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Just ahead of SPIEL '23, UK publisher Osprey Games has announced a new title in the Undaunted game line from David Thompson and Trevor Benjamin. Here's an overview of the 2024 release Undaunted 2200: CallistoQuote:Jovian Moon Base - Callisto, 22nd Century AD: Tensions have arisen between the conglomerate of Earth's leading corporations that funded the base and the mining collective tasked with operating it. Protests have erupted, strikes been called, and contracts broken. Private security forces have been hired, industrial mining vehicles repurposed for combat, and long-disused military mechs reawoken. The battle for Callisto is about to begin: It's time to choose your side.A press release about the game quotes Trevor Benjamin as follows: "David and I are so excited to finally share this with you all! Callisto brings Undaunted to an entirely new setting, with lots of component and UI improvements such as [REDACTED//REDACTED//REDACTED by Jovian Base Mining Corp], as well as exciting new gameplay elements [REDACTED//REDACTED//REDACTED by Jovian Base Mining Corp]. We have had a blast designing the game and can't wait to hear what you all think!"
Undaunted 2200: Callisto is a standalone big-box game in the Undaunted series that adapts the core gameplay of previous games to a new science-fiction setting. Play across an illustrated map in two-player, four-player, and solo game modes. Navigate the barren lunar landscape, maneuver to seize dominant high-ground positions, and utilize your formidable mechs to gain control of Callisto and its precious resources.
Should you be at SPIEL '23, you can meet the designers at the Osprey Games booth (1-A110) on Friday, October 6 from 14:00 to 14:30.
To submit news, a designer diary, outrageous rumors, or other material, contact us at news@boardgamegeek.com.
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Today 2:00 pm
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Welcome New Editions of Nexus Ops, Kraftwagen, Ponzi Scheme, Dragon's Gold, Mine Out, and More
29
Sep
2023
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Another week, another round-up of new editions of old games being announced by publishers far and wide.
I know some folks view this as a bad thing, presumably because they would prefer effort be spent on original designs, but (A) that's not how a market works and (B) reprints put a title in front of a mostly new audience that might have heard of the game, but never got their hands on it. I mean, sheesh, how many editions of Frankenstein exist? (At least these forty.) Ideally games end up in the right players' hands, and everyone has a great time.
• Renegade Game Studios has already released a number of Hasbro titles in new editions — Acquire, Diplomacy, Robo Rally, Axis & Allies: 1941 — and now Renegade has announced four new Hasbro titles that will be "refreshed" and released in 2024: Nexus Ops, Vegas Showdown, Risk 2210 A.D., and Risk: Godstorm, all of which debuted between 2001 and 2005.
As with its other Hasbro releases, Renegade notes that it's not altering the gameplay of any of these designs: "Renegade plans to implement minor quality-of-life upgrades to provide a modern, high-quality gaming experience for fans, plus a complete visual refresh for Avalon Hill titles Nexus Ops and Vegas Showdown."
• Spanish publisher Samaruc Games plans to debut with two new editions of older designs.
First, Matthias Cramer's Kraftwagen — which debuted in 2015, then was updated to the Kraftwagen: V6 Edition in 2016 — will be re-issued as Kraftwagen: Age of Engineering "with improvements and simplifications that lessen the luck factor".
Second, Samaruc Games will publish a new edition of Dragon's Gold, a Bruno Faidutti design from 2001.
A warning for sensitive eyes: This new edition will feature anthropomorphic animals, as seen in this image of the green knight:
• UK publisher Bright Eye Games plans to bring Jesse Li's Ponzi Scheme back to the market in 2024, with new art, new graphic design, some component changes, and no changes to the rules other than "the exception of Luxury Goods becoming part of the main game rules".
• Muneyuki Yokouchi, who has designed the trick-taking games Cat in the Box and 7 Symbols, and 7 Nations, plans to release a new edition of 2008's Mine Out at the Tokyo Game Market taking place at the end of 2023.
The original edition of this release from Ayatsurare Ningyoukan was available in SPIEL through Japon Brand. Will this version be available outside of Japan? Wait and see...
Fri Sep 29, 2023 1:00 pm
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• In February 2017, I previewed NMBR 9, a delightfully simple game by Peter Wichmann and ABACUSSPIELE, that challenges you to stack number tiles in a meaningful way. You're playing against other people (usually), but the challenge is mostly internal as you're all just doing your thing side by side, trying to score as much as possible and looking at what others did only at game's end.
