Board Game News

Crowdfunding Round-up: Second Chances and New Editions

• Let's start this crowdfunding round-up with a complaint about database issues and clarity: French publisher Capsicum Games has already funded Fleet Commander: Genesis nearly twice over, yet a...

Links: Car Wars Revs Up, Toronto Cafés Serve Even More Games & Cards Against Humanity Gives People Time Off Work

• For the last three years, the people behind Cards Against Humanity have run one or more holiday promotions in which they sell...something (or sometimes nothing), then use the money to do all...

New Game Round-up: Castles of Burgundy Gets Carded, Hans im Glück Builds Dynasties, & The GIPF Project Is Rejiggered

• Another day brings more announcements of titles being shown at the toy fairs in Nürnberg and New York, such as confirmation and first pics of The Castles of Burgundy: The Card Game from...

New Game Round-up: Spielworxx Invites Reformation, Bauza Revisits Armada, and Alderac Blames You

• Uli Blennemann from Spielworxx says that the publisher will release "a Reformation/Luther game" from designers Jason Matthews and Christian Leonhard in late 2016. Asked how "heavy" the game...

KOSMOS Expands Catan, Encourages Smugglers, Paints Elephants, Punches Buckets, and Builds in Egypt

• With only two weeks to go until the Spielwarenmesse toy fair opens in Nürnberg, Germany, I've added many more titles to BGG's Nürnberg/New York 2016 Preview, including a vast line-up from...

New Game Round-up: Days of Wonder Flexes Quads, Stronghold Unleashes Bears & Frosted Games Lays Eggs

• After months of teasing and somewhat public demonstrations, Days of Wonder has now officially announced the upcoming release of Quadropolis from first-time designer François Gandon, with the...

Crowdfunding Round-up: A Rising Tide Lifts All Boats

As expected, the tsunami of board game projects launching on Kickstarter after the year's end is officially on its way. The campaigns listed here represent merely the first wave, a vanguard...

ABACUSSPIELE Invites Players to Deliver Chocolate, Haircuts and Robots

• BGG's Nürnberg/New York 2016 Preview already has more than fifty titles on it since debuting at the start of 2016, and while I won't post about all of those titles in this space (or all of...

Asmodee Acquires English-Language Rights to Catan; Mayfair Games to Continue on Its Own

Since Asmodee's acquisitions of Days of Wonder and Fantasy Flight Games in 2014 (covered here and here), many people have joked about what Asmodee will acquire next.Today we have that answer:...

New Game Round-up: Caveman Capers for Kids, Searching Egypt Again, and The Inevitable Return of Those Walkers

• Well, well, well — it appears that all that time spent in the mating hut didn't go to waste as German publisher Hans im Glück has announced that Stone Age Junior, a Marco Teubner design...

Game Overview: Hot Tin Roof, or While The Cat's Away, The Other Cat Is Lonely and Desperate

In October 2015, I posted about a Seth Jaffee article about designing responsibly, that is, about designing a game so that poor choices on the part of a player won't ruin that player's enjoyment...

New Game Round-up: Wallace Polishes Brass, Schlegel Heads West of Africa, and McKinley Ross Gets Blockier

• In December 2015, Eagle-Gryphon Games cut ties with Martin Wallace's Brass. In early January 2016, Gavan Brown of Roxley Games announced that Wallace had signed with Roxley for a new version...

Game Overview: All Queens Chess, or I Can't Believe It's Not Chess

I don't know about you, but I tend to groan when I see "chess" in the name of a new game release. From past talks with chess fans, I know that they rarely want to play anything other than chess...

Game Overview: 10 Down, or Getting Racked Over Tea

Designer Odd Hackwelder seems to have a pattern for how he names games: 8 the Liar, M80, and Monster Deck 55. Okay, not all of his games fit this pattern — e.g., Ninja Bowling and counterfeit...

Game Overview: The Game on Fire, or Playing Cards Faster

When I first heard about Steffen Benndorf's The Game (a.k.a. The Game: Spiel...so lange du kannst!, a.k.a. the game that's easier to find when you search for its subtitle rather than its main...

