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Explore the Origins of Machu Picchu, Discover a Xenolanguage, and Become Part of Academia

W. Eric Martin
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Alison Collins' game design Wiñay Kawsay won third place in the 2021 Zenobia Awards, and it will come to market in November 2024 courtesy of U.S. publisher WizKids under the title Publish or Perish: Wiñay Kawsay.

Board Game: Publish or Perish: Wiñay Kawsay

Here's an overview of this 2-4 player game:
Quote:
Machu Picchu has captivated the imagination of the world and academia alike. There's been plenty of theories about what its purpose could have been. Was it a lost city? Perhaps a citadel? Or maybe something else entirely? That is for you to decide!

In Publish or Perish: Wiñay Kawsay — roughly pronounced win-nyay cow-say — you will step into the shoes of historical scholars. Uncover artifacts, reexamine evidence, publish your histories, and navigate the impact of your actions on this enigmatic wonder. In the deeply competitive world of publish-or-perish academia, will you succeed in influencing perception of what Machu Picchu really was? Or will your theories be one of many forgotten attempts at unravelling this mystery?

Board Game: Publish or Perish: Wiñay Kawsay

In slightly more detail, over the course of the game you place researchers to pick up evidence cards across the site of Machu Picchu, then commit evidence cards to support different interpretations of Machu Picchu's past to win publications and bonuses, while also trying to mitigate your disturbance of the site by returning artifacts to the land.
• A different type of research awaits in Xenolanguage, a 3-4 player game that debuted in April 2024 from designers Kathryn Hymes and Hakan Seyalioglu and publisher Thorny Games:
Quote:
Xenolanguage is a game about first contact with alien life, messy human relationships, and what happens when they mix together.

Board Game: Xenolanguage

Play centers on the "Platform": a custom channeling board of mysterious origin. Use a planchette-like lens to channel over alien symbols as you receive and interpret messages. Players will progressively discover meanings for the alien symbols on the board, grapple with what they learn, and experience how it changes them.

The base game of Xenolanguage includes a custom channeling board with thirty alien symbols, planchette-like lens, story deck, and digital soundscapes.
RPG Item: Sign: A Game About Being Understood
• Designers Hymes and Seyalioglu run Thorny Games, which specializes in designs about linguistics and communication.

Its previous releases consist of Sign: A Game About Being Understood, which is based on the history of Nicaraguan Sign Language, which was created in the late 1970s by deaf adolescents who had essentially been left without a means to communicate with one another, and Dialect: A Game About Language And How It Dies, which was crowdfunded in 2016 and which won a silver for "best game" in the 2019 ENnies.

Here's an overview of that design:
Quote:
Dialect is a tabletop roleplaying game about an isolated community, their language, and what it means for that language to be lost. It's a GM-less game for 3-5 people that runs in 3-4 hours. The game's core spark comes from gradually build­ing up elements of language among players, who gain fluency in their own dialect over the course of play. Words are built off of the fundamental traits of the community, the pivotal events that have defined their lives, and how they respond to a changing world. Players use the language and explore both their characters and the world by asking what this new language really means to them. A new word is made, the language grows, and the community is tightened.

From gallery of W Eric Martin

From age to age, the Isolation changes, and we see those changes reflected in the language. In the end, you'll define how the language dies and what happens to the Isolation. Players take away both the story they've told together and this new language.
Board Game: Academia: A Game of Administrative Bloat
Prototype
• For another take on scholarly pursuits, we can turn to Academia: A Game of Administrative Bloat, a game for 2-4 players from newcomer Ian Pytlarz that The Dietz Foundation plans to crowdfund in January 2025. Here's what awaits you in this game:
Quote:
Academia is an engine-building, action-management game about running a university that uses a unique action-selection mechanism.

Players are the boards of directors of their universities, choosing the big strategic initiatives from year to year. Each turn represents an academic year in which the player will choose one of four strategic focuses (actions) for their university. When selecting a focus, players choose one of the four offices at their university. Each ready staff member in that office works, triggering its effect. Each focus requires players to exhaust staff, meaning the game is about managing which staff are ready and when, and over the course of play players develop Ph.D. programs, raise endowments, use committees, hire staff, promote individuals, increase the size of the student body, and so on.

Board Game: Academia: A Game of Administrative Bloat
Prototype components

Every four years, students will graduate and affect their university's reputation: star athletes improve athletics reputation, high performers academic reputation, and so on. Players then admit new students, and begin again. After three cohorts of students have graduated, players score prestige from reputation, communications efforts, faculty committees, and size/popularity, then the most prestigious university wins.
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Fri Apr 19, 2024 3:00 pm
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Designer Diary: España 1936

Board Game: España 1936
Thoughts on Design

España 1936, a strategic game simulating the Spanish Civil War from 1936 to 1939, was designed for Devir in a distant 2006, almost eighteen years ago. Trying to write a diary of its design, particularly chronologically, is a bit difficult after so much time. What I can do is reflect on the reason for its dynamics and mechanisms and explore the depth of what the game is attempting to simulate and represent.

The Spanish Civil War was a complex conflict, mainly because of how it developed. It began with a failed coup d'état by the military leadership of the country, planned by General Mola (alias "the Director") and carried out mainly with the help of high-ranking generals, most of who were Africanists with a strong spirit of protecting the homeland from the danger of "its internal enemies": a leftist government and the danger of workers' revolts like the one in Asturias or the separatist one in Catalonia in 1934.

Therefore, it begins with an attempted coup d'état that triumphs in the less populated, conservative, and rural territories of the Peninsula, thanks to a colonial army at the forefront fighting against a Republic that must rely mainly on security forces, left-wing volunteers, and anarchists to defend its legitimacy.

Scale and Granularity

Over a working lunch, Devir's Xavi Garriga had told me that he would like to have a Civil War game in the catalog that was not too complicated, so I set about working on it at a leisurely pace. Initially, the game was meant to represent the coup and the Republican defense. In fact, this was the source of the design, and a deck of cards from that original blueprint still exists. However, test results and the playing time eroded two very important elements: fun and replayability, which naturally went against both my own intentions and that of the publisher. Moreover, testing highlighted one of the first problems of the design: how to simulate the evolution and quality of the troops in a war with each column consisting of hundreds of soldiers, leading to an army corps and multiple war fronts that would have involved thousands of soldiers.

This first design was based on the usual design for any classic wargame: hexagons, CRT, counters with tactical values, movement, combat, etc. But after researching existing games up to that time, we opted to start from scratch, not taking anything for granted, thinking of a novice player looking for gameplay, history, and fun, which led to radical changes in several design concepts.

The research began with the calculation of the units and the approximate volume of soldiers in each phase of the war. The result was more than two hundred counters per side, with values ranging from 1 to 40, something that made the game and the design quite cumbersome.

From gallery of acatalan

At that time, we decided to abstract the values and represent not the men, but the combat capability and the infrastructure of armies that were descendants of colonial campaigns and the First World War, so we structured it around two elements: a maximum capacity of four units and a general, who was necessary for carrying out operations. This realistically represented the operational structure of the maneuver unit and the logistical capacity to attack.

Another issue was the representation of terrain. We started with hexagonal terrain before moving to zones demarcated by provinces and capitals, and eventually we came up with interconnected boxes. This allowed for two things: facilitating the micro-management of movement and concentrating on basic strategy, focusing on the concept of fronts and offensives, strategic zones, and defense. The zones began to make sense. It also solved the problem of geographical features and atmospheric conditions, the idea being that both sides had the same problems and solved them in similar ways.

