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Trek Into The Unknown, Reload Bolt Action, and Revive Rackham

W. Eric Martin
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Board Game: Star Trek: Into The Unknown – Federation vs. Dominion Core Set
• U.S. publisher WizKids is bringing Star Trek to game tables once again, but instead of a design that focuses solely on combat, as with Star Trek: Attack Wing, the game attempts to cover more aspects of the Star Trek universe.

Here's an overview of the 2-6 player game Star Trek: Into The Unknown – Federation vs. Dominion Core Set, which is designed by Max Brooke and Michael Gernes and due out in July 2024:
Quote:
Teleport to the bridge of the most legendary starships from Star Trek as you launch an epic adventure across the galaxy!

Star Trek: Into the Unknown features the most detailed Star Trek ship models in tabletop gaming, all designed to scale. Large ships like the U.S.S. Enterprise or the Jem'Hadar Battle Cruiser will tower over the smaller ships, and all come pre-painted to an incredible amount of detail.

Board Game: Star Trek: Into The Unknown – Federation vs. Dominion Core Set
Miniature on display at GAMA Expo 2024

Traverse headlong into the unknown where you'll negotiate and fight alongside iconic characters using your quick wit and tactical maneuvering to overcome complications and challenges. True to Star Trek, research and diplomatic actions and not just combat have lasting impacts on the game, causing missions to evolve in surprising ways.

Choose your officer, deploy your crew, explore the galaxy, navigate anomalies, position your ships to strike, or negotiate terms with the enemy. Players will instantly immerse themselves as the egalitarian Starfleet or as the oppressive Vorta and Jem'Hadar as they decide how to handle tense mission objectives and unexpected complications.

From gallery of W Eric Martin
Preview kit on the table at GAMA Expo 2024

Embark on a journey to remember through an extensive campaign narrative. Your decisions matter, and they affect the outcomes of your unique story. With upcoming expansion featuring new missions and new ships to command, Star Trek: Into the Unknown is dedicated to delivering an expansive universe to your doorstep.
Warlord Games and Osprey Games have announced a third edition of Bolt Action from designers Alessio Cavatore and Rick Priestley for release in September 2024. Here's an overview of this miniature game system, which has more than three dozen expansions to date:
Quote:
Bring the great battles of World War II to your tabletop with Bolt Action. Strike out from the beaches of Normandy towards Germany. Sweep across the deserts of North Africa in lightning raids. Battle the enemy and the sweltering heat in the jungles of Asia and on the islands of the Pacific. Fight doggedly from street to street in Arnhem, Stalingrad, and Berlin.

Board Game: Bolt Action
Board Game: Bolt Action: Campaign – Battle of the Bulge
Board Game: Bolt Action: Campaign – Market Garden
Board Game: Bolt Action: Campaign – The Western Desert

Whatever your preferred style of play or your historical interests, the diverse army and scenario options will allow you to build a force that fits. Field everything from standard rifle platoons to heavily armored tank forces, fast-moving reconnaissance patrols, and even artillery units.

Board Game: Bolt Action: Campaign – Stalingrad
Board Game: Bolt Action: Campaign – Mariana & Palau Islands
Board Game: Bolt Action: Campaign – D-Day: US Sector
Board Game: Bolt Action: Campaign – Italy: Tough Gut

This third edition features refined and updated rules and starter army lists to get new players straight into the action. Seasoned veterans, meanwhile, will find new tactical depth in the detailed force composition mechanics and a wide variety of fresh challenges in the scenario generation system. Rally your forces, study the terrain, and prepare for battle — the fight continues!
• French publisher Monolith Board Games — which has released several miniature-heavy games since its founding in 2016, such as Conan, Mythic Battles: Pantheon, and Batman: Gotham City Chronicles — has acquired all of defunct publisher Rackham's assets, announcing this development as follows:
Quote:
2024 is a year of rebirth for many universes, from the forces of Light, Fate and Darkness readying their forces anew in the seething kingdom of Arklash, to the struggles at the galactic fringes of another universe, warring in Ava and Damocles.