SPIEL '23 will see the debut of NMBR 9 ++, which includes four sets of numbers 0-9, as well as twenty number cards (0-9 twice), so with this box you can play NMBR 9 with only two players. Alternatively, if you already have NMBR 9, you can now play the game with up to six players at once.
NMBR 9 ++ also includes expansion components that you can use with this box or with the original NMBR 9 game or with both combined. You have six different starting tiles, for example, with each player taking one at random before the game begins, which makes it impossible for players to build in the same patterns as one another.
You can give each player two "gap filler" tiles — one that is a single square and a second that is two squares long. You can use one or both at any point in the game when you're placing a number tile.
You can deal out two of the six "rule breaker" cards, then give each player two cubes in a different color. During the game, if you want to use a "rule breaker" card — e.g., move a tile previously placed, place the current tile upside down, or reserve the tile for placement later — place one of your cubes on the card, then use its power. You can use each card only once.Some of the components
Finally, NMBR 9 ++ includes variant rules that can be used with 1-4 players. In "2 out of 3", you create a deck of thirty cards (0-9 thrice) and put all of the number tiles on the table. Each round, you reveal three cards one by one. Each player can place the first number tile revealed or refuse it; if they refuse it, they must place the next two number tiles; if they place it, they must refuse one of the next two tiles. In the end, everyone will place twenty number tiles, as in the basic game.
In "Level to Level", shuffle all forty cards into a deck, place all number tiles on the table, and lay out new tokens numbered 0-4. For the first two turns, draw a card and placed it under 0; each player must place this number tile in front of them following the usual rules. For the third turn, flip a card into both the 0 slot and 1 slot; the tile showing under 0 can be placed only on the ground level and the tile under 1 can be placed only on the first level. You can refuse to place either or both tiles.
Once a player has two tiles on the first level, next turn flip a card under slots 0, 1, and 2, with the latter number tile being placed only on the second level. Continue play until the deck runs out or you can't flip enough cards to start a turn.
• Among other releases at SPIEL '23, ABACUSSPIELE will have a new edition of Michael Schacht's 2007 Spiel des Jahres-winning Zooloretto featuring art by Michael Menzel.
In case you haven't played, here's a short description: On a turn, you either draw a face-down animal tile and place it in one of the available trucks (each of which can hold three tiles) or you take one of the trucks, exit the round, and add the tiles on it to your zoo. Once everyone has claimed a truck, you start a new round.
Each player has a zoo with a few enclosures, and once you place an animal in an enclosure, only more animals of the same type can be added. If you run out of enclosures, you're penalized for other animals you take. If you place a male and female animal in an enclosure, an infant will magically appear, which can be good since you want to fill enclosures to score. You can also place concession carts next to enclosures to score more points. Money actions allow you to move animals and gain a new enclosure.
• Another new-and-improved version of a game is Town 77, which Oink Games will debut at SPIEL '23.
Gameplay is identical to Town 66 from Christoph Cantzler and Anja Wrede, except that the game includes an additional color and shape, which results in more tiles and a game that now supports up to five players:Quote:The residents of Town 77 — located just down the road from Town 66, mind you — can't stand it when houses with the same shape or color are lined up with each other. Try to build as many houses as you can while keeping in mind which houses in your hand can be built at the end.
In Town 77, each player has a hand of tiles, with each tile showing one of seven house styles in one of seven colors/patterns. (The color/pattern of a tile also shows on its reverse side.) The game has 49 tiles in total, one of each possible combination. Each player starts with a hand of random tiles.
The first player places a tile in the upper-left corner of an imaginary 7x7 square, then on each subsequent turn a player adds a tile to a row or column in this square so long as this tile is adjacent to at least one other tile and the color/house style isn't already present in this row and column. After playing a tile, a player can choose to draw a new tile or not. Once you lower your hand size, you can't increase it again. If you can't play on a turn, you're out of the game, and once everyone is out, whoever has the fewest tiles in hand — or who played latest in the event of a tie — wins.
If you play your final tile, you win, but if you don't draw new tiles, you might find yourself unable to play!
Thu Sep 28, 2023 1:00 pm
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With just over a week to go before the opening of SPIEL '23, I'm still receiving game announcements from publishers and adding titles to BGG's SPIEL '23 Preview. Here's a few of the smaller titles that we've added recently.