From gallery of acatalan

Units, Evolution, and Combat

Another problem already mentioned was the volume of the units. If the actual number of men was represented (the first columns and the final units), there was a problem of excessive tokens. In addition, the characteristics of a war that was halfway between colonial wars and the First World War produced static fronts and great battles which (under a doctrine copied from the French) looked for a decisive victory by putting pressure on a singular point at the front. This understanding of battles as attacks on static lines was also subject to an important detail: We were one step away from the Second World War with all its weaponry.

Therefore, the units are an expression of the defense and attack capacity in each zone of the front and its evolution throughout the war, with counters of two sizes and different values according to steps. They were easy to handle, understand, and promote, and they were a good reflection of the fighting and its evolution. Another factor was the quality of the troops, as it was necessary to represent the idea of a war between the first and second World War. This is symbolized by the use of dice to reduce the enemy's combat capability, by eliminating or reducing steps in the units, and by modifying the positive or negative value of the dice.

From gallery of acatalan

To some players, the combats may seem like too much dice-rolling, but they reflect the development of a battle intended to be decisive, with attacks on units to eliminate their combat value and to take their positions in successive offensives, on some occasions with the support of other weapons. This support is manifested both in the generals, who represent more than their commander, and the units that support that attack in the form of supplies and coordination.

By limiting the number of offensives to the "generals" in play for each side, you reflect not only the difficulty of completely eliminating the enemy, but also the results of the battles, which were often not very decisive in terms of position advances, but which wore out the capacity of the men and resources on both sides. This is an important observation concerning combat: the idea of simulating a real battle, giving priority to playability, fun, and excitement, which in many games becomes a mere calculation of possibilities and the roll of a die, which limits both the interaction and the excitement of the game.

The planes and tanks are designed to play the role they had in the war, representing their combat value, which is providing support and modifying combats. They were limited in number, being a resource that was meagerly provided by foreign powers to test their weapons and tactics, especially considering what happened just a few months after the end of the Civil War. The number and value of the units is a representation, and they appear in play by the cards in their real proportion.

Cards

This is not a typical "card-driven" game with a card engine; it is rather a "card-assisted game". The cards help the game but do not condition it, emphasizing two things: the events as such, which were difficult to define and represent, and the support or random quality of their use to try to modify decisive combats.

The events are comparable and equivalent for both sides until 1938, and show a reality in terms of reinforcement units, equipment, and war events that actually happened and are modeled for the game, focusing more on the military rather than the historical or political aspects. It was tempting to include those aspects, but the idea of creating a historical simulation game would have lost its essence and become a mere level of political confrontation, something which is very limited.

Perhaps this modification of the combat seems a bit fanciful, but it is meant to represent "that extra tank unit", or "that assault battalion", or the personal courage of a unit in a combat, besides wanting to give the initiative to the player. Here they can take a decisive risk in a combat that represents the reserve units spent in battle to the detriment of not being able to use the event again, especially at another time that could be helpful. In fact, the contribution the cards make to combat is reflected in the importance of the event they represent, so here I will give you an extra tip: Save the cards for the event phase (at least three) as they can make all the difference in the war. You must know how to measure your resources. You shouldn't win a battle, but then lose the war due to a lack of strategic vision.

From gallery of acatalan

The Dynamics of Actions

The fact that the game dynamic becomes mechanical, as in the order of the actions, has an important meaning in the game, and it reflects the historical reality. The Nationalist units always act first, both in choosing the position of the generals, as well as executing the combat and playing the cards. This is because it was like that during the whole war: the Republican side had to be content with reacting to the movements of the Nationalist side. The Republican offensives, many of them planned with a great effort of men and resources, were carried out only in exceptional moments and by surprise, being almost unable to take advantage of advances after a victory, something that is represented in the order of movements and the concept of control of the boxes and their duality.

The cards — which should be used prudently so that they are decisive and improve the capacity for advance and offensive — represent confrontations such as the battle of Brunete or the Ebro offensive. The Republican player must always think of it as a war of attrition; they have to hold out until they have resources and hope that the international balance changes in their favor, perhaps with a "Historical Supposition" card.

The second edition of España 1936 includes a number of optional cards, which in case of consensus among the players can change the dynamics of the game. The naval expansion also reflects this dynamic, where the nationalists soon took control of the sea, their greater command and strategic capacity prevailing over their initial inferiority. The control of the maritime zones represents the effects of the war and international events in a subtle way, but it can be noticed in the development of the game.

From gallery of acatalan

Learning Curve and Gaming Experience

A novice player will find what they expect: Nationalists and Republicans, tanks and planes, and zones to conquer by rolling dice like in an Amerigame, where cards help to roll more dice and kill more units. In fact, they will get into the game quickly because its rules are short for a wargame, its mechanisms easy, and its dynamics simple. For a novice player it will be enough, but as soon as they have played a couple of games and understand the dynamics that produce the game mechanisms, they may begin to think that things can be done differently.

A casual player looking for a couple of games rolling dice will surely be satisfied enough, but won't find the potential and the improvement curve in the game. A simple calculation of the units received the previous turn by cards, replacements, and a simple strategic approach will allow them to plan their turn with "one intention", not just to eliminate units or defend objective cities. Players who want to improve their game will have the resources to do so and will not be able to take refuge in the excuse of losing because of "luck" in the dice or cards. The balance in units, number of dice, and value of cards is measured and balanced to avoid this.

A couple of experienced players who have already played several games will even be able to consider game starts according to the cards received in the first turn, and developments after the results of the first turn, having real strategic options that could be found in both headquarters. In fact, this was the intention of the design: to create something that could escalate like war with the game experience — although I'll be honest: I didn't expect many people to realize this so quickly. That was something that surprised me. Seasoned players found the design fun, and at the time the game was nominated for three prestigious awards in the world of wargames in its category: the Charles S. Roberts, IGA, and Origin awards.

From gallery of W Eric Martin

The Second Edition

España 1936 was released in 2007 and was well-received. My publisher, Kim Dorca, thought it was so good that after six months he asked me for an English edition, with some "extras". So appeared La Armada (which I had not included in the initial game so as not to overcomplicate it) and a special short scenario, ideal for tournaments, starting in the year 1938. This expansion was later published free of charge for all those who had the game in Spanish. The game sold out in 2008. Then came the economic recession that changed the game publishing sector. From 2009 on, other games appeared, and in 2011, Twilight Struggle, the first simulation game by Ananda Gupta and Jason Matthews, was published in Spain. Some time later, I learned that Jason loved the game, and he told me that his first design idea was to make a game on the Spanish Civil War, but after playing this one he gave up.

Throughout the years, I have worked as a freelancer for game publishers, and since 2012 almost exclusively for Devir. In 2012 I started to adapt GMT wargames for them — we have more than twenty titles — always with the idea of reediting España 1936, but it was impossible due to the continuous work on different projects. In 2007, Devir Iberia had only eight employees; now it has over two hundred workers and collaborators. It is well-renowned in the Spanish and Portuguese publishing sector, with hundreds of games and more than fifty new titles a year. We have been very busy over the years.

In 2019, the idea of re-editing the game arose, but once again, our high workload wouldn't allow us to do it. In 2022, though, we finally launched the project. The idea was that it would be a completely new edition, with a different look made by new illustrators and graphic designers. It would be targeted at a younger audience, without modifying its original design, which works like clockwork. In this edition I have only played the role of author, unlike in the first edition in which I was in charge of everything. David Esbrí was the editor, Joan Guardiet took care of the art, and Meeple Foundry handled the graphic design. It is a bilingual edition with an updated image, while keeping all of its original essence.