We are absolutely delighted to announce that we have acquired all the universes developed by the late Rackham. These universes have been by our sides for a long time — and will now be with us for many years to come, complete with new adventures!
From gallery of W Eric Martin
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Designer Diary: Evil Corp.

Jérémy Ducret
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Board Game: Evil Corp.
1. The General Idea

February 2021: My game Daimyo: Rebirth of the Empire comes out in stores, which paradoxically leaves me with a big gap in my schedule. I need to quickly find a project that excites me to occupy my free time. Unfortunately, no old prototype seems worthy of interest to me now.

Starting from a blank sheet, I'm going to try to make the game I want to play:

Idea 1: Deck-building with alternating activation.

I want to offer confrontational deck-building (Star Realms-style) but more strategic in the way of playing the cards. I don't want to "empty" my hand every turn, but the order of play of the cards has great importance and is strongly influenced by the actions of my opponent. This naturally results in the idea of creating an alternating action system in which after drawing five cards, each player plays one card alternately until their hand is exhausted before drawing again and starting a turn again. This should bring about the desired action/reaction feeling.

Idea 2: A very tactical game in which each action is a strong dilemma.

I want to get closer to the feeling of the Legend of the Five Rings-style confrontation TCGs, one of my best gaming memories. I try to remember what I liked so much about this game: a constant tension that came from managing timing and priorities. I want a game in which timing is essential, in which we will delay an action in order not to be countered, a game in which we will try to offer a target to an opponent to make them play actions that could counter us in order to be able to play our showpiece quietly. Also, I would like us to be able to use the cards in different ways to offer choice and dilemma. The card will necessarily be of interest for its power, but it must be able to be used in other ways at the same time. I don't know yet how...

Idea 3: Not a deck-building game, but bag-building.

One day, I ordered some coin capsules, thinking it would make interesting hardware for a game. I wondered whether this hardware would be relevant for this new prototype. What is initially a material desire quickly influences the game design because using round 2cm tokens allows me to quickly consider having a board and different locations that take up little space. I wrap this concept up quite quickly with the previous idea: these locations could offer an action or a bonus, a bit like a worker-placement game. I am therefore going with the idea of having several colors of tokens (in place the cards), colors that will mainly be used to define on which location they can be played. It’s taking shape...

Well, I don't have a game, but I know precisely where I want to go and the main idea is very clear:
confrontational bag-building with alternate activation, timing management, and priority management.

2. From the Idea to the First Tests

I gave birth to a first prototype quite quickly. I'm going with a space opera atmosphere. (Who knows why? It's not at all a theme that fascinates me.) The goal will be to conquer planets (plateaus) to dominate the galaxy. The planets will have to be conquered over several turns to create the feeling of "I lost the battle but not the war", while allowing players to abandon positions for a while, then return to them later. To take the planets, I will use a tug-of-war mechanism. Whoever has the most strength at the end of the turn wins the effect of the planet, then advances the conquest marker, and at a certain level, the planet is definitively mine and a new planet opens. There must always be several battlefields simultaneously.

I'm going on the principle of having three types of ships (tokens/cards). Each color has a specialization: combat, technology, and purchase. That's good as it comes full circle with the idea of locations that allow effects to be triggered, and it allows strategies to be combined.

I grind it all out and get a first prototype:

From gallery of W Eric Martin
First test at the end of May 2021

I am excited about the test! The feeling I want is already quite present...

...but everything is heavy/complex, there are lots of useless powers, the development part is poorly integrated into the game, and the balance is obviously very random. Also, my partner hates the theme — a bit like me in the end! I do a huge cleansing and switch to a classic medium/fan theme, which is important to be able to put the design through the dozens of tests to come.

From gallery of W Eric Martin
Second test on June 1, 2021

The test is super conclusive. There are obviously plenty of flaws, but what I'm trying to check at this moment is the overall feeling, the feeling of how it plays and the interest in the game — and on these points, I am more than satisfied. If only all my prototypes were like that...