• German publisher KENDi launched in April 2023 with three games from designers Steffen Benndorf and Reinhard Staupe, and in October 2023 it will release one title from each of them, although Sixto is actually a co-design by Benndorf and his son Florian.
Gameplay in this 1-6 player roll-and-wrote design feels reminiscent of Benndorf's Qwixx, but even more free-flowing in how you can play:Quote:Your goal in Sixto is to mark off as many numbers as you can...although a lone mark counts against you, so don't mark carelessly.• The other KENDi release is Staupe's 2-4 player card game Ku-Ka-König, which he described to me as follows: "What if you always get what you want? What if everything that you own at the end of the game is exactly what you have chosen, to 100%? This means that there will be no more excuses! If you win or lose, it's completely up to you!"
Each player gets their own player sheet, which features six rows of numbers, each in a different color. The row contains the digits 1-6 in a random order, and each player should have a different sheet from among the twelve designs in the box.
On a turn, the active player rolls the six colored dice, one for each of the colored rows. If they don't like the results, they can re-roll all six dice once. After the final die roll, for each die, each player can choose to mark off the leftmost available number matching the die result, skipping over any intervening numbers. Skipped numbers cannot be marked in the future. Thus, on each turn, each player makes 0-6 marks on their player sheet. The active player then passes the dice left.Sample player sheet from the rules
The final three columns on a player sheet are designated the "target area". If any player marks two spaces in a single row in the target area, that die is removed from the game at the end of that turn. When the third die is removed from play, the game ends.
Each player then scores each row and each column on their player sheet, losing 5 points if only one mark is present, scoring 0 points for zero or two marks, and score 5+ points for 3+ marks. The player with the highest score wins.
Narrator: It is, in fact, not completely up to you. Here's why:Quote:Choose the cards you want in Ku-Ka-König, and ideally they'll end up in your collection — and not be thrown away.• Before KENDi debuted, Staupe was a developer at German publisher NSV, and his last project for the company is debuting at SPIEL '23: Phil Walker-Harding's Silver & Gold Pyramids, the gameplay of which is an evolution from 2019's Silver & Gold:
To play, shuffle the 112 cards, then lay out three cards in 6-8 numbered columns depending on whether you're playing with two, three, or four people. At the same time, everyone declares which column of cards they want to take. If no one else has claimed that column, take the cards and add them to your collection; if two or more player choose the same column, discard the final card of that column, then all tied players simultaneously declare a column number once again. Keep going until all players have taken cards from a column.
Refill the columns to three cards each, then play another round. When a player has collected at least 13 cards at the end of a round, score everyone's collection, with ties being friendly:
—Kings score based on how many you have: (n-1)² points.
—Knights are 1 point each, unless you have the most in which case they're 2 points each.
—Churches give 10 points to whoever has collected the most.
And so on. Some cards bear an X, and these cards are discarded after the first scoring. Players then continue playing rounds until the deck runs out, then players score for their collection once again. Whoever has the highest combined score wins.Quote:In Silver & Gold Pyramids, you want to explore as many pyramids as possible and locate the tomb within each one.• The cover of CGT: Card Game Traders from Damjan Miladinović and Dažbog Games clues you in as to what the game is about: collecting precious trading card games (TCGs):
To start play, each player takes four pyramid cards, then keeps two of them face up in front of themselves. Shuffle the eight exploration cards, each of which shows a different polyomino.
On a turn, reveal the topmost exploration card. Each player then marks off spaces in the shape of this polyomino on one of their pyramid cards. The first space covered on a card must be the entrance square. If you cover gems, torches, or skulls, mark off these spaces on your personal player board; if you cover a potion, erase two covered skulls. If you cover a red X, mark one additional space, either on this pyramid board or your other one; all marked spaces must connect orthogonally.
If you cover the tomb on a pyramid board, set that board aside and take a new board from the four on display or from the deck. When you've completed your second, fourth, or sixth pyramid of the same color — and the deck includes three colors — score the highest color bonus available.
After seven exploration cards have been revealed, the round is over. Shuffle all eight cards, then start a new round. After four rounds, players count their scores, earning 10 points per tomb reached, 5 points per pair of colored gems found, 5 points for each round in which they covered at least one torch, and their color bonuses, after which they lose points based on the number of skulls covered. Whoever has the highest score wins.Quote:CGT is a closed economy card game in which players are collectors of valuable cards from famous trading card games. In each game, players will create the "Meta", which will indicate the values of each card. Players will try to control the Meta to make their collection the most valuable.This overview sounds promising, and I'm curious to discover more about this design at SPIEL '23. Ideally I'll bring several small treasures like this home where I can don medical gloves and examine them closely under a strong light...