From gallery of acatalan

All wars are terrible and should remain in the past, but that does not mean that we have to forget them. It is better to understand them, precisely in order to know how to avoid them. As the great strategist Sun Tzu said in the distant 5th century B.C., "The greatest victory is that which requires no battle" and "Weapons are inauspicious instruments that should only be used when there is no other alternative". To quote the great designer and historian James Dunnigan, wargames are "paper time machines" and allow us to recreate and understand war comfortably in our living room. Let's make the most of it.

We already know how the Civil War ended, with the victory for the rebels which led to fierce repression against any progressive idea for forty years. This game offers the alternative to rewrite history in another way; this is the player’s challenge. I hope you enjoy the game as much as I enjoyed designing it. I hope to have some time in the future to design some more. Thank you.

Antonio Catalán
Barcelona, March 2024
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Fri Apr 19, 2024 7:00 am
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Visit Chicago to Raise the City, Sell Liquor, and Take to the Streets

W. Eric Martin
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• A quadrilogy of games set in the United States' "Second City" are coming out in 2024 and 2025, all taking place in different eras of Chicago's past. The game set closest to the present day is Chicago '68, the debut design from Yoni Goldstein, which The Dietz Foundation plans to crowdfund in the middle of 2024.

Board Game: Chicago '68
Placeholder cover

Chicago '68 is labeled as a 1-4 player game, with publisher Jim Dietz saying it would typically be played as a two-player duel:
Quote:
Chicago '68 pits revolutionary spectacle against civil order at the Democratic National Convention riots of 1968. Players take the role of either the Establishment or the Demonstrators in this fast-paced game of street battles and political maneuvers. Each side plays from two asymmetric decks of action cards. The Establishment positions tactical forces and police platoons to co-ordinate mass arrests while working the convention floor. The Demonstrators, on the other hand, can pivot from direct clashes to radical street theater; their tactics can be reactive and unpredictable, allowing for wild cat-and-mouse chases and mischief-making across the tear-gassed avenues of groovy downtown Chicago.

Board Game: Chicago '68
Prototype components

In more detail, the game is played over five rounds, with two rounds representing a single day (daytime and nighttime). Each side takes turns playing cards from two decks of action cards. The first deck represents the leadership committees. For the Establishment, this is the Mayor's office, and for the Demonstrators, this is the Yippies. These decks are primarily focused on building/activating card splays and manipulating the board state. The Mayor faction can access the policy tableau with the mandate action, which include activating undercover agents, authorizing tear gas, redeploying the National Guard, and more.

Then both sides alternate playing action cards from their rank-and-file decks: The National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam (MOBE) on one side, and the Chicago Police Department on the other. These actions are largely moving and confronting units on the map and claiming strategic positions. The Demonstrators may build and activate their street theater splay, which is a set of location specific one-time "mini-objectives" with unique, combinatorial powers.

Board Game: Chicago '68
Prototype components

At the end of every round, a delegate commits a vote to either side. Demonstrators grow in number, the mayor is allocated funds, and whoever controls a majority of critical city areas is awarded exposure points.

Chicago '68 supports 1-4 players in solo, competitive, co-operative, and team play modes. Game duration is 45 minutes per player, with the typical two player duel lasting 60-90 mins.
Chicago Dry is a 2-4 player game from designer Sérgio Halaban and publisher Buró, which has offices in Brazil, Argentina and Spain, and as you might guess from the title, the game is set during the Prohibition era of U.S. history (1920-1933):
Quote:
For years, Prohibition has poured Americans a tall glass of austerity and condemned the whole country to a life of secret transgressions. In Chicago Dry, players look for a way around Prohibition to bring bottled fun to Chicago's hidden pubs and speakeasies.

Board Game: Chicago Dry

In this game, 2-4 players secretly distribute alcohol across city districts as they face off against rivals and fight for territory, achieving higher scores as they occupy the Chicago central area. The player with the most influence points in both phases of the game wins and becomes the most infamous gangster in town!
• Stepping back in time further we come to the 1-5 player game Rebuilding Chicago, a standalone successor to 2021's Rebuilding Seattle from designer Quinn Brander and publisher WizKids:
Quote:
In Rebuilding Chicago, you're responsible for managing the zoning and expansion of a major neighborhood following the "Great Chicago Fire" of 1871.

Each round, your population grows, then you can either build a new building, expand into a new suburb, activate an event, or build a landmark, after which you earn profit based on your neighborhood's commerce. You'll buy building types from a shared market — looking to find shapes that fit your grid and types that fit your strategy — and construct landmarks on the right tile combinations. Suburb tiles connect to your grid however you like, creating uniquely shaped neighborhoods. Triggering citywide events can change the tide of the game, offering points, money, and expansions for the players ready for it. You can even enact laws to give yourself the advantage!

Board Game: Rebuilding Chicago

You earn points for building types, upgrades, landmarks, events, and remaining cash, and at the end of the game, whoever's neighborhood has earned the most points wins.

Rebuilding Chicago also comes with a solo player deck so that you can compete to build the best version of Chicago even with just one player. Enjoy gameplay against a deck designed to simulate the actions of a second player to discover strategies and configurations you can use to improve Chicago.
• And before we can rebuild Chicago, we need to construct it into a form worth rebuilding, something Matt Wolfe is tackling in Raising Chicago, with players re-enacting efforts during the mid-19th century to elevate buildings so that a sewer system could be installed under the new, higher street level. I covered this upcoming Spielworxx title in January 2024, but I felt I would be remiss not to include it in this post.

Board Game: Raising Chicago
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Become a Dragon in Flame & Fang...or Fight One in The Flames of Fafnir

W. Eric Martin
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From gallery of W Eric Martin
• The Magic: The Gathering card "Form of the Dragon" was an oddball when it debuted in 2003, but the designer's intent was that you, the player, would effectively become a dragon, breathing fire each turn and untouchable in combat unless flying creatures came after you.

Twenty years later, Peter Gousis, Michael D. Kelley, and Escape Velocity Games are trying to do something similar in Flame & Fang, a co-operative game for up to four players in which you grow wings and fight for survival:
Quote:
In a world where dragons were thought to be extinct, somehow a clutch of eggs survived. Now hatched, the siblings must struggle to thrive in a harsh world that doesn't seem to want them there. Worse yet, they have attracted the attention of an evil presence that has begun to stalk them...

Board Game: Flame & Fang

In Flame & Fang, players have to manage the three different aspects of their dragon: the need to fight, the desire for flight, and the thirst for the hunt. Each turn players draw and play cards that let them fly around the board, gather resources, upgrade abilities, battle enemies, and turn new pages to reveal their story.

More generally, players will co-operate to guide a group of dragons through a series of adventures. Players each control their own dragon to navigate the chapters that continue the tale of how the dragons will grow, mature, and overcome obstacles. The game requires deck crafting, hand management, action selection, and co-operative planning to ensure success!
Flame & Fang was crowdfunded in November 2023 and is scheduled to reach backers in Q2 2024.

• Should you care to fight dragons rather than become one, you can check out The Flames of Fafnir, a 1-4 player design from Martino Chiacchiera and Federico Pierlorenzi that Lucky Duck Games plans to crowdfund in English, French, and Polish editions in Q2 2024.