At this level, we will say that 80% of the game's mechanisms are present: The bag-building, the four different locations, the tug of war, and the deploy/activate/recruit action triptych. The game now needs to have better balancing to start seeing the flaws more deeply. In any case, we're already having a lot of fun playing it.

3. The "Improbable" Signature and the Final Edition

It turns out that at the end of June 2021 I have to see Benoit from La Boîte de Jeu, publisher of Daimyo. I'm curious to show him this work-in-progress to get his feelings, to know whether I'm imagining things or I actually have something promising. As a Magic player, his advice will be invaluable. At this moment, I'm not thinking about publishing; I'm just happy to have a project that motivates me.

Anyway, at the time, I knew almost no one else in the gaming world. The fact is that the day before seeing Benoit, after a few balancing tweaks and a pretty cool last game, my brain said: "And if he likes it?"

From gallery of W Eric Martin
The presentation to Benoit at the end of June 2021

We test the game, and as it progresses, I think I can see interest in Benoit's attitude. We don't finish the game for some reason, so we play it again the next day. Quite a good sign to want to play again...

After the second playing, Benoit shows a real interest in the game, editorially speaking. We talk a lot about the design, how it could be published, the possible artistic directions, and (obviously) the points to work on. There is no commitment, but we still went very far in the discussion.

Board Game Publisher: La Boîte de Jeu
A few weeks later, La Boîte de Jeu comes back to me to validate this interest and offer me a contract. I am very satisfied to be setting out again on an editorial adventure with a team for whom I have a lot of respect, both personally and professionally.

We found the artistic direction of the game early after deciding to reverse the roles. We will play the "bad guy", and our goal will be to terrorize human villages, with a little quirky side. It takes around three months of intensive work to complete the game's development. During this period, I was able to benefit from the expertise of the publisher to remove all the blocking points in the game. Changes will mainly occur on three major points:

• The beginnings of turns are too often identical => We add the chests to loot and the power stone. This allows for more varied openings and adds tension and rhythm between the players.

• Magic poses a lot of balancing problems => Its management was personal, so we implant the demons to stabilize the balancing and once again bring tension thanks to a "race" effect on their activation.

• The game's increase in power is too slow => We go to eight monsters in the bag (instead of ten), and we reduce the purchase cost of all the monsters to make the game more explosive from turn one.

Most problems are therefore resolved within three months. Game balancing and micro adjustments will then be made throughout the edition, which will last more than a year. I would like to take this opportunity to thank La Boîte de Jeu, who did some crazy editorial work — and a big thank you to Djib and Olivier Derouetteau, who brought the game to life with superb graphic work!

A very striking anecdote: Evil Corp. was the strict opposite of Daimyo on all points. Daimyo took seven years between the idea and its release, whereas Evil Corp. was signed three months after the idea in a version quite close to what the game is today. In short, day and night...

Board Game: Evil Corp.

Now It's up to You!

I hope you like the game. From now on, the game is in your hands; it no longer belongs to me. How will you welcome it? In which configuration will you play it the most?

In any case, for my part, it is a satisfying feeling to be able to offer you a game which is the exact feeling of what I had in mind on the first day.

Jérémy Ducret
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BGG's Origins Game Fair 2024 Preview Is Live

W. Eric Martin
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From gallery of W Eric Martin
Given all that happened today — Asmodee becoming (sort of) independent again, Goliath buying Lucky Duck, me gushing about a game that's both new and nearly thirty years old — I almost forgot to publish BGG's Origins Game Fair 2024 Preview.

Thankfully, I caught that oversight in time to meet my self-imposed publication deadline. Go, me!

