Board Game News

New Game Round-up: Drawing with Sticks, Filling Pastries, and Traveling from Ankh-Morpork to Nanty Narking

• In 2011, Martin Wallace released Discworld: Ankh-Morpork into the world through his Treefrog Games line, with the title then receiving wider exposure on the market through editions from...

New Game Round-up: Atlantis Rises Again, Beowolf Gets Retold, and Reykholt Redoes Loyang

• Z-Man Games released Galen Ciscell's cooperative game Atlantis Rising in 2012, then liked many Z-Man titles of that era, it went out of a print quickly and escalated in price on the secondary...

Designer Diary: The Sands of Time, and the Evolution of the Idea of a Game

I've written at length about the design process that led to The Sands of Time, which releases in late March 2018 from Spielworxx, so what I'd like to talk about here is the history of the idea of...

Episode #6 of The BoardGameGeek Show — Live from the 2018 GAMA Trade Show

Okay, episode #6 of The BoardGameGeek Show is not really live from the 2018 GAMA Trade Show, but we recorded the episode in Reno, Nevada at the conclusion of GTS and we were all alive at the...

New Game Round-up: Tokyo Game Market — Slap Microorganisms, Ride the Subways, and Be Fair to Your Brothers

• As far as I know, the Japanese hobby game market has three main shows each year: two in Tokyo and one in either Osaka or Kobe. In 2018, the Osaka and first Tokyo show are fairly close —...

Asmodee Launches Asmodee Entertainment

The private equity firm Eurazeo, which owns The Asmodee Group, a.k.a. Asmodee, posted its 2017 annual results on March 9, 2018 (PDF), and since we focus on games in this space, let's excerpt...

Game Previews from FIJ 2018 I: 7 Wonders: Armada, Imaginarium, Chawaï, and Attack of the Jelly Monster

• The only thing that's taken more time in development than the 7 Wonders app from Repos Production is the 7 Wonders: Armada expansion, which designer Antoine Bauza demoed at least as far back...

Crowdfunding Round-up: Monumental Earworm Extinction on Merry Wutai Mountain

I missed the usual Sunday slot for a crowdfunding round-up this past weekend while recovering from the 2018 GAMA Trade Show, so let's run through some of those projects now:• The movie Pacific...

New Game Round-up: Trade Goods, Scavenge for Weapons, Line Up Birds, and Assemble Factions of Bone, Flesh and Spirit

• Reiner Stockhausen of dlp games seems to alternate releasing lighter and heavier games, and 2017's Altiplano is being followed in March 2018 by the card game Moorea, which will debut at the...

New Game Round-up: Search for the Cryptid, Build in the West Kingdom, and Observe All the U.S. Imports

• At the 2018 GAMA Trade Show, Osprey Games had a poster for Ruth Veevers and Hal Duncan's Cryptid labeled "GAMA PREVIEW!" — but alas, the poster was the only thing on hand as the prototype...

New Game Round-up: Death Note, Power Rangers, Big City, and World War Hulk

• With the 2018 GAMA Trade Show getting underway in Reno, Nevada, many publishers are announcing new titles or spilling the beans on titles hinted at recently. WizKids, for example, has shared...

New Game Round-up: Monsterpocalypse Returns, Samurai Jack Revisits the Past, and Ultimate Werewolf Legacy Invites Replays

• Privateer Press has announced a Q4 2018 release for Monsterpocalypse Hobby Miniatures Game, an updated version of the Monsterpocalypse collectible miniatures game that it debuted one decade...

New Game Round-up: New Cards in Mage Knight, Ferengi in Star Trek: Galactic Enterprises, and Water Dinos in Dinosaur Island

• WizKids has announced that in September 2018 it will release Mage Knight: Ultimate Edition, a collection that includes the Mage Knight Board Game by Vlaada Chvátil; The Lost Legion, Shades...

Crowdfunding Round-up: Rise, Crime Princess, and Choose a Second Turtle to Flick

• The game name Flicky Spaceships tells you a couple of things immediately about this design from Matt Green, Sam Mercer, and Room 17 Games. This game is set in space, some of the components...