There are seven different cards in different quantities. At the beginning of the game, each card is given an ability that is used when the card is played or that will change the card's value. The game includes 24 different abilities, which makes the game unique every time you play it.
On a player's turn, they play a card from their hand, increasing its value, carry out the ability of the card, then buy new cards from the market that are collectively valued the same or lower than the new value of the played card.
Wed Sep 27, 2023 1:00 pm
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• Synapses Games will release a new edition of Hisashi Hayashi's Yokohama in August 2024 following a debut at Gen Con. (Time to start the Gen Con 2024 Preview!)
Gameplay in this release will remain the same as the original 2016 edition from OKAZU Brand other than the inclusion of the eleven tokens in the Achievements & Free Agents promotional item released in 2017.
The graphics, on the other hand, will be completely new, with the game boards being double-layered so that pieces sit in place. A separate kit will be sold with metal coins should you desire such a thing.Mock-up shown at a Gen Con 2023 press event
Synapses Games plans to follow up this release with a new edition of Yokahama: Roll & Write in 2025 and Yokohama Duel in 2026.
• Lucky Duck Games has announced a partnership with Dutch publisher Splotter Spellen for the release of a special edition of Food Chain Magnate and its The Ketchup Mechanism & Other Ideas expansion.
Lucky Duck stresses that nothing about the gameplay will change from Jeroen Doumen and Joris Wiersinga's original design. Instead the publisher is working with Matt Paquette & Co. "to make significant changes to the game's components including the addition of miniatures, a new milestone tracker, and a storage solution as part of the box. This Special Edition is planned as a one-off print run, and there is no retail release coming for this edition."
This edition will be released solely in English via a Gamefound crowdfunding campaign that will launch on November 14, 2023.The originals
Thu Sep 21, 2023 4:00 pm
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It's easy for tiny games to be overlooked at conventions, so here are a few that will be featured at SPIEL '23:
• Rikki Tahta of La Mame Games has announced his newest design: Accuse!, a card game for 2-4 players:Quote:Accuse! is in the tradition of classic murder deductions but shorter and more interactive. Plant traps, hide information, and mislead your opponents while you work out the solution first.• Wizards Cup is a new two-player game from Seiji Kanai and Jelly Jelly Games that from this short description sounds like a scaled-down version of Challengers!:
The game consists of 18 evidence cards: 6 suspects, 6 weapons and 6 locations. Three cards are removed from play, and the rest are dealt out to players. On your turn, you declare a card and place it face down in its location. If anyone suspects you of bluffing, they can challenge...at the risk of revealing one of their own cards.
At any stage, anyone can stop the game to start an accusation. If they are right, they win; if wrong, they are out and the remaining players bid to see who makes the next accusation.Quote:Tonight starts the Wizards' Cup, a magical dueling tournament held once every century. As the king of a country, you will select the six best wizards from your kingdom and decide the order in which they will compete. Yes, your role ends there, and all that remains is to watch your trusted wizards battle it out.Maybe a better comparison would be to one of those robot fighting leagues in which participants bring their creation to the arena, then see who can get their attacks through unexpected defenses.
In Wizards Cup, you want to build the best team you can, anticipating how your opponent might attack, and ideally show off your country's strength in the magical world.
• Italian publisher Horrible Guild has announced that two new Similo titles will be available at SPIEL '23, starting with Similo: Board Games 2023.
The thirty cards of Similo: Board Games 2023 each feature a different game that's debuting at SPIEL '23 — including Horrible's own Quicksand and Sunrise Lane — and this item is free with the purchase of any of the depicted games from the publisher of said game. Horrible hasn't released a list of included games, but a promotional image shows cards of Karak II, Humanity, and Challengers! Beach Cup. I imagine the publishers featured will be promoting this freebie in their booths and on social media since it's a great cross-promotional item.
The other item is Similo: The Lord of the Rings, with the cards featuring characters from the Tolkien trilogy in the standard Similo style used by artist Naïade.
In case you're not familiar with the co-operative deduction game Similo, you can check out my overview from 2019.