The preview has only sixty titles at the moment, with more than a dozen of those titles available solely for demo. The Origins 2023 Preview ended up with "only" 124 titles, so maybe I'm halfway done at this point, roughly two months before Origins Game Fair 2024 opens. If so, that would be odd — but also normal, given that the not-yet-live Gen Con 2024 Preview already has more than one hundred listings. That show is the centerpiece of U.S. tabletop gaming events, so everyone's already looking ahead to that show in August. If you're looking to look ahead, too, look for that preview to go live on Monday, June 3...assuming that I remember in time.

From gallery of W Eric Martin
Some of the titles you can lay your hands on at Origins Game Fair 2024
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Asmodee's Parent Company Embracer Group Will Split into Three Companies

W. Eric Martin
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Board Game Publisher: Asmodee
Asmodee's parent company, Embracer Group, has announced — and I quote — "a transformative step for value creation through a separation of the group into three market-leading games and entertainment companies: Asmodee Group, 'Coffee Stain & Friends' and 'Middle-earth Enterprises & Friends'". (The official names of the final two groups will be announced later, which makes me wonder why Embracer was so rushed as to make this announcement before it knew precisely what it was announcing, but I'm not a business owner who must make such decisions, so what do I know?)

Currently, Embracer Group consists of eleven operative groups:

• PC/console games: THQ Nordic, PLAION, Coffee Stain, Amplifier, Gearbox Entertainment, Crystal Dynamics / Eidos-Montréal
• Mobile games: DECA Games, Easybrain
• Entertainment and services: Dark Horse Media, Freemode (with PLAION also being listed here)
• Tabletop games: Asmodee

But Embracer made a deal in late March 2024 to sell Gearbox Entertainment for US$460 million so that group will soon be leaving, similar to how Embracer sold Saber Interactive for US$247 million in mid-March 2024.

What's left will be reorganized into three groups:

• "Coffee Stain & Friends", described as "a diverse gaming entity with a dual focus on indie and A/AA premium and free-to-play games for PC/console and mobile, with a high degree of recurring revenues", with net sales for the parts of this group over the previous twelve months being SEK 10.9 billion (approx. US$1 billion).

• "Middle-earth Enterprises & Friends", described as "a creative powerhouse in AAA game development and publishing for PC and console, as well as the stewards of The Lord of the Rings and Tomb Raider intellectual properties, among many others", with net sales of SEK 14.1 billion (approx. US$1.3 billion).

• Asmodee, "a global leading tabletop games publisher and distributor with an extensive studio network and IP catalogue", with net sales of SEK 14.8 billion (approx. US$1.35 billion).

The parent companies of these three groups will be headquartered in Karlstad, Sweden, while Asmodee's operational headquarters will remain in Paris.

From gallery of W Eric Martin
Embracer Group is currently listed on stock exchanges as EBCRY, but under this reorganization into three groups, the listing for Embracer Group will be changed to whatever "Middle-earth Enterprises & Friends" will finally be named, and shares of Asmodee and "Coffee Stain & Friends" will be distributed as a dividend to the shareholders of Embracer Group, with the distribution of Asmodee shares taking place within the next twelve months and the distribution of "Coffee Stain" taking place in 2025.

Why is Embracer doing this? The short answer: "it is the assessment of the Board of Directors that the current Group structure does not create optimal conditions for future value creation both for Embracer Group's shareholders and other stakeholders". From the press release:
Quote:
"The Board of Directors, together with executive management, propose to transform Embracer Group into three separate, listed companies. This transformation is an important step in unlocking shareholder value. With this new structure, the three entities will be able to focus on executing their core strategies and leveraging their own strengths, providing more differentiated and distinct equity stories to both existing and new shareholders. After careful evaluation of various strategic alternatives, we strongly believe that this decision will benefit all stakeholders and position us for continued success in the future", says Kicki Wallje-Lund, Chair of the Board of Embracer Group.

"This move has been made with the intention to unleash the full potential of each team and provide them with their own leadership and strategic direction. This is the start of a new chapter, a chapter that I intend to remain part of as an active, committed, and supportive shareholder of all three new entities, with an evergreen horizon. This move towards three independent companies reinforces Embracer's vision of backing entrepreneurs and creators with a long-term mindset, allowing them to continue to deliver unforgettable experiences for gamers and fans across the globe", says Lars Wingefors, co-founder and Group CEO of Embracer Group...