Board Game: The Flames of Fafnir

Here's an overview of the game:
Quote:
Heroes, the mighty and cunning dragon Fafnir — once a mighty nobleman, now transformed into a beast by a cursed treasure — is trying to burn our village to the ground from afar by launching fireballs from his lair in the mountains. You must answer the call and travel with the champion Sigurd through Heathland both to build defenses to protect the village and to collect runes needed to defeat the beast. Fafnir will fall to either Sigurd's sword or one of the heroes' strikes...or will he? While most heroes quest for glory to receive the town's honor, one might seek victory through more nefarious means by joining Fafnir in his destruction of the village!

The fireballs launched from Fafnir's mouth toward the town are represented by marbles that will collide with anything in their path, damaging heroes and destroying defenses. Each round, Fafnir acts by changing his angle of attack, spawning monsters, or building up his fiery breath. Eventually, he will release all his charged fireballs towards the town — and if all the town's walls are destroyed, everyone loses.

Board Game: The Flames of Fafnir

While walking the Hearthland, you'll encounter mythological creatures and monsters; slaying them will aid you in your quest as snow trolls, giant spiders, and selkies guard magical sites where ancient runes can be found. Claim these runes and bring them to bear on Fafnir to kill the dragon. You can gather wood, stone, and gold to construct defenses to protect the town. Barricades, watch towers, and trenches will reduce the carnage, and if your structures intercept the fireballs, you'll be rewarded, so plan your defense well. Praying to Gods and raising defenses will reward you with powerful artifacts that allow you to improve your movement, gain more glory, weaken the dreaded Fafnir, and more.

If an opportunistic hero chooses to join Fafnir, her gets to ride the dragon, turning on the other heroes thanks to rider cards while trying to destroy the town yourself!
Ah, yes, once again you can become a dragon of sorts, shooting fireballs by proxy to inflict suffering on humans.

• Another opportunity to fight dragons will presumably arise in Mage Knight: The Apocalypse Dragon, the first major expansion for Vlaada Chvátil's Mage Knight Board Game from WizKids since 2015, with design courtesy of Phil Pettifer, who was the co-designer of that last major expansion, Shades of Tezla.

Board Game: Mage Knight: The Apocalypse Dragon

Here's an overview of this February 2025 release:
Quote:
In Mage Knight: The Apocalypse Dragon, you'll meet a new playable hero: Coral, who wants revenge on the Apocalypse Cult.You'll also find new enemies to fight, including the four horsemen and the fearsome Apocalypse Dragon. You'll explore new tiles with new locations and challenges. This all comes together in a story-driven campaign mode featuring new scenarios and more.
• And despite the "Dungeons & Dragons" name, many D&D titles feature absolutely zero dragons, such as Dungeons & Dragons: Onslaught – Tendrils of the Lichen Lich Starter Set, another WizKids release, with this Alex Davy, Travis Severance, and Nicholas Yu design being due out in June 2024. An overview:
Quote:
Dungeons & Dragons: Onslaught is a competitive skirmish game in which each player controls an adventuring party from one of the powerful factions of the Forgotten Realms. Parties delve into dungeons, battle rival adventurers, and confront fearsome monsters on a quest for treasure and glory.

Board Game: Dungeons & Dragons: Onslaught – Tendrils of the Lichen Lich Starter Set

Two new factions join Onslaught with the Tendrils of the Lichen Lich Starter Set: the Lord's Alliance and the Emerald Enclave. Battle for control over the city and forests, which is represented by a new tile system that allows each scenario's map to be unique. Over the course of six scenarios, you'll fight each other as well as more and more powerful monsters, leading up to a final confrontation with the horrifying lichen lich...
Dungeons & Dragons: Onslaught – Tendrils of the Lichen Lich Starter Set is playable on its own, or it can be combined with other Dungeons & Dragons: Onslaught starter sets or expansions, such as the Grasp of the Mind Flayer scenario kit due out before the end of April 2024.

Board Game: Dungeons & Dragons: Onslaught – Scenario Kit: Grasp of the Mind Flayer
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Wed Apr 17, 2024 7:00 am
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Build Water Tanks in Resafa, Then Rejoin the League of Six

W. Eric Martin
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• Czech publisher Delicious Games has announced its SPIEL Essen 24 release: Resafa, a 1-4 player game from designer Vladimír Suchý, who co-owns the company with his wife Kateřina.

Board Game: Resafa
Non-final cover

Here's an overview of the game:
Quote:
The game Resafa takes place during the 3rd century AD in the area of today's Middle East. Resafa now lies in ruins in modern-day Syria, but at this time it was a fortified desert outpost that flourished as a stop along important caravan routes.

In the game, players represent merchants who travel on business trips and buy and sell goods in the various cities in the region. Resafa had no local sources of water, so it depended heavily on large cisterns to collect the spring and winter rainwater to make the area habitable. Players build water tanks and canals to distribute that water where it is needed. In the cities, they build workshops to help their businesses grow, which will allow them to collect resources and camels. They also construct gardens between the businesses, generating more resources and also victory points.

Board Game: Resafa
Prototype, with the player boards visible at top and bottom

The game is played over six rounds. In each round, a player takes only three actions, playing action cards in this tight and exciting game.
Delicious Games notes that the setting "was inspired by a visit to the city more than twenty years ago during Vladimír and Katka's first holiday together".

Board Game Publisher: Dino Toys s. r. o.
• In 2023, Czech publisher Dino Toys published an original Suchý design, the 1-2 player game Aldebaran Duel, and for 2024 it will release League of Six: Complete Edition, a new version of Suchý's first design, which Czech Games Edition released in 2007.

Here's the description for League of Six on BGG's game listing, with a note that it was "Taken from BoardgameNews.com" — hey, that's me from seventeen years ago! As with Suchý, I can put my past efforts to work once again:
Quote:
The year is 1430, a time of unrest and upheaval in the whole of Europe. Nearly 100 years have passed since the founding of the League of Six – a group of wealthy Lusatian towns that banded together to defend their commercial interests and preserve stability and order in the region.

You have been sent to this embattled land in the role of tax collector. As a young, ambitious aristocrat, you hope to stand out so that you will be given a position in the court of Sigismund.

The tax collector who brings in the most revenue for the king, while simultaneously gaining the support of the estates, has the best chance of finding himself by the side of King Sigismund.

The game consists of six turns representing six years. Each player takes the role of a tax collector visiting one of the six cities. The goods collected are placed in the royal stores or estate stores, thus giving the players influence in the court of King Sigismund. The player who gains the most influence wins.
Suchý has adjusted the gameplay of League of Six to "make it more player-friendly", and the game now accommodates up to six players instead of maxing out at five. The League of Six: Loyal Retinue expansion is included in this new edition, as well as a new expansion that introduces the option to play with any number of automated opponents, thereby allowing for a two-player game as well. As you might expect, Dino Toys has updated the game's graphics.

League of Six: Complete Edition will also be available at SPIEL Essen 24.

Board Game: League of Six
Board Game: League of Six: Loyal Retinue
The original releases
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Tue Apr 16, 2024 3:00 pm
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Designer Diary: Maps of Misterra, or Only Believe What You Map

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Board Game: Maps of Misterra
This designer diary was co-written by the three authors — Mathieu Bossu, Thomas Cariate, and Timothée Decroix — and translated from French by Nathan Morse. Originally published in French on TricTrac.

Only Believe What You See Map...