• At SPIEL '23, Horrible Guild will also release Evergreen: Pines and Cacti, an expansion for Hjalmar Hach's Evergreen that introduces two expansion modules with plants that relate to light and shadow differently than other plants. Small pines grow into large pines spontaneously if they're in shadow at the end of a season, whereas cacti grow quickly, but die if they're not kept in the light.
Tue Sep 19, 2023 7:00 pm
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Deliver Papers, Fight for Higher Wages, Fill Your Cruise Ship, and Remember the Magnificent
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2023
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• At the start of September 2023, I wrote about the shared booth that Japanese publishers Saashi & Saashi, itten, and Oink Games will have at SPIEL '23, and now the former publisher has revealed that it will debut a new release at that show: Saashi's Newsboys.
Here's an overview:Quote:Newsboys / ニュースボーイ is a flip-and-roll-and-write game for 1-4 players about paperboys in Brooklyn, New York in the 1890s.• In addition to a selection of older titles, Saashi & Saashi will have its earlier 2023 release on hand: Come Sail Away!, a co-design by Saashi and Daryl Chow:
During the game, you mark Xs on your player board with a pen to gradually expand your newspaper delivery area. Each turn, someone flips the top card of the deck to reveal three icons, and each player rolls their three dice; each player then chooses one icon and marks off as many of those spaces on their board as the number of icons visible on the cards and their dice.
Earn icons from blocks of different types such as offices, homes, school, factories, and shops. Earn points in the game (and at game's end) for expanding your delivery area faster than the other players. However, if you don't demand higher wages through strikes, then all your work will earn you less.
Whoever earns the most points wins.Quote:Come Sail Away! is a board game for 1-4 players in which you compete to board passengers upon your luxury liner, bringing them to their favorite cabins and facilities. Players can enjoy a deliciously thoughtful and brightly illustrated game that is simple to learn, yet always challenging.• Another first-timer at SPIEL '23 (at least far as I am aware) is Korean publisher Underdog Games. I don't know how much of its catalog will be on hand, but I do know of two releases, both of which look gorgeous and which I'm looking forward to trying in person.
The aim of Come Sail Away! is to guide passengers into your cruise ship as smoothly as possible, earning points in the process. In addition to earning points for filling each room on the ship, you can earn bonus points for filling certain rooms faster than other players. Further, by guiding passengers with luggage to their cabins, players can advance on the luggage track, allowing you to place additional small cabins, gain additional passengers, and earn bonus points. As the game progresses, it is also important to think ahead and make sure your ship has room for passengers, or else you will have a crowd of disgruntled passengers at hand!
Both games come from designer KIMKUN, who is the head of Underdog Games, and they are described as storytelling-based deduction games with communication limits — but the descriptions are more intriguing than clarifying:
From 2022, we have #inconversible: Dawn erasing you, with one player being the owner of a social network service (SNS) and everyone else being players. Here's the description:Quote:In the quiet dawn, the main character (the owner) who just broke up with his lover is trying to delete an SNS photo album containing memories with him/her.#inconversible: Magnificent Yomi from 2023 seems to feature similar gameplay:
They deleted it by leaving a hashtag, but they couldn't erase the most precious memory.
The other players follow the adjective hashtag left by the owner of the SNS, and flip picture tiles that are the most distant from the feeling the hashtag gives. If the last picture tile after the fifth round is the most precious memory, everyone wins. If you overturn the most precious memory during the round, everyone loses immediately.
Leave only one precious memory.Quote:Yomi, a girl with red hands, has become an old man and traveled to the fantastic world of "Magnificent".#inconversible: Magnificent Yomi is listed in the BGG database as having only a Japanese/Korean edition, whereas #inconversible: Dawn erasing you is an English/Korean edition, but ideally translations will be on hand.
Now Yomi in bringing together local children to show them her album of memories and tell the story of "Magnificent" that she experienced.
But be careful because her album contains a fake memory. If you mention that fake memory (that is, if you flip it over), everyone loses.
As I've written many times, SPIEL is my favorite convention because everyone is gathering for the same purpose: communicating through games, no matter where you're from, and I'm thankful for the effort people make to share their creations.
Sun Sep 17, 2023 4:00 pm
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One of my favorite stops each year at SPIEL is the Clemens Gerhards booth. This German publisher releases a few beautiful games each year that are (mostly) made of wood and (mostly) abstract strategy games.