Spiel 2015 XXVI: Rising 5, Estoril 1942, I Love Portugal, Ice Cream, Ten Cats, and Generalship

• Time for another round-up of game preview videos recorded at Spiel 2015, starting with Rising 5, a Mastermind-style game from Gary Kim and Evan Song that layers special powers onto the co-op...

Spiel 2015 XXV: Fabulous Beasts, Safe Breaker, Heckmeck Extrawurm, Nitro Glyxerol, and Beasty Bar: New Beasts in Town

• When I first learned about Fabulous Beasts from George Buckenham and Alex Fleetwood, I wasn't sure whether it should be added to the BGG database, shunted to VideoGameGeek, included on both...

Spiel 2015 XXIV: Peloponnes Card Game, Fruit Mix, Giraffometer, Splash! and The Producer: 1940-1944

• Bernd Eisenstein's well-regarded Peloponnes board game debuted in 2009, and he's released mini-expansions for the game through his Irongames brand roughly once a year since then. Now...

Spiel 2015 XXIII: Bombyx Game Previews — Histrio and Zany Penguins

• The year 2015 is coming to a close, and I regret to report that I still haven't posted everything that BGG recorded at Spiel 2015 in October. For heaven's sake, Eric, what's your...

Links: BGG's New Look, Ex-CIA Agents Play Homeland, and Cards Against Humanity Against Picasso

• Nicole at The Daily Worker Placement interviewed BGG's Scott Alden in mid-December 2015 about the site's redesign, including lots of images of the new look in the article and mentioning that...

New Game Round-up: CMON to Distribute Krosmaster, Japanime to Serve More Maids, and Queen Games to Revisit Marshlands

• Cool Mini Or Not has picked up the U.S. distribution rights for Krosmaster items from original publisher Ankama Products, starting with the fulfillment of Kickstarter rewards for backers of...

Asmodee Clarifies Its Changes for 2016: Online Sales Will Continue, No Price Floors Will Be Imposed

The North American branch of Asmodee announced major changes to its business model that will take place on January 1 and April 1, 2016 — a change of name to Asmodee North America, a reduction...

Crowdfunding Round-up: The December Drought

The number of board games on Kickstarter grew yet again this year, with 2015 seeing 850 board game projects thus far, compared to 757 for all of 2014. (Data drawn from Matt Wolfe's excellent 2014...

Links: 1980s Video Game Flashback, Shots at Ticket to Ride, and Chess That's Less Ready to Make

• On Boing Boing, John E. Williamson showers love and affection on The Battle at Kemble's Cascade:Quote:Everything in the box is made with a love for classic games and it shows, from the...

Starting in 2016, Asmodee Will Operate as Asmodee North America, Cut Off Distributors, and Limit Online Sales

On Dec. 17, 2015, the North American branch of Asmodee announced several changes in its structure and business model, starting with the formation of the umbrella organization Asmodee North...

Game Previews: Tokyo Game Market • Nov 2015 — Balloon Challenge, TimeBomb II, Nine Tiles, and Violinista!

• Let's look at a quartet of game demo videos that I recorded at Tokyo Game Market in November 2015, with my wife Linda running the camera while I presented the games. (I had heard from...

Game Preview: The Waltzing Cat, or Picking Up Kitties, Then Knocking Them Over Again

Is a game preview still a preview if the game has been released but seen by only a few hundred people? I'm guessing that it does given that I chose to use the word "preview" in the header of this...

Tokyo Game Market • Nov 2015: Walking the Convention Floor

After many weeks, I'm finally posting material that I recorded at the November 22, 2015 Tokyo Game Market, starting with this walkthrough video of some of the 400+ exhibitors at the show. The...

New Game Round-up: Welcome Tyrants of the Underdark, Explore Old Temples, & Revisit Doctor Who

• Wizards of the Coast has announced its next Dungeons & Dragons board game: Tyrants of the Underdark. This title is a collaboration with Gale Force Nine, from the design team of Lords of...

Designer Diary: Xenon Profiteer, or A Dream Distilled

Remember me? That coffee guy. The cautiously ambitious designer diary writer with a new indie game on Kickstarter. The one with the pageboy haircut. The one that uses his initials as his...