Mergers, Splits, and Distribution Deals: Plan B Games Buys Tric Trac, What's Your Game? Acquires Designers, and North Star Games Restricts Amazon Sales

• On March 6, 2018, in an article titled "Flat Prod est mort, Vive Flat Prod", Monsieur Phal (a.k.a. Philippe Maurin) announced (in his usual stream-of-consciousness style) that Plan B Games...

Snowdonia Rides Again from NSKN Games in 2019; Gain Fame in Mesoamerica in Teotihuacan: City of Gods

I've learned over the years that looking for game news is like pulling on a loose thread. You start tugging just to get that single thread, then several more spring up before you, and suddenly...

Convention Report: SaltCON 2018

It's been three years since I moved to Utah, and I finally had the chance to attend SaltCON, arguably the largest local board game convention. I've attended Gen Con, Origins, and a handful of...

Episode #5 of The BoardGameGeek Show — Coverage from Cannes, Funagain Closes, and More

The latest episode of The BoardGameGeek Show is now live, which is a few hours earlier than normal as we wanted early viewers to still have time to vote for their favorite nominees for the 2017...

New Game Round-up: Save the Universe in Thanos Rising; Get Struck by Curses in Another Lost Expedition

• Should you not be able to wait for the theatrical release of Avengers: Infinity War in late April 2018, USAopoly is offering you the chance to take on Thanos yourself in the cooperative dice...

New Game Round-up: Carson City Large and Small, Zombicide in Space, and Estonian History Replayed

• Dutch publisher Quined Games has announced a couple of new releases and reprints due out in Q2 2018, starting with a new edition of Xavier Georges' Carson City: Big Box, which was first...

New Game Round-up: Java and Attika Return in New Garb from Super Meeple, and Northern Pacific Rides Again

• I traveled to Cannes, France in late February 2018 to broadcast game demonstrations from the Festival International des Jeux, but I spent most of the time in the BGG booth, which gave me...

New Game Round-up: Build Ships, Learn Skills, and Beat People Up with Mechs — Twice

Thanks to all the recent convention travels, I'll be in catch-up mode on all the February 2018 game announcements well into March, at which point I might start to fall behind on that month's...

Crowdfunding Round-up: Donning the Big Chibi Batman, Then Settling on the Throne of Fire Island

• Dice Throne: Season Two from Nate Chatellier, Manny Trembley, and Roxley is one of those items that confounds the BGG database as Dice Throne: Season Two is actually three separate "battle...

Links: Games as Periodicals, Suffragettes on the Table, and Funagain Calls It Quits

• Phil Reed, CEO of Steve Jackson Games, has published that company's annual stakeholder report, and the opening line of this summary paragraph is an interesting take on the game...

Designer Diary: From TV Screen to Submarine, Creating They Come Unseen

This designer diary may be unusual because it will have to cover a period of 41 years (1974-2015). On day one of the diary, I was a Lieutenant in the Royal Navy serving in HMS Grampus, a Porpoise...

New Game Round-up: A Museum for Gen Con, An Expansion for Viticulture, and Three Monkeys for Your Table

• Luma Games is a new French-Canadian game publisher founded by Le Valet d'Coeur, a Québec-based retailer that has existed since 1981, although many gamers might instead know the company...

Welcome Tea Dragons, Nightmares, and Orbiting Junk Thanks to Renegade Game Studios

• Renegade Game Studios had first announced The Tea Dragon Society Card Game in October 2017, and now the publisher has placed a June 2018 release date on this design from Steve Ellis and Tyler...

Spielwarenmesse 2018 Round-up VII: Race to the New Found Land, Woodlands, Drop It, Alles an Bord?!, and Impact: Battle of Elements

Publication of the game demonstration videos that we recorded at Spielwarenmesse 2018 in early February were temporarily interrupted by travel to two other conventions — NY Toy Fair and the...

New Game Round-up: Arrange Tours, Climb the Rockies, Ignore Privacy, and Stare at an Elf

The first three conventions of the year (for me anyway) are over, so now I have a couple of weeks to catch up before heading to Reno, Nevada for the 2018 GAMA Trade Show, where BGG will once...

New Game Round-up: Pit Dinos Against One Another in Duelosaur Island, and Hope Your Sheep Aren't Washed Away in Lowlands

• Pandasaurus Games is working hard to live up to the latter half of its name with the announcement of Duelosaur Island, a two-player game from Ian Moss with development by Dinosaur Island's...