Writing a designer diary is a singular exercise. It's not that easy to recall how events unfolded and to present simply the questions and decisions that led to the published game. However, we will try to take you on a journey with us through the creative process for our game Maps of Misterra, which was released in January 2024 by Sit Down! and which is also playable on Board Game Arena.

Adjust your backpack, and let's go!

Before Setting Out

The project was born out of a simple desire to create a game together. Mathieu and Thomas were already creating prototypes with their four hands. We met regularly with Timothée on social networks and at the Cannes Festival of Games, particularly during the famous "nights off", that is, evenings when game designers can play their prototypes with the public. We were really in a flow when one of the three of us ended up saying the sentence that started it all: "We should make a game together." This was at Cannes in February 2021.

From gallery of gobarkas
Cannes Festival of Games 2023: After two years of pandemic and entirely remote game development, our heroes — from left, Thomas, Timothée, and Mathieu — finally meet again, where it all began (Image: Clélie)

We needed to find somewhere to start this venture, and as it turns out, all three of us share a fancy for maps. Such fascinating objects, aren't they? Maps are often magnificent, placing an entire world in your field of view. A map promises extraordinary voyages; it's a two-dimensional story box, which looks like it was designed for a board game. True to the theme, it's decided: The game will be about cartography.

Scouting the Land

Cartography, however, is already well represented in board games. Often the map mostly provides support for exploration. In the rarest of games, in which players actually draw a map, they seem to do so with complete freedom, with no need to represent any existing reality. They arguably create a world rather than a map.

And this was the first hurdle we encountered. The first few versions of Maps of Misterra revolved around successive expeditions to discover a new world. In practice, this meant each player moved their expedition on a common board that was gradually constructed from tiles. It was an interesting way to re-transcribe the great scientific and cartographical expeditions of the 17th and 18th centuries — but the result was an exploration game, not a game dedicated to cartography.

All Over the Map

Very quickly, we sought to integrate aspects of cartography into the game mechanisms. One of the fascinating parts of this discipline? Cartographical errors! Whether they arise from the insurmountable imprecision of such an exercise or are motivated by...political interests.

From gallery of gobarkas
William Blaeu's 1635 map pinpoints El Dorado in the Guiana Plateau, near a legendary "Lake Parime", inspired by Gaspar de Carvajal (public domain) — but what is this immense lake in the middle of the Amazon that we find on most 17th century maps? Read its story here (article in French; sources in English)

We try to preserve this aspect of cartography by allowing players to cover tiles to represent the progressive evolution of knowledge of both the terrain and of the existence of cartographical errors. But this isn't enough. The cartographical theme seems merely a pretext in an exploration game. This version is stagnating, and we are not satisfied with the direction we've taken.

Observation is required. To portray mapping, we need two spaces: a territory (the real one) and its depiction (the map). In Maps of Misterra, we will thus have a central board on which the terrain of the island materializes, and a parchment board on which we draw a map of the island.

This new dimension seems original and innovative enough to us to continue experimenting. We're starting from scratch — or nearly so — but with a stronger concept!

The Truth Is Out There

With each player playing a cartographer, each will need their own parchment board on which they sketch their own map of the island during the game. The centerpiece is a common board on which the terrain of the island — or more precisely, our common understanding of it — is revealed as our expeditions explore it.

From gallery of gobarkas
Photograph of the prototype, with the island board in the middle and the parchment boards where each player draws their own map

In practice, on your own map, you do whatever you want. The players have domino cards at their disposal that depict two terrain spaces, which they place however they wish on their parchment board, without necessarily having to respect reality. Not all cartographers are competent, and few are honest. You can even superimpose these sketch cards atop each other to revise a previous decision. Seriously, who can say that they've never confused a lagoon with a jungle?

From gallery of gobarkas
The sketch cards to "draw" your own map on your parchment board, two spaces at a time

When a location has been mapped, we then adjust our common knowledge of the island, showing the newly mapped terrain on the central board.

The parchment board is the player's domain. No one can tell you what to "draw". On the central board, however, it's a different story. There you will have to interact and contend with others.

All three of us have this idea of seeing the cartographer travel around the island to report what's there. We like this idea of depicting ancient scientific expeditions. Each player will therefore have their own pawn that they move each turn, the position of which defines the spaces "within sight" that can be mapped right now.

From there, and from the first playtest, the foundations of the game were laid: This basic concept works and transcribes everything we wanted to say on the theme of cartography...but perhaps this merits a little further explanation.

The Map Is Not the Territory

At the end of a game, everyone's personal maps will be very different and not necessarily representative of the isle of Misterra, even though it's visible to everyone in the middle of the table. This can be surprising or even a little destabilizing.

Yet this is a studied and recognized dimension of cartography. To diagram the geography of a place, a cartographer must make choices about simplification, deciding how best to depict reality. A map is also intended for a particular use: to help with navigation, to prepare for war or a project, to depict a specific scientific or economic dimension, etc. Did we mention that maps are fascinating objects? So, a cartographer will make choices of representation best suited to this desired use. For the same space, there are myriad maps, all different.

The famous saying of the philosopher Alfred Korzybski sums it up: "The map is not the territory." Or to put it another way: Consulting a map gives us only a partial and subjective version of reality. Don't believe everything you are told.

Because in this game, the island has no pre-existing reality, we even further push the concept that cartographers express their own opinion in their maps, and thus influence the public. Because we learn about the location via our map, we are at the mercy of what the cartographers tell us. If a road is drawn here or a border there, we will go here and stop there. Such power!

The central board of Maps of Misterra would be better understood as the current best knowledge of the relief of the island, the result of what the player-cartographers proclaim at this stage. We see a steppe there because several cartographers have reported it so.

What a Relief

We quickly decided to add relief to this basic concept. The cartographers move through a territory composed of different types of terrain. For this isle to have a soul and not simply be a flat array of color swatches, the terrain must have some effects.

Mountain is the first relief that comes to mind...followed by a revelation: "Atop a mountain, one can see further, so one can also map further." Steppes are flat and conducive to movement, a lagoon should let you fish a card from the deck and make the river flow. Jungle — [shudder] — jungle is so dense as to obscure your view and render mapping impossible.

The jungle effect is the only one that is mandatory and negative. This strengthens interaction and forces sacrifices. It is also a way to give a veritable geography to a square of merely 5 spaces by 5 spaces. Moving into a jungle space causes you to lose the crucial mapping action, and thus generally forces you to choose another path — but if you really need to take the shortest path, it is possible to cross it to reach a part of the island not yet explored. You can also weaponize your pen by adding jungles to your map where they will hinder your opponents.

A certain three game designers may be so perverse as to place jungles on the board as soon as the game is set up...

Moving Mountains

In Maps of Misterra, the terrain of the isle is not predefined. The players' actions reveal its relief as the game progresses.

To add a little interaction and indecision, we imagined two states of knowledge about the terrain: the "hazy" phase of terrain tiles revealed with the first observation, and the "confirmed" phase from the second identical observation. But note: If another observation identifies the terrain as something else, we replace the hazy terrain with a hazy version of the new type, and so on.

If one accepts that the central board represents the common knowledge we have of the island, this rule makes it possible to fairly faithfully illustrate the evolution of scientific knowledge in which hypotheses are refuted or confirmed by successive observations.

In play, this provokes an aggressive rush to "observe" the terrain to one's own advantage. This principle also has the advantage of gradually locking down the island board as we approach the end of the game.

From gallery of gobarkas
"Knowledge dispels the haze of ignorance", excited designers...