The Board of Directors have concluded the following:

• The entities will have sufficient scale, coupled with clearer operational strategies and financial profiles that enable simplified equity stories to attract a larger pool of investors. Current shareholders can freely decide on their capital allocation between the three entities.

• Each entity will be able to fully utilize its own balance sheet, its own set of financial targets and optimal financing structure and capital allocation strategy that enable their growth ambitions.

• The new structure enables the best possible greenlighting models, portfolios and go-to-market strategies for indie games as well as AAA games through two separate, more focused entities.

• Ongoing and future collaboration around IPs, companies and people will still be enabled and encouraged across the entities on market terms.
What will Asmodee consist of as a standalone company? Here's how Embracer describes it:
Quote:
Asmodee is a leading international publisher and distributor of board games, trading cards and digital board games with 23 fully owned studios and 300+ IPs and constitutes the Tabletop Games operating segment of Embracer Group. As per LTM December 2023, Asmodee generated net sales of SEK 14.8 billion, with Adjusted EBITDA of approximately SEK 2.3 billion, EBITDAC of approximately SEK 2.0 billion, Adjusted EBIT of approximately SEK 1.9 billion, and free cash flow after working capital of approximately SEK 2.1 billion.

After FY24/25 Asmodee has an ambition to grow organically in line with the market, which translates into a mid-single digit organic growth in addition to any acquisitive growth. Asmodee's ambition is also to expand its margins from current levels as a result of an improved revenue mix and continued cost management while maintaining a high cash conversion.

The spinoff of Asmodee with a listing on Nasdaq Stockholm is expected to have value-enhancing benefits through greater focus on its core strategy, portfolio and markets. The ongoing transmedia collaboration around Middle-earth and many other IPs is expected to continue after the completion of the spinoff. As a global leader in board and trading card games, with a proven track-record of profitable growth, Asmodee is well-positioned to build on its strategy and continue to prosper as a standalone entity. The spinoff is also expected to enable Asmodee to quicker resume its value accretive M&A strategy.

23 in-house studios develop tabletop games for all types of players across Social, Tabletop and Lifestyle, including a steady addition of new content to key brands. The catalog of 300+ owned IPs include the beloved board games Ticket to Ride®, 7 Wonders, Azul, CATAN, Dobble, Exploding Kittens, and an extensive number of distributed games and IPs. Asmodee is also developing a wide range of licensed tabletop games based on The Lord of the Rings, Marvel, Game of Thrones, Netflix, Lego® and Star Wars™, including the recent successful trading card game release of Star Wars: Unlimited...

Ahead of the initiation of the separation process of Asmodee and in line with already planned governance evolutions, Stéphane Carville, current [Asmodee] CEO, and Marc Nunes, current COO and founder, will join and play active roles in the Board of Directors of Asmodee. Thomas Koegler, a longstanding operational and executive leader at Asmodee and current deputy COO, will in the coming months become Asmodee CEO supported by key leaders within Asmodee.
However, as part of this restructuring Asmodee has entered a financing agreement with JP Morgan, BNP Paribas, SEB, Societe Generale, and Swedbank for a loan of €900 million (US$958 million) that must be repaid in eighteen months, with Embracer noting that this loan "is an important part of the debt refinancing of Embracer Group following its restructuring program, which was finalized 31 March, 2024." Embracer currently has a loan for SEK 8 billion that matures in February 2025, and this new loan will help it refinance the current one.

Importantly, from the perspective of someone who cares about tabletop games over video games, the press release for this agreement notes that "[t]he loan is ringfenced with no recourse to Embracer Group, separating Asmodee's assets and funds from those of Embracer Group, and it is only secured by Asmodee assets." To quote more from this press release:
Quote:
The intention is to continue to deleverage, through both the expected significantly improved Free Cash Flow in the remaining Embracer Group (excluding Asmodee), as well as the proceeds from the divested assets of Saber Interactive and Gearbox Entertainment in the course of FY24/25.