With that intro out of the way, here are Clemens Gerhards' new titles for 2023:
• Triad is a two-player game by Klaus Nehren that was first released by Italian publisher WBS Games in 2018. The winning condition mirrors that of Kris Burm's YINSH, but with gameplay all its own:Quote:With 3, you are in – and 3 is omnipresent in the game Triad.• Andreas Kuhnekath's two-player game Flügelrad appears to be an original design for this SPIEL season, and like many Clemens Gerhards titles, manipulating the pieces seems like part of the game's appeal:
Each die shows the number values I, II, and III. On each turn, your action consists of three parts: Choose one of your dice, turn it onto a side with a different value, then move it that many spaces.
Your objective is to create triads. A triad consists of a line of three dice with the same number value or of three dice with different values; the line needs to contain at least one die of each color. When you create a triad, you must remove one of your dice in the just-formed triad from the board.Clemens Gerhards edition
The first player to remove three dice from the board wins.Quote:The game board consists of seven hexagonal spaces, each of which has a hole in its center for the impeller wheel. The game is played with marbles; each player has their own color. On your turn, you reposition the impeller wheel, then rotate it as far as you like, thus moving up to six marbles at the same time.From the image above, I would guess that the starting situation for Flügelrad has all of the marbles on the perimeter of the board, with players bringing them toward the center as the game progresses.
The first player to form a contiguous cluster of at least six of their marbles wins — but you can easily move your opponent's marbles as well...
Triad doesn't mention the starting set-up either — and Clemens Gerhards hasn't posted rules for either game — but my supposition is that players roll their dice, then place them in their starting line from low to high. (Note that the starting lines in the image at top are not identical.)
Not sure why I feel compelled to speculate about such things, but I guess it's just a love of abstract strategy games and a desire to put myself in the designer's shoes for a minute.
• The final Clemens Gerhards title will already be familiar to many people: Crokinole, with an official title of "Crokinole to go" as the game measures only 49x49 cm (approx. 19x19 inches). Should you be looking for a smaller-than-normal Crokinole, you now have this option. (What's the smallest Crokinole board you've seen? Could one be made that's only, say, six inches across?)
• Other creators release wooden board games, of course, as with London-based Gorm Shackelford's BORD, which is the first release from his own Turnabout Games. I think this title debuted at UK Games Expo in June 2023 and is currently available only from the publisher's website.
What's the game? Well...Quote:BORD is a two-player game of area control and dice battles between viking armies. BORD is also a viking word that meant "the side of a ship" (as in "starboard") or "a plank of wood" (literally a board, as in "board games").• Another such wooden title is Yama, which designer Khanat Sadomwattana Kickstarted in August 2023.
BORD is played on four hex boards. These hex boards have a grid of half-hexes (shores) and whole-hexes (high ground or low ground), and they are used to set up one or more islands (different set-ups for different games). The eight objectives — grassland, marsh, woodland, and stronghold — are then placed on those islands. Each objective has two sides: light or dark. One player is light, and the other is dark. You control an objective when your side (light or dark) is face up. To take control of an objective, you must have the most armies adjacent to it at the end of a turn, after which you flip it so that your side (light or dark) is face up. You score victory points at the end of each season (summer and winter) for each objective that you control. At the end of the second season (winter), the player who has the most victory points wins.
Each of your armies has an objective shown on it: grassland, marsh, woodland, or stronghold. If your army is adjacent to that objective, you get the bonus shown on that army: dice, action points, or victory points. Dice are used in battle. Action points are used to land, move, and battle. Victory points are used to win the game. You can choose to settle (discard) an army to earn a victory point. (This represents a viking becoming a farmer.) You get a new army at the beginning of your turn, but only if you have fewer than six armies. Thus, settling an army when you have only six will get you a new army next turn, but you might leave an objective unguarded in the meantime...
Battles are won by rolling dice (one die for each army on, or adjacent to, the battleground). You roll additional dice if those armies are on high ground or adjacent to their stronghold. If the attacker gets the highest roll, the defender flees to sea and cannot land again until the next season, but still counts as one of that player's six armies. If the attacker does not get the highest roll, nothing happens, so the risk of attacking is that you might waste your turn. To win the game, you might not need to battle at all, but winning the right battle at the right time might be the difference between winning and losing.Image: MHaag
"Yama" (山) is the Japanese word for "mountain", and in this two-player game you will collectively build a mountain will trying to achieve the victory condition: making a line of four-in-a-row in your color.
