Board Game News

Links: Bob Ross, Exploding Kittens, and Games about Ancient Medicine

• Let's start this post with advance notice of an event taking place on Thursday, Dec. 10, 2020 at 18:00 UTC: a talk by Daniel Burt from University of Oxford's Faculty of Oriental Studies on...

Designer Diary: Codenames Online

It's Friday evening, time for a game night with friends — or at least that's how it was before COVID-19 hit the world and changed everything.That said, we've still found ways to get together...

Reboxing Port Royal, Wizard, Ginkgopolis, and Sushi

The Klemens Franz original• In 2021, German publisher Pegasus Spiele will release a "big box" version of Alexander Pfister's Port Royal that contains all of the material released for the game...

Head to Tokyo, and Build an Aquarium Filled with Cute Sea Creatures

Tokyo Game Market took place on November 14-15, 2020, but I have a couple of dozen browser tabs open and even more emails that I sent to myself about games featured at that show, so let me run...

Use Your Faction to Clear a Battleground, and Flick Sushi for Goals

December tends to be a slow month for crowdfunding projects, but plenty of them still abound for new games if you want to make gaming plans for 2021. Here's a sampling of what's being funded...

Enter the Age of Lost Omens with Pathfinder Arena

How much did I miss during SPIEL.digital 2020?! I have no idea, but six weeks after that event, I've just discovered that during the fair Italian publisher Giochi Uniti revealed that it will...

All Aboard! Hear New Train Games A Comin' in 2021

• The Transcontinental will be the first release from designer/artist Glen Dresser, who plans to release the title through his Wheelhouse Games company.The Transcontinental features interesting...

Return to Cornwall on the Tinners' Trail, and Send Dice on a Carnival Ride

• In 2021, UK publisher Alley Cat Games plans to release a new edition of Tinners' Trail, the title with which designer Martin Wallace had launched his Treefrog Games line in 2008.Aside from...

Control Edo Artisans, Collect Leaves, and Get the Streetcar Rolling Once Again

• Koota Yamada's IKI: A Game of Edo Artisans, originally released in 2015 by UTSUROI following a Kickstarter campaign, will be re-released in a new English, French, and German edition in...

In 2021, Board&Dice Invites You to Build Temples and Cities, Towers and Cornfields

• Polish publisher Board&Dice has already revealed several titles due out in 2021, along with a Kickstarter project that will be available in 2022, and I thought I'd give a quick run-through of...

Brass: Birmingham Wins the 2020 Gra Roku

Brass: Birmingham from Gavan Brown, Matt Tolman, and Martin Wallace has won the 2020 Gra Roku, Poland's game of the year award.The Gra Roku awards multiple categories of games, and the winner in...

The Zenobia Award: Improving Diversity in Historical Board Game Designs

A little less than a year after I got into the hobby, I stumbled upon Brian Mayer's Freedom: The Underground Railroad from Academy Games, probably as a result of randomly rummaging through "Top...

Links: Mike Pondsmith on His Past Future, and Wingspan for the Holidays

• In its December 2020 issue, Darryn King of The Atlantic profiles designer Mike Pondsmith and "The Role-Playing Game That Predicted the Future", namely Cyberpunk and more specifically...

Tag the Streets, Power the Cities, and Settle the Moon

• In mid-November 2020 I showcased two titles from Brazilian publisher MeepleBR — Brazil: Imperial and Paper Dungeons — and as is often the case, once I started digging for details on those...

Assemble Orbital Modules, Ceremonies, and Lucrative Contracts

While I've been focusing on games released through traditional means the past few weeks, a number of crowdfunding campaigns have come and gone that might be of interest to you once the games hit...

Protect Lakeview from Monsters and Take Control of a Flooded Europe

• U.S. publisher Renegade Game Studios debuted its RPG line in 2018 with Overlight and Kids on Bikes, the latter of which won a 2019 ENnie for "best family game for Renegade and designers...

Designer Diary: Merv: The Heart of the Silk Road

Merv: The Heart of the Silk Road is my next board game, due out on November 26, 2020 from Osprey Games.I began work on this game about three years ago, in the middle of 2017. Initially it was a...

Fight Free Radicals Thanks to the Antioxidants in Coffee Traders

• Sometimes you look at a game and think, "The title has to be what inspired the entire design, right?"That thought came to mind when I ran across Free Radicals, the first game to be published...

Tell Weird Stories, Race in Three Dimensions, and Create Peacock Plumes

• Let's run through a few game-based Kickstarter projects in this post, starting with Reality Shift by Mat Hanson and Academy Games, which leans heavily into a Tron vibe for a 3D racing game in...

Interview: Train Games and War Games with Tom Russell

[Editor's note: This interview was first published on Diagonal Move on October 19, 2020. —WEM]Tom Russell, co-founder of independent publisher Hollandspiele, joins Neil Bunker from Diagonal...

The Spice Definitely Flows in Dune: Imperium

I'm a late bloomer to the Dune-iverse and to all things Arrakeen, but as I've gotten deeper and deeper into it the past few months, I was thrilled to hear about Dire Wolf's upcoming release of...

Wiz-War, Dragonland, and Coconuts Return to the Table

• In October 2020, U.S. publisher Steve Jackson Games announced a new edition of Tom Jolly's classic beer-and-pretzels game Wiz-War, with this title — Wiz-War (9th Edition) for those keeping...

Getting The Crew Back Together, This Time for a Trip on Earth

German publisher KOSMOS has started to tease its early 2021 line-up, with the buzziest title likely to be Die Crew: Mission Tiefsee (Mission Deep Sea), a co-operative trick-taking game that's a...

Game Preview: Star Wars: Unlock!, or "It's a Trap!"

The Unlock! series of escape room games from Cyril Demaegd and Space Cowboys has had huge success since it debuted in February 2017, being beat to market by only a few months by the Exit: The...

Orcs Invade Caverna, and Mr. Jack Returns to New York

• During SPIEL.digital 2020, Lookout Games hosted a Twitch stream (now gone) in which it revealed first details of a new expansion for Uwe Rosenberg's Caverna: The Cave Farmers, an expansion...

Take Charge as a Monarch in Brazil: Imperial, Then Explore Paper Dungeons

• While working on the BGG livestream during SPIEL.digital 2020, I missed many game announcements, and I'm still catching up on them to this day, slowly removing open tabs from my browser as I...

Defeat the Villains, Run the Court, and Become the Dark Knight

Game publishers are launching crowdfunding projects left and right during November 2020, something that seems to happen every year once the convention season comes to a close, so I thought I'd...

Avoid Idle Hands, Play Cards to the Beat, and Flip Hello Kitty

• Trick-taking games are always plentiful at Tokyo Game Market, and at the Nov. 14-15, 2020 event designer Fukutarou of 梟老堂 (Fukuroudou) will present Idle Hands, a.k.a....

Cooperatively Infiltrate Human Corporations, Program Your Marbles, and Explore a Volcanic Temple

I'm not sure whether it's the "cold" weather in LA this week or the "shorter" days from daylight savings and winter approaching, but I can't help but think of the holidays approaching. With that...

Create Awe with Your Fireworks, and Keep Nessie's Identity a Secret

• In 2019, Japanese publisher itten released a teensy version of Nessie's True Identity (ネッシーの正体) from designer Naotaka Shimamoto. Now for the Tokyo Game Market scheduled to take...