On a pro forma basis as per LTM [last twelve months] December 2023, Embracer Group, including the expected sales proceeds from the divestment of assets from Saber Interactive and Gearbox Entertainment, but excluding Asmodee, will have a Net Debt-to-Adjusted EBIT of around 0.6x. On a pro forma basis as per LTM December 2023, Asmodee will have a Net Debt to Adjusted EBITDA of approximately 3.9x. As part of the transformation and ahead of each separation the full capital structure, including both equity and debt, will be reviewed in Asmodee and "Coffee Stain & Friends" to create the best possible long-term foundation for each entity as a separately listed company.
Hmm, so Asmodee is taking on debt to lessen the burden on the non-Asmodee parts of Embracer? That's my takeaway as a non-finance person who is likely reading all of this material at a surface level. I welcome comments on what I might be missing or misunderstanding...
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Mon Apr 22, 2024 6:42 pm
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Goliath Acquires Lucky Duck Games

W. Eric Martin
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Board Game Publisher: Goliath Games
Board Game Publisher: Lucky Duck Games
Goliath Games, a toy and game company headquartered in Hattem, Netherlands, is increasingly living up to its name. In January 2024, Goliath acquired an exclusive license to all the games marketed under the Funko Games brand, and on April 22, 2024, Goliath has announced the acquisition of Lucky Duck Games, which was founded in 2016 by Vincent Vergonjeanne.

Here's most of the press release about this deal:
Quote:
Jochanan Golad, CEO of Goliath, says: "As a global games business, we see there are two major growth areas in games: (adult) party games and strategy games. Consumers and kidults particularly are playing boardgames like never before; this trend was already there, but the pandemic had greatly accelerated it."

Lucky Duck Games' library of high-quality strategy titles will complement Goliath's existing multi-category catalog.

Golad further expressed admiration for Lucky Duck Games' swift rise in the strategy space. "Vincent and his team have done an astounding job in such as a short time to become a notable player in the strategy games category. We are very impressed by the games they've brought to market."

Vincent Vergonjeanne, Founder of Lucky Duck Games, echoed the sentiment, affirming the shared entrepreneurial ethos between the two entities. "Goliath's entrepreneurial spirit perfectly aligns with ours. This partnership empowers us to continue investing in cutting-edge strategy games while leveraging Goliath's expansive global distribution network to reach an even broader audience of tabletop gamers," Vergonjeanne stated.

Vincent and his management team will continue to run Lucky Duck Games autonomously as an independent studio within the Goliath group of companies, maintaining its commitment to designing and launching innovative strategy games on a global scale.
In the press release, Goliath describes itself as "[n]ow positioned as the third-larger games company in North America", noting that "[o]ver the past decade, Goliath has undergone considerable growth through a series of strategic acquisitions. These moves have broadened its product range and strengthened its international presence."

In a Facebook post about the deal, Vergonjeanne writes:
Quote:
Goliath is a match made in heaven for us. A family owned toy-focused worldwide publisher, with who we found a deep complementary partnership, from our people's skills to the type of products we have learn[ed] to find and publish.

Not only is it the best possible next move for Lucky Duck Games, but on a more personal note this is a meaningful moment for me too.
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Mon Apr 22, 2024 12:45 pm
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Pick Up Giant Boxes of Dune, Munchkin, Star Trek: Ascendancy and More

W. Eric Martin
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Board Game: Star Trek: Ascendancy
Buy a game now, or wait for the second edition later? Or maybe catch it on clearance? Or perhaps wait 5-10 years in order to pick up the collector's edition that will inevitably be available — and crowdfunded! probably with new material! — should the game succeed? (And if it doesn't succeed, then why would I want it in the first place, right?!)

