Board Game News

Videos from Gen Con 2014: The Battle of Five Armies, Battle Merchants, King's Forge, A Duel Betwixt Us & Epic Death!

• We're back for another handful of game demonstrations recorded in the BGG booth at Gen Con 2014, starting with yet another giant game that debuted at the show: The Battle of Five Armies from...

Game Preview: Onitama, or Five Actions, No Waiting

Designer Simpei Sato of conception released the marvelously simple three-player-only Eggs of Ostrich in 2013 (which I previewed on BGG News, and for the 2014 Tokyo Game Market he had another dead...

Designer Diary: Ivor the Engine, or Chuffed to Bits

Not very long ago...Though the books and authors have varied over the years, there has always been a common seam of "old faithfuls" with which to entertain and delight my children at bedtime. I...

Game Preview: Boom: Runaway, or I Was Made for Lovin' Bombs, Baby

I went through a big Dada phase in junior high, absorbing the oddball creations of Tristan Tzara, Schwitters, Duchamp, Grosz and many other artists, finding meaning in the non-meaning as kids in...

Videos from Gen Con 2014: Dead of Winter, Munchkin Panic, Knightmare Chess, Car Wars & Mars Attacks: The Dice Game

• Do people still not know about Dead of Winter: A Crossroads Game, the sellout title from designers Jonathan Gilmour and Isaac Vega and Plaid Hat Games that blew through the Gen Con 2014...

Game Preview: Click & Crack, or Hey, That's Not Hey, That's My Fish!

It's interesting how some games seem to claim ownership of certain concepts. For those versed in modern games, if you see pieces of ice and penguins, Hey, That's My Fish! is probably going to...

Designer Diary: Rolling Out CUBIST

By Steven Poelzing and Alf SeegertSteve: When my non-gamer co-workers discover that I design games — and I've finally been fortunate enough to have one published with my good friend Alf —...

Videos from Gen Con 2014: Doomtown: Reloaded, Wakanda, Cypher, Lost Legacy: The Starship & The Walled City: Londonderry & Borderlands

• For many of the game demonstration videos that I've been posting from Gen Con 2014, the game has still not been released in the general retail market, so despite a few hundred copies finding...

Spiel 2014 Preview Update, Plus — Open Thread!

On Monday, September 8, BGG's Spiel 2014 Preview had 276 game listings on it; today it has 406 listings, i.e. roughly 50% more than it did the week before. I've been busy. (Or lazy, if you...

Videos from Gen Con 2014: The X-Files, Paperback, Eggs and Empires, Lords & Ladies and Mystery Rummy: Escape from Alcatraz

• Continuing with the game demonstrations from Gen Con 2014, we have designer Kevin Wilson showing off The X-Files, coming at some point from IDW Games and Pandasaurus Games. One of the...

Crowdfunding Round-up: Nuts, Monsters, Pigs, and Airships

September! Football is starting up, school is back in session, convention season is shifting from Gen Con to Spiel, fall is in the air, so why not head to Kickstarter and buy some games for...

Videos from Gen Con 2014: Star Wars: Imperial Assault, Tide of Iron: Next Wave, Cross Hares, Gothic Doctor & Collapsible Construction

• Wow, I can't believe I still have lots more game demonstration videos to post from Gen Con 2014, despite me putting up a handful each day for the past several weeks. So many videos!Today's...

Game Preview: Bania, or Returing Anew to the Desert Bazaar

In 2006, Mattel — mostly known for Barbie, Hot Wheels and UNO, which it acquired in 1992 when the company purchased original publisher International Games, Inc. — released a couple of games...

Videos from Gen Con 2014: Heroes Wanted, Sentinel Tactics, Student Bodies, Quintessential: The Fifth Element & EONS: Cosmic Expansions

• I first met designer Travis R. Chance in the press check-in line at Gen Con 2013 when he was excitedly regaling how comic artist Sean Chen was doing work on what would become his debut...

Game Preview: Deus, or Divine Card Play for Mortals Like You

Each year since 2010 when it debuted with Troyes, Belgian publisher Pearl Games has lived up to its name by taking one sandy grain of inspiration and carefully caressing and honing that seed...

Videos from Gen Con 2014: Abyss, Sultaniya, Cyclades: Titans, Madame Ching & Black Fleet

• Asmodee is both distributor and publisher, and at Gen Con 2014 its booth featured tons of new games both for demo and for sale. In many ways Gen Con has transformed into a pre-Spiel...