During evening playtests, we start catching players having fun contradicting each other's findings: "You clearly didn't get enough sleep: It's not a jungle here; it's a mountain!" and so on. We're onto something.

Points of Interest

"But how do I win?" you're probably asking by now.

To offer heartbreaking choices to the players, we came up with two conflicting sources of prestige points — a classic principle of game design.

On your personal parchment board, you must create patterns according to the hypothesis cards you received at the beginning of the game. Thematically, these are the cartographic objectives your sponsors have imposed upon you and expect you to confirm, even if it means diverging from what you see in the land. This is our representation, in the game, of the varied applications for maps that we discussed before, as well as the rivalries between the scientific societies of the great powers who finance expeditions to verify their theories.

From gallery of W Eric Martin
This fascinating book from 2018 recounts the true story of a scientific expedition sent to the equator by France to determine whether, as Newton [rightly] supposed, the earth is bulging at the equator and flattened at the poles, or whether it's flattened at the equator, as Cassini from France then supposed, based on the cosmological theories of Descartes.

These hypotheses need to be respected only on your own parchment board. There is no need to complete them on the main board, and players often mistakenly think this is the case in their first game. The graphic design tries to remind you of this by using a parchment background for the hypothesis cards, and the terrain being depicted as it is on the sketch cards — but we are so accustomed to thinking of maps as faithful representations that a second play is sometimes necessary to get this acceptable disconnect clearly in mind.

From gallery of gobarkas
The hypothesis cards, or the suppositions made by the sponsors of your expedition before your departure

On the other hand, you must also ensure that your map is not too far from the common understanding of the island's terrain because your reputation as a cartographer is at stake! Thus, you also gain prestige points for the fidelity of your map to the known relief of the island at the end of the game.

It's up to you to pursue your personal objectives without straying too far from the reality of the terrain. For those who want still more recognition for their cartographic efforts, we have included an expert mode that further rewards fidelity of the map to the territory.

Mine!

Each turn, players map and trace and walk the tightrope, choosing their balance between these two sources of point...yet we felt that we were lacking an option for turns that get away from this main action to spice up the adventure a bit and to offer some excitement.

After trial and error, we added a new alternative action and a new source of points: claims. Thematically, planting your expedition's flag atop a previously unsurveyed mountain is amazing! This adds a dose of interaction and requires you to monitor your opponent's movements on the central board a little more closely. It also offers a strategic axis that's complementary to the two main sources of points.

Some people may also note the colonial dimension of grand scientific expeditions and the strongly political aspect of territorial control implied by cartography.

Almost There...

However, there are a few loose ends to tie up.

Sometimes in a first game, players will contradict one another over and over again in the same part of the island. When this happens, the game state doesn't move toward resolution, so we need to encourage game progression and limit the maximum duration.

Rather than encouraging advancing (we three designers are a little twisted), we would prefer to discourage standing still. At the end of the game, you lose prestige points if your personal map is incomplete.

To constrain the game to a reasonable number of turns, we also introduce a third endgame trigger that's more artificial, but necessary: exhausting the sketch card deck. Some clever calculations guarantee that this condition is triggered without any player getting a disadvantage.

You Have Reached Your Destination

From an evening playtest via Tabletop Simulator to a brainstorming session, to cutting out the prototype, to clever calculations — mountain by mountain or steppe by steppe, if you will — it took us a year to arrive at the quasi-final version of Maps of Misterra. We presented it to several publishers, and the game won over the Sit Down! team, who would do a fantastic job (beyond our expectations!) of materially and graphically staging the game, then getting it to your home.

From gallery of gobarkas
The Maps of Misterra box is full of promise, isn't it?

Also, thanks to the entire team, notably Stanislas Puech for the illustrations, Anthony Moulins for the graphic design, Michaël Derobertmasure for the development, Marie Ooms for the artistic direction, Sophie Troye for the communication, and Didier Delhez for managing the project. You have all made this dream come true.

We thank you, as well, for reading this. Enjoy playing Maps of Misterra, and remember, only believe what you map!

From gallery of gobarkas
Four cartographers, ready to sink their teeth into an adventure
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Tue Apr 16, 2024 7:00 am
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Explore Kyoto as a Kitten, Fit Cats into Packs, and Evolve as a Species in Nature

W. Eric Martin
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Most of the comments I've read about the 2023 train game Arabella ask why a kitten is on the cover when the gameplay focuses on track-building and share-holding. The publisher explains that the kitten is intended to represent how easy the game is to learn, but any cat lover who picks up this title is in for a surprise since the gameplay does not involve kaiju cats demolishing railroads.

Board Game: Kyoto no Neko

Let me instead recommend that fans of felines check out one of the games listed below instead, each of which features cats in their gameplay, starting with Kyoto no Neko, a 2-4 player design from Cédric Millet that French publisher Matagot will release at SPIEL Essen 24:
Quote:
In Kyoto no Neko, 2 to 4 players are kittens who explore the modern-day city of Kyoto, Japan through a series of independent, replayable scenarios. In each scenario, players must fulfill a variety of missions, from befriending a school boy to fighting an aggressive stray cat, or stealing the food from other player's dinner bowl. Throughout the game, each player will evolve, developing their skills and gaining the ability to explore new parts of the map by climbing on bushes and rooftops.

Board Game: Kyoto no Neko

Using a system of skills, Kyoto no Neko will see each player interact with some of Kyoto's inhabitants, both animal and human. Each turn provides the opportunity to uncover something new about the city as players will reveal elements from little insects to specific objects or denizens of Kyoto. While some of these elements are represented by cardboard tiles, others come as standees, ensuring a stunning visual presence.
In a press release announcing the game, Millet writes, "I wanted to give everyone the chance to embody a kitten in a condensed experience of exploration and skill development, based on a role-playing mechanic in which every dice roll has a positive outcome. (You succeed or you learn!) The game lets you experience the sensations of a kitten's life by performing the full variety of typically feline activities (at least a new one in each scenario); I hope it will delight cat fans of all ages!" Now that sounds like a full feline experience!

Board Game: Nekojima
• Speaking of "neko", in August 2024 the balancing game Nekojima from David Carmona, Karen Nguyen, and Unfriendly Games will become available in the U.S. courtesy of distributor Hachette Boardgames. An overview of this 1-5 player game:
Quote:
In Nekojima, "The Island of Cats" in Japan, an electricity network is developing to supply the various lively districts of the island. The installation of electric poles becomes more complex due to the narrowness of the territory and its curious population of cats strolling on the cables.

Nekojima is a wooden game of skill and dexterity in which you have to keep an entire installation in balance. Players take turns placing or stacking denchuu — 電柱, or electrical poles — respecting the locations without any hanging cables touching. Be careful not to be the one to bring down the structure. This game requires reflection, concentration and skill.

From gallery of W Eric Martin
David Carmona schools me in a demo at SPIEL Essen 23

—In competition, the player who knocks down the structure loses.
—In co-operation, the goal is to go as far as possible.
• Designer Tobias Hall is crowdfunding the tile-laying game Cat Packs through the end of April 2024, with the goal of debuting the game at SPIEL Essen 24 from his own All Or None Games:
Quote:
Cat Packs is a fast-paced card game in which you'll cleverly put together the cat gang of your most whimsical dreams! The game includes over one hundred unique illustrated cats by artist Liselotte Eriksson.