On a turn, place a cube into an available space on the game board. The cubes initially sit in a triangular recess in the game board, which means that three sides of it can be seen should you rotate the board — and however you place the cube, at least one face of each color will be visible...sort of. You can place cubes next to one another, so perhaps you will hide the opponent's cube face behind another cube.The same board as above from a different perspective (Image: MHaag)
Once three cubes are next to one another, you can place a cube in the recess they create, climbing to a higher level. As soon as a line of four-in-a-row is created, the game ends...even if you finished a line in the opponent's color. (Suggestion: Don't do that.)
Thu Sep 14, 2023 7:00 am
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Sometimes all you need to know about an expansion is that it will exist. If that statement fits your outlook, then this post is for you.
• At SPIEL '23, Hans im Glück will release Carcassonne: The Wonders of Humanity / Die Wunder der Menschheit, which adds historic wonders to Klaus-Jürgen Wrede's tile-laying game Carcassonne, with each of these marvels having a unique effect on play.
• Similarly, Die Bannkreise is a small expansion for Mists over Carcassonne (and original Carcassonne) that adds cats to your ghost-hunting team, although they don't always pull their weight when you're trying to complete a task.
• At that show Hans im Glück will also have a mini-expansion for Peter Rustemeyer's Kennerspiel des Jahres-winning Paleo: Der weiße Wal, with players being able to take on a hunt for a whale through storms, rough lakes, and other calamities that will have them questioning whether this obsessive behavior might be distracting them from more meaningful events in their life.
• On September 9, 2023, Gale Force Nine will release the third expansion for its 2019 Dune board game, the Jack Reda designed Dune: Ecaz & Moritani, which adds two new houses to the game, along with other elements such as homeworlds and discovery tokens to spice up sections of the game board that otherwise might be bypassed.
• 3000 Scoundrels: Double or Nothing features new transparent job and trait cards that expand Corey Konieczka's 2022 3000 Scoundrels from Unexpected Games to take the number of scoundrels up to six thousand. This expansion also features technology modifications and a solo mode.
• In August 2023, AEG crowdfunded two new expansions for Thunderstone Quest: Raging Seas and Ancient Adversaries, both from designers Mike Elliott and Brett Satkowiak, both containing nearly four hundred new cards, and both due out in July 2024.
• Renegade Game Studios has announced a 2024 release for Robo Rally: Master Builder, a new expansion for Richard Garfield's Robo Rally that features 6x6 game boards compatible with all previous Robo Rally releases and tokens that allow you to customize game boards by adding conveyor belts, gears, pits, and lasers.
• With KeyForge: Winds of Exchange now available on the U.S. market — although still awaiting fulfillment for some backers of non-English editions — publisher Ghost Galaxy has started previewing the seventh set of this Richard Garfield design: KeyForge: Grim Reminders.
This standalone expansion introduces the game's eleventh house, Geistoid, and each Geistoid minion is a fusion of discarded refuse that's animated by psychic energy of Æmber and driven to wreak vengeance on a neglectful universe. Every scrap of detritus cast aside by the living is a potential new minion to swell their ranks.
In game terms, cards will be returning from the discard pile — and more cards than normal will likely end up there thanks to "scrap" effects and "discard" costs.
The previously mentioned problems with international fulfillment were partly caused by Ghost Galaxy's attempt to ship KeyForge: Winds of Exchange in eight languages simultaneously, so the crowdfunding campaign for KeyForge: Grim Reminders will be solely for English-language sets, with the subsequent retail release to include multiple languages.
- Carcassonne
- Thunderstone Quest
- Dune
- Paleo
- Mists over Carcassonne
- 3000 Scoundrels
- Dune: Ecaz & Moritani
- Robo Rally
- KeyForge: Grim Reminders
- 3000 Scoundrels: Double or Nothing Expansion
- Thunderstone Quest: Raging Seas
- Thunderstone Quest: Ancient Adversaries
- Carcassonne: The Wonders of Humanity
- Paleo: Der weiße Wal
- Robo Rally: Master Builder
- Nebel über Carcassonne: Die Bannkreise
- Richard Garfield
- Klaus-Jürgen Wrede
- Mike Elliott
- Jack Reda
- Corey Konieczka
- Brett Satkowiak
- Peter Rustemeyer
- Hans im Glück
- Alderac Entertainment Group
- Gale Force Nine, LLC
- Renegade Game Studios
- Unexpected Games
- Ghost Galaxy
Wed Sep 13, 2023 7:00 am
- [+] Dice rolls
A Renaissance Comes to Amalfi, Household Objects Come to Time's Up!, and Paranoia Comes to Munchkin
11
Sep
2023
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• In November 2023, U.S. publisher R&R Games will release Time's Up! Family Edition, a version of Peter Sarrett's 1999 party game Time's Up! in which you're no longer trying to guess the identity of celebrities and historical figures, but instead common items from everyday life.