Vlaada Chvátil Gets Frozen; Czech Games Edition to Distribution Partners: "Let It Go"

• Czech Games Edition has two announcements relating to upcoming releases: one specific to a single release and one that covers everything you'll see from CGE in the future.To start, CGE plans...

Videos from Gen Con 2014: Five Tribes, Shinobi Clans, Sheriff of Nottingham, The Amberden Affair & Doodle Quest

• One of the (seemingly many) titles in short supply at Gen Con 2014 was Days of Wonder's Five Tribes from designer Bruno Cathala. As often happens at a convention like Gen Con, publishers...

Days of Wonder Summons Small Expansions for Small World

Days of Wonder has announced one new expansion for Philippe Keyaerts' Small World strategy game as well as the return of three other Small World expansions.The new expansion is Small World: A...

Videos from Gen Con 2014: Tasty Minstrel – Coin Age, Templar Intrigue, Burgoo, Eminent Domain: Battlecruisers, Gold West, 3-4 Headed Monster & This Town Ain't Big Enough for the 2-4 Of Us

• I mentioned in a previous Gen Con 2014 round-up that Tasty Minstrel Games had presented eleven games in the BGG booth during the convention. Ha, how foolish of me as in fact TMG presented an...

Lamont Brothers Announce Dragonscroll for Spiel 2014

As is their custom, brothers Fraser and Gordon Lamont — who release games under the label Fragor Games — have announced the barest of details about their upcoming design for the Spiel game...

Videos from Gen Con 2014: Tasty Minstrel – AquaSphere, Scoville, Captains of Industry, Bomb Squad & Dungeon Roll: Winter Heroes Pack

• I'm still cranking through the game demonstration videos that we livestreamed during Gen Con 2014, and this batch contains only half of the titles that Tasty Minstrel Games demonstrated...

New Game Round-up: Neuroshima Hex Has a New/Old Home, Catan Establishes Itself in Egypt & DC Comes to Dice Masters

• Polish publisher Portal Games has announced that its contract for Neuroshima Hex! with Z-Man Games has expired. From the announcement: "We had a great co-operation for years, but the contract...

Videos from Gen Con 2014: Roll for the Galaxy, Pressure Cooker, Sellswords, Pixel Tactics 3 & Argent: The Consortium

• I wrote up previews of new titles from [company=3]Rio Grande Games[/company] — Roll for the Galaxy, Pressure Cooker and Temporum — in the immediate aftermath of Gen Con 2014, but I wasn't...

Game Preview: Lookout Games — Patchwork and Murano

More and more European publishers are making a place for themselves at Gen Con in the run-up to the Spiel convention in Essen, Germany, with Germany-based Lookout Games being one of those...

New Game Round-up: Daybreak for More Werewolves, Rockets and Cannons from Cappel & Fields from Rosenberg

• Designer/publisher Ted Alspach of Bézier Games has announced a new title in his Werewolf world of games: One Night Ultimate Werewolf Daybreak.As you can guess from the title, ONUW Daybreak...

Videos from Gen Con 2014: The Battle at Kemble's Cascade, Chimera, Pandemic: Contagion, Level 7 [Invasion] & Warmachine: High Command – Faith & Fortune

• One of the great things about recording game demonstrations at a convention is that in many cases the game's designer will be on hand to talk about the work first-hand, as was the case at Gen...

New Game Round-up: Spiel 2014 – Friese Freshens Fresh Fish, Stockhausen Trades in Orléans & Vaněček Gets Crabby in McJohny's

• In April 2014 I previewed Power Grid deluxe: Europe/North America, a revamped version of Friedemann Friese's Power Grid that is 2F-Spiele's big release for Spiel 2014 in October.Well, one of...

Flashback Convention Report - Spiel 2005

Continuing with our Spiel flashbacks - Rick Thornquist has graciously allowed us to repost his report in its entirety from 2004. Thank you Rick for allowing everyone to share in the history of...

Videos from Gen Con 2014: Samurai Spirit, Spirits of the Rice Paddy, Nautilus Industries, Space Junk & Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Skull & Shackles – Base Set

• One of the many titles to make a short-run debut at Gen Con 2014 was Antoine Bauza's Samurai Spirit from Funforge, with Passport Games Studios providing distribution and booth space.Here...