Board Game: Cat Packs

On each turn, players draft a new cat from the alley and use resources to play out cards from their hand to add to their cat pack. All cats have different requirements and benefits, but not all cats fit well together, so players must carefully consider their positions. The goal of the game is to earn the most "catshine", which players receive by collecting sets of five cat types, surrounding certain cards with other cards, matching corners of four cards together in a catshine symbol, or winning the power struggle taking place after each round!
From gallery of W Eric Martin

Who doesn't want to give a good home to a rough-and-tumble meowboy who needs a blanket to snuggle under?

• Do robotic cats count for this post? Let's say yes so that I can include Cyber Pet Quest, a design by Brendan Kendrick and Bernie Lin of Dead Alive Games that they are crowdfunding in April 2024, with plans for early sales at Gen Con 2024 in August. Here's an overview:
Quote:
Embark on a thrilling adventure with Jane, a fully bionic cat, and her cybernetically enhanced friends: Clay the dog, Freya the raccoon, and Roman the goose. Join this eclectic team as they set out to find Jane's missing owner, Howard, in the intra-apocalyptic city of San Lazaro. With its diverse and immersive locations and a quirky cast of enemies, this metropolis will keep you on the edge of your seat. As you delve deeper into the city, you'll need to flex your tactical muscles and harness the pets' array of unique abilities and powerful items to succeed in your quest. Will you uncover the truth behind Howard's disappearance and guide Jane to her missing owner? Your choices will determine the outcome.

Board Game: Cyber Pet Quest

Designed for 1-4 players, Cyber Pet Quest is played as a multi-chapter campaign. Taking the roles of the four pets, players investigate and interact with the environment, complete chapter objectives, gain power items and charms, and outsmart the enemies who are trying to stop them. The campaign has twelve chapters in a branching format so that players can play the full game multiple times to see the different branching stories.
• Should you care more for big cats, along with many more animals of a non-cat nature, turn your eyes to, um, Nature, a Dominic Crapuchettes design that publisher NorthStar Game Studio plans to release in August 2025 following a 2024 Kickstarter campaign.

Board Game: Nature

Nature is an evolution of Evolution, which the then-named North Star Games released in 2014, with that game being a Crapuchettes co-design with Dmitry Knorre and Sergey Machin, who were responsible for the 2010 title Evolution: The Origin of Species. Over the years, North Star evolved Evolution into the standalone games Evolution: Climate, Evolution: The Beginning, and Oceans, and now it's being transformed once again.

The gameplay of Nature resembles that of earlier games, with players experiencing an ecosystem in which food is scarce and predators are ready to eat you...although sometimes you're the predator looking for that scarce food. You can adapt your species to the environment by playing traits like fast to evade predators, nesting to grow your population, and climbing to reach fruit high above ground.

Nature will have five thematic modules — Jurassic, Flight, Natural Disasters, Arctic Tundra, and Amazon Rainforest — available at launch, and you can use 0-3 of them in a game to modify (or not) its length and complexity. As Crapuchettes writes:
Quote:
The base game, Nature, is a meaty filler that is can be taught and played in 45 minutes. Each expansion will change core rules to dramatically affect the emotional feel of the game and the strategy:

—Add one expansion for a 60-minute game that's roughly the complexity of Evolution.
—Add two expansions for a 90-minute game that's roughly the complexity of Climate.
—Add three expansions for a 120-minute game that's roughly the complexity of Terraforming Mars
NorthStar is polling to determine which modules to release in 2026, and it welcomes playtesters who want to help see how everything fits together.

Board Game: Evolution: The Origin of Species
Board Game: Evolution
Board Game: Evolution: Climate
Board Game: Oceans
Evolution in action
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Mon Apr 15, 2024 7:00 am
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Take Your Place as a Knight of the Round Table, and Confront the Outer Gods in Imperial Rome

W. Eric Martin
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• The cartoon short "Steamboat Willie" entered the public domain in 2024, along with Tigger, The Passion of Joan of Arc, and Lady Chatterley's Lover by D. H. Lawrence.

I'm not sure whether designers will rush to create games out of this material — especially the first item given that Disney still owns everything else related to Mickey Mouse — but over time the public domain pool will only continue to grow, a pool that game designers and publishers will return to repeatedly for a chance to put their own spin on a story or group of characters known around the world, as with the announcement from U.S. publisher Crafty Games of Knights of the Round Table, a design by Jonny Pac that will see release in 2025.

Board Game: Knights of the Round Table

Here's an overview of this 2-4 player game:
Quote:
In each game of Knights of the Round Table, players choose a cycle of Arthurian myth to play, setting the tone and starting rules. They rally a company of knights and Arthurian personalities, deploying them to construct Camelot, repel invader hordes, and quest for the Holy Grail. Through their choices, players sculpt a unique narrative and unlock new modules until the grail is discovered, and a winner is crowned high king!

The game features dozens of silkscreened wood pieces, a huge game board, and a 3D castle that players build during play. Multiple game modules allow for high variability and replayability across many aspects of Arthurian myth, with the intertwining of themes and mechanisms allowing players to organically create their own spin on these legends.
• "Alice in Wonderland" remains a source of inspiration for game designers given the rich variety of ways to approach this fantastic world.

Board Game: Rolling in Wonderland

In 2024, new publisher Borogove Games plans to crowdfund Rolling in Wonderland, a design for 2-4 players from Daniel Alves:
Quote:
Players become children who, just like Alice, stumble into Wonderland and meet all the famous characters from the works of Lewis Carroll. During play, you use actions to discover cards, make friends, and use your mushrooms to execute powerful combos in a highly strategic action-selection/dice-drafting system — all with the long-term goal of earning points.
RPG Item: Cohors Cthulhu RPG Quickstart Guide
• And where Alice starts to walk, Cthulhu follows. A crossover between these IPs is inevitable, but until that happens we'll have to focus on the latest game design to draw on the works of H.P. Lovecraft — Cohors Cthulhu: Tactics, a horror-themed, solitaire/co-operative game from Modiphius Entertainment that's meant as a companion of sorts to the Cohors Cthulhu RPG that Modiphius crowdfunded in 2023 for release in 2024. An overview:
Quote:
Cohors Cthulhu: Tactics is set in the Cohors Cthulhu universe during the height of Imperial Rome. You begin your heroic journey as one of a handful of survivors of an ambush, desperately trying to escape the Mythos-ridden mists of a Germanic forest. As your heroes grow in experience and power, you will fulfill your destiny, becoming the leader of a powerful legion and facing the avatars of the Outer Gods themselves in full-scale war.

From gallery of W Eric Martin

The game is meant to fuse the strategic nuance of tabletop wargames with the immersive narrative of role playing games. Cohors Cthulhu: Tactics will feature a wide range of 28mm miniatures in both resin and 3D print at-home STL files. The miniatures range features Roman Centurions, scoundrels, nobles, hunters, priests, druids, assassins, soldiers, and warriors. Facing them will be the full might of the Outer Gods: The Cult of Mormo with their Priests, Servitors, Ghouls and Overlords of Mormo, Teufel Hounds, Fluttering Fiends, Sheehad, Elder Things, Chosen and Die Draugr.
Modiphius notes that "Kickstarter backers will have an exclusive opportunity to grab one of several powerful Avatars of the Outer Gods in resin such as the Star Spawn of Cthulhu. Stretch Goals will unlock new factions, such as the Deep Ones, Mi-Go, and the corrupt Herjan's Horde, plus more mythos creatures, additional missions, and new gameplay options."

I'm not sure how "exclusive" these might be given that the Outer Gods appear willing to partner with as many publishers as step up...