A summary of gameplay:Quote:Time's Up! Family Edition is a charades-based party game that's ideally played in teams of two. Before the game begins, each player looks at several cards featuring familiar items like staplers and hairspray and chooses some of them. Each player's cards are shuffled to form a deck, and this deck is used for each of the game's three rounds.• In addition to that title, R&R Games has licensed two games for release in English, the first being Secret Identity, a game from Johan Benvenuto, Alexandre Droit, Kévin Jost, and Bertrand Roux that I covered in a February 2022 round-up of French party games.
In each round, team members take turns trying to get their teammates to guess as many words and phrases on the cards as possible in 30 seconds. In round 1, almost any kind of clue is allowed, and the cluegiver cannot pass on a card. In round 2, no more than one word can be used in each clue (but unlimited sounds and gestures are permitted); the cluegiver can pass on any card they like, and the teammates can give only a single answer. In round 3, the cluegiver can use no words at all and can pass as often as they like; again, teammates are allowed only a single guess.
Give good physical clues in round 1, and they'll pay dividends down the road when you need to keep your mouth shut and gesture like a maniac before time's up!
Here's an overview of this September 2023 release:Quote:ln Secret Identity, you must guess the hidden identity of your opponents while trying to make them guess yours.• That game will be followed in October 2023 by Amalfi: Renaissance, with French publisher Sylex being the originator of this new edition of Takeo Yamada's Amalfi, which debuted in 2020.
At the start of a round, you receive a key card that indicates your identity among the eight characters on the table. Using double-sided "picto" cards, you try to give clues to your character so that others can guess who you are, while simultaneously guessing their character — earning points for each success. Each round, new characters appear on the table, giving you and everyone else a fresh face to guess, but your supply of picto cards is never replenished, so you must be judicious when using them in order not to run out by game's end.
After the fourth round, whoever has scored the most points wins. Will you be able to act both as a skilled informant and a sharp observer?
An overview:Quote:In Amalfi: Renaissance, players take on the role of merchants in the Italian port town of Amalfi during the Renaissance period. The town was a dominant maritime power during the previous century, but its importance has diminished. The merchants of Amalfi are eager to recapture their previous success and revive the abandoned port town, but they have only four ships.• The Munchkin universe will continue to expand, with Steve Jackson Games planning a late 2024 release for Munchkin Paranoia, which crosses the gameplay of Munchkin with the world of the Paranoia RPG from Greg Costikyan, Daniel Seth Gelber, and Eric Goldberg.
In this game, players' ships are used to navigate, but also to store their resources. With their resources, they will be able to:
— Discover charts and thus get better destinations for their actions.
— Acquire paints, books, and historical monuments to earn honor and bonuses.
— Invite renowned historical figures to support their strategy.
— Construct new ships to have more workers and take more actions.
The game ends after four rounds, and the player with the most points wins.
This new edition of Amalfi includes new mechanisms (you can now build lighthouses on the map); new characters including new illustrations with si new asymmetrical decks; and rebalanced artworks, charts, decrees, and titles to offer more choices and more replayability, all in a new box with a double-layered main board and individual player boards.
A teaser:Quote:The Computer Is Your Friend — this was the first thing you heard when you came out of the clone tank. It'll probably be the last thing you hear when you're lasered down like the Commie mutant traitor that you are.
In Munchkin Paranoia, elements of Munchkin take a new form thanks to inspiration from Paranoia: races = mutations; classes = secret societies; level = color clearance; monsters = your fellow citizens of Alpha Complex...mostly; and victory = reach High Programmer status!
Look forward to "Hot Fun, Cold Fun" and "Bouncy Bubble Beverage"...
Mon Sep 11, 2023 7:00 am
- [+] Dice rolls