Outpost, a 2-4 player co-operative game from Mike Mulvihill that was "inspired by the PBS science series NOVA and developed with...

Designer Diary: Garden Nation

By Nathalie and Rémi SaunierRémi: The story of Garden Nation begins in 2013 when watching a video about mathematics and "super noughts and crosses".What is this? It consists of nine little...

Groo Returns Inkognito with a Bag of Chips, and Pokémon Infiltrates Point Salad

• May 4, 2022 was the 100th anniversary of the birth of designer Alex Randolph, and to mark the occasion publisher Ares Games announced that it will release a new edition of Inkognito,...

Lockdown in China: The Consequences

[Editor's note: Mario Sacchi, CEO and lead developer of Placentia Games and Post Scriptum, regularly blogs about game development and production on the Post Scriptum Games blog on BGG. This...

Repair Pottery, Collect Butterflies, Escape Dreams, and Explore Fliptown

Today, I'll highlight a handful of smaller game projects being crowdfunded that might be overshadowed by larger campaigns that create their own gravity:• Designer Steven Aramini has started his...

Links: The 2022 Deutscher Spielepreis, Spiel des Jahres Support, and Sid Sackson in "Fields of Play"

• Voting for the 2022 Deutscher Spielepreis is now open. Click on that link to submit your top five games of the past twelve months, then confirm your vote by clicking on the link sent to you....

Publisher Diary: Ettana, or Details on a Debut

After starting with the classic Settlers of Catan, our passion for board games has continued to grow and eventually brought us to starting Mad4Fun Games and releasing our very own board game —...

Relive the Dark Ages, Explore Medieval Baghdad, Control Medieval Tuscany, and Train Your Samurai

• In late April 2022, UK publisher PHALANX announced Bretwalda, a game of strategy, diplomacy and conquest for 1-4 players set in early medieval England, from designer Leo Soloviey, who is also...

Ding! Ding! Get on Board the Cable Car for Ticket to Ride: San Francisco

Publisher Days of Wonder has announced the fourth title in its Ticket to Ride "city" series from designer Alan R. Moon. After transforming transportation in New York, London, and Amsterdam,...

Build a Viking Clan in Lofoten, and Run an Elven Workshop in Woodcraft

I recently published BGG's Origins Game Fair 2022 Preview, which will keep growing with U.S. game releases until the show opens on June 8, but European publishers already have their eyes on SPIEL...

Upsizing Kingdom Builder and The Castles of Burgundy

Ahead of a game's appearance on retail shelves, it might debut at a convention...and ahead of that debut, it might be crowdfunded...and ahead of that, the crowdfunding campaign will likely be...

Impress Catherine the Great Through Fancy Card Play

German publisher dlp games has released a new title from designer Johannes Schmidauer-König, who created the great card game Team Play.The game is Katharina: Die Städte der Zarin, and U.S....

Designer Diary: Cryptid: Urban Legends, or An Asymmetric Hidden Movement Game That's Neither

Cryptid: Urban Legends is a hidden movement game in which the movement isn't hidden. It's also an asymmetric game in which you do the same stuff. It sounds like a joke — and it is — but it...

Pies Are Made for Slicing: Cutting Berried Treasure Down to Size

In mid-April 2022, I wrote about Sid Sackson's Berried Treasure from Restoration Games, stating among other things that the box is comically large for the components included.I understand all the...

Origins Game Fair 2022 Preview Is Live; Masks No Longer Required at the Show

With conventions scheduled to take place somewhat as normal in 2022, I've started assembling convention previews once again, with the Origins Game Fair 2022 Preview now live on BGG.The preview...

Links: Sales in the City of Games, Cheating for Charizard, and Neolithic History Explored

• In mid-April 2022, designer Frank West of The City of Games published a five-year summary of revenue received by the company (£5,648,209.36 before costs), number of games and other products...

Command German Aerial Squadrons, Lead A Convoy Across the Atlantic, and Fight for Richmond

• In April 2022, Dan Verssen Games (DVG) launched a Kickstarter campaign (KS link) for Stuka Leader, a new solitaire, Leader game from designer Chuck Seegert, which plays in 45-120 minutes, and...

Designer Diary: Legends of Hellas, or A Legendary Quest

Legends of Hellas, newly released by Quined Games as of April 2022, is a reimplementation of Escape Now!, so let me start with the birth of that game.In 2017, I was already designing tabletop...

Draw Scribbly Gums, Eat Green Snakes, and Collect Australian Birds Courtesy of Joey Games

Designer Phil Walker-Harding and artist Meredith Walker-Harding have started their own publishing company: Joey Games. The name emphasizes the focus of the company to release "board games about...

Ride Through Poland, Roll Through Twilight Imperium, and Protect Yourself from Stranger Things

• In 2019, Days of Wonder released Wsiąść do Pociągu: Polska, a Ticket to Ride expansion map from Alan R. Moon for the Polish market.At the time, I had asked Days of Wonder about the...

Continue Misbehavin' in Firefly, and Prove Your Worth in Pirates of Skydock

• To celebrate the 20th anniversary of the debut of the Firefly television series, U.S. publisher Gale Force Nine is releasing a new game set in that universe — sorry, 'Verse — courtesy of...

Designer Diary: Oranienburger Kanal

The First IdeasOranienburger Kanal is surely one of my "heaviest" games to appear in 2022, but originally it was not supposed to be like that at all.I can still remember how I went to my favorite...

Game Overview: Full Throttle!, or Gambling in Candy Land

In general, I've been having a blast with Friedemann Friese's Full Throttle!, which he released through his own 2F-Spiele brand in October 2021 and which Rio Grande Games released in January...

Links: Game Donations from The Spiel Foundation, and Advice for Aspiring Publishers

• In March 2022, Eric Hanuise of Flatlined Games released his book Board Game Publisher, which is subtitled "Better than a real job", which may or may not be sarcastic. Perhaps both.Here's the...