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W. Eric Martin
United States
Apex
North Carolina
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• U.S. publisher Z-Man Games has announced what it's releasing the first half of 2012 and its release schedule looks as follows, starting with three titles that German publisher Lookout Games released at Spiel in October 2011:
January 2012
-----• Agricola: NL-Deck
-----• Agricola: World Championship Deck - 2011
-----• Feudality
February 2012
-----• Equilibrion
April 2012
-----• Goa – This new edition of Rüdiger Dorn's Goa has been in the works for years, so it's surprising to see that the cover mentions only four new tiles and a play variant. Of course you generally don't want to mess too much with what works, so perhaps small changes are best.
June 2012
-----• Battle Beyond Space – Frank Branham's quick-playing battle game has been in the works even longer than Goa, with the BGG page being created in 2005.
July 2012
-----• Atlantis Rising – This game, in addition to BBS and Equilibrion, were both announced as 2011 releases from Z-Man (with Battle having soft announcements before that as well), and it's good to see these games moving forward under new Z-Man owner, Canadian publisher Filosofia Games. Given this relatively light schedule compared with years past from Z-Man, I think Filosofia is spending more time polishing releases to gleaming perfection, something already evident in the flashy look of the new edition of Shadow Hunters as well as the subtly changed, yet much more appealing cover on Battle Beyond Space. Here's the previous cover:
• Jay Tummelson has confirmed that Rio Grande Games will release the half-dozen new mini-expansions for Carcassonne that Hans im Glück is showing at the Nürnberg toy fair. Which half-dozen expansions, you ask? These:
Hans im Glück has a €3 price tag for each expansion, and you can see the list of expansions on the Nürnberg 2012 Preview here. Once Rio Grande has announced the English names, I (or someone) will create versions on the appropriate pages.
• In other Hans im Glück news, I've received a short description of the publisher's other early 2012 release: Santa Cruz from designer Marcel-André Casasola Merkle. Here it is:
Quote: Santa Cruz is played in two independent rounds in which players build homes, churches and lighthouses on the island while also developing valuable resources. Players will need skill and foresight to colonize the islands and manage both movement and scoring cards. But beware, as sometime in the first round a volcano may erupt and the magma clear away the buildings already constructed.
Bad luck? Well, use your experience from the first round to build better in the second. You won't make the same mistakes a second time, will you? Concentrate on the further colonization of Santa Cruz and score while you can!
• Finally for this update, designer John Yianni is releasing Hive Pocket, with an expected release date in the U.S. of March 2012. (The game will be sold elsewhere, too, but that's the only date Yianni passed along.) This release contains everything in the base game, along with the Mosquito and Ladybug expansions, but in a tinier package. Not sure how tiny – clearly we need an actual mosquito and ladybug for scale...
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Quote:Santa Cruz is played in two independent rounds in which players build homes, churches and lighthouses on the island while also developing valuable resources. Players will need skill and foresight to colonize the islands and manage both movement and scoring cards. But beware, as sometime in the first round a volcano may erupt and the magma clear away the buildings already constructed.
And when I say new, I mean entirely made of footage cut from prior Corman films.
A Z-man update and not a word about Vinhos?! 