• Oh, hey, I should have been more optimistic...or pessimistic. Not sure which one is appropriate here, but in any case Steamboat Willie World has announced a Kickstarter for Steamboat Willie playing cards...

From gallery of W Eric Martin

...while in May 2024 new publisher Simply Play Games plans to crowdfund the tabletop game Steamboat Willie: Dark Days Seas.

From gallery of W Eric Martin

Here's the teaser description:
Quote:
Take the role of our classic hero, "Steamboat Willie", or one of his pals in this modern return to the Forbidden Seas in this epic 2-4 player board game.

Return to the most dangerous seas to help rescue Caroline the Cow as she tries to get on board his steamboat to safety. In these mysterious seas, there are tales of sea monsters and pirates looking to capture his booty!

Take the role of our hero, Mickey Mouse "Steamboat Willie," or one of his pals — Minnie, Pete, Parrot, or Goat — in this epic 2-4 player table top game.
Given the quality of this promotional image from the upcoming BackerKit campaign, I anticipate this game being a high-quality release that will endure for decades and become a treasure that our descendants will look forward to entering the public domain in the 22nd century so that they can riff on it themselves.

From gallery of W Eric Martin
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Sun Apr 14, 2024 7:00 am
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Link Round-up: Ticket to Ride on SNL, and Awards in Japan, in the U.S., and on BGG

W. Eric Martin
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Board Game: Akropolis
From gallery of W Eric Martin
Board Game: Challengers!
Jules Messaud's Akropolis won the 2023 Japan Boardgame Prize issued by Yumoa, a non-profit organization founded in 2003 that annually honors games that are "considered to have contributed the most to the spread of board games".

The other titles nominated for the award were Phil Walker-Harding's Super Mega Lucky Box and Challengers! from designers Johannes Krenner and Markus Slawitscheck. This latter title, which won the 2023 Kennerspiel des Jahres in Germany, won the voting section of the 2023 Japan Boardgame Prize, receiving more than twice as many points as second-place finisher Darwin's Journey from Simone Luciani and Nestore Mangone. Maxime Tardif's Earth had broader support than Darwin's Journey, but at a lower level, landing in third place. (Voters ranked five games, with first place receiving 5 points, second place 4 points, etc.)

From gallery of W Eric Martin
• The American Tabletop Awards have announced their 2024 winners for games released in the U.S. in 2023. The winners and their categories are:

—Early gamers: Blob Party, by Pam Walls and WizKids
—Casual games: Sea Salt & Paper, by Bruno Cathala, Théo Rivière, and Bombyx
—Strategy games: Thunder Road: Vendetta, by Dave Chalker, Brett Myers, and Restoration Games
—Complex games: The White Castle, by Isra C., Shei S., and Devir

If you visit the link above, you'll find other ATTA-recommended and -nominated titles in those categories.

Board Game: Blob Party
Board Game: Sea Salt & Paper
Board Game: Thunder Road: Vendetta
Board Game: The White Castle


• Speaking of awards, as a BGG user you are invited to nominate games released in 2023 for the 18th annual Golden Geek Awards. The nomination phase will end at 11:59 PM CDT on Sunday, April 21, 2023, with voting on the top nominees taking place over the next ten days. BGG owner Scott Alden gives details on the nomination process here.

From gallery of W Eric Martin

• Someone on the Saturday Night Live staff must be a fan of Ticket to Ride because while this skit from April 6, 2024 focuses on Jumanji, Alan R. Moon's classic train game also plays a starring role:


• While Ravensburger publishes games, it's best known as a jigsaw puzzle manufacturer, and a paywalled article in The New York Times from Derrick Bryson Taylor details a long-running legal battle between the German publisher and the Italian government over the rights to reproduce Leonardo da Vinci's "Vitruvian Man" drawing in a jigsaw puzzle. An excerpt:
Quote:
From gallery of W Eric Martin
At the center of the dispute is Italy's cultural heritage and landscape code, which was adopted in 2004 and allows cultural institutions, like museums, to request concession fees and payments for the commercial reproduction of cultural properties, like "Vitruvian Man."

That code is at odds with European Union law, which states that works in the public domain (like "Vitruvian Man") are not subject to copyright.

For more than a decade, Ravensburger sold a 1,000-piece puzzle with the image of the famed drawing. But in 2019, the Italian government and the Gallerie dell'Accademia in Venice, where the famous work and other da Vinci pieces are on display, used the Italian code to demand that Ravensburger stop selling the puzzle and pay a licensing fee.
The article details other instances of the Italian government protesting commercial uses of Italian cultural landmarks, such as a 2023 case in which "a court in Florence ruled against GQ Italia for using an image of the David statue on the cover of one of its magazines in 2020 without permission".

• Since I've already diverged into jigsaw puzzles, we close with a look at a trio of jigsaw puzzles that are a project of BGG advertising manager Chad Krizan, who also runs the company Puzzle Bomb with his wife Caylyn, so I want to highlight their Spring 2024 collection of wooden puzzles. I've watched Chad doodle many times over the years, and it's fascinating to see his work transformed in this way.

From gallery of W Eric Martin
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Sat Apr 13, 2024 7:00 am
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Get a Peek at KOSMOS' SPIEL Essen 24 Titles: The Gang, Battling Koalas, and Dying Patients in Miami

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• German publisher KOSMOS has teased games that it will release in the second half of 2024, starting with German editions of Cascadia: Rolling Hills, Cascadia: Rolling Rivers, Linx, and The Gang, the latter of which will debut from KOSMOS in the U.S. in Q3 2024 and which Inka and Markus Brand described on Instagram as a "super good game" that even in March 2024 they can see landing a Spiel des Jahres nomination in 2025. Hmm...

Board Game: Cascadia: Rolling Hills
Board Game: Cascadia: Rolling Rivers
Board Game: Linx
Board Game: The Gang

Speaking of the SdJ, Wolfgang Lüdtke's SdJ recommended title Caesar & Cleopatra, which debuted from KOSMOS in 1997, will be released in a new edition.

Board Game: Caesar & Cleopatra

As previously announced in January 2024, KOSMOS will release the card game Faraway from Johannes Goupy and Corentin Lebrat in German in the second half of 2024.

KOSMOS will also release German editions of three titles from Dutch publisher Identity Games. Battle Royale is a tactical action game for 2-4 players in which "you play cards to position your characters cleverly, then you roll the doom dice...and little by little, the island arena grows smaller and smaller. With skill and luck, you try to keep your figures on the island for as long as possible. Create majorities, push your opponent's figures off the island, and stay away from the explosions. Continue to fight for space until only one player remains."

Board Game: Battle Royale

Medical Mysteries: New York Emergency Room and Medical Mysteries: Miami Flatline (!) are co-operative games in which you encounter patients and need to figure out what's wrong with them. Each box has four patients of varying difficulties waiting for you, along with a tutorial case. No prior medical knowledge is required.

Board Game: Medical Mysteries: NYC Emergency Room

Board Game: Medical Mysteries: Miami Flatline

In terms of new titles, Monkey Fun is a game for 1-4 players from Jürgen P. K. Grunau in which you try to claim a connected area as quickly as possible with your gang of monkeys. The cards you play indicate on which square you can place a monkey, but the other monkeys are already waiting to snatch this space from you...

(I will confess that this might not be a new design as I'm not familiar with Grunau's dozens of published games.)

Board Game: Monkey Fun
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Fri Apr 12, 2024 3:00 pm
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