For all those who missed — or ignored or didn't know about — a game in the first place, here's your second chance:

• Mere weeks after Firefly: The Game – 10th Anniversary Collector's Edition landed on the retail market in March 2024, New Zealand publisher Gale Force Nine is at it again, with two new giant game collections scheduled for crowdfunding, one being Star Trek: Ascendancy – The Final Frontier, which will be crowdfunded in late 2024. This "ultimate" collection will include the 2016 Star Trek: Ascendancy base game from Aaron Dill, John Kovaleski, and Sean Sweigart, all seven expansions — Borg Assimilation, Ferengi Alliance, Cardassian Union, Andorian Empire, Vulcan High Command, The Dominion War, and The Breen Confederacy — as well as new planets, civilizations, and tech cards; new alternative ships; and "an exciting requested race".

Board Game: Star Trek: Ascendancy – Borg Assimilation
Board Game: Star Trek: Ascendancy – Ferengi Alliance
Board Game: Star Trek: Ascendancy – Cardassian Union
Board Game: Star Trek: Ascendancy – Andorian Empire
Board Game: Star Trek: Ascendancy – Vulcan High Command
Board Game: Star Trek: Ascendancy – The Dominion War
Board Game: Star Trek: Ascendancy – The Breen Confederacy

• The other GF9 collection on the horizon is Dune: Kwisatz Haderach Edition, which will include the 2019 Dune base game from Bill Eberle, Jack Kittredge, and Peter Olotka; the three expansions — Ixians & Tleilaxu, CHOAM & Richese, and Ecaz & Moritani — along with "new luxury components, a never-before-seen expansion, and a brand-new way of playing the game". This item will be crowdfunded in 2025.

Board Game: Dune
Board Game: Dune: Ixians & Tleilaxu
Board Game: Dune: CHOAM & Richese
Board Game: Dune: Ecaz & Moritani

• Through May 18, 2024, U.S. publisher Steve Jackson Games is crowdfunding Munchkin Big Box, which is a large — yet not nearly comprehensive — collection of Munchkin titles from designers Steve Jackson and Andrew Hackard, with the art on all 650+ cards coming from John Kovalic.

Board Game: Munchkin Big Box
Non-final box design

Munchkin Big Box is due out in late 2024, and it will contain the Munchkin base game, Munchkin 2: Unnatural Axe, Munchkin 3: Clerical Errors, Munchkin 6: Double Dungeons, Munchkin Bosses, Munchkin Side Quests, Munchkin Side Quests 2, and fifty new Munchkin cards, not to mention a game board, a side board, dice, standees, stickers, Kill-O-Meters, and other bits.

Board Game: Munchkin Big Box
Non-final component design

• In March 2024, Eagle-Gryphon Games crowdfunded Baseball Highlights: 2045 – Bases Loaded Edition, a collection that puts everything related to Mike Fitzgerald's Baseball Highlights: 2045 in a single box...along with a new fifteen-card All-Star expansion and a dozen new promo cards that will also be available separately for those who already own this deck-building game of futuristic baseball.

From gallery of W Eric Martin

• And for a change of pace, Cryptozoic Entertainment is bringing DC Deck-Building Game: Crisis Collection 2, which contains DC Deck-Building Game: Crisis Expansion Pack 3 and DC Deck-Building Game: Crisis Expansion Pack 4, straight to retail in August 2024. You read that right — straight to retail! Who would have thought it possible?

This collection does include two new promo cards — Red X & Project Thaumaton — but they are available separately should you have already collected the Crisis titles on your own.

Board Game: DC Deck-Building Game: Crisis Collection 2
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Mon Apr 22, 2024 7:00 am
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Designer Diary: Chroma Mix

Jorge Zhang

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Board Game: Chroma Mix
Hi there, designer of Chroma Mix here.

Today I am discussing my game and my experience designing and self-publishing it, but first, a bit about me: Over the past six years, I have designed roughly twenty board games. That sounds like more than should be possible, but many of them are compact games, some of which fit on a single card! A large part of my design journey was creating these small games primarily for BGG Design Contests, and participating in these contests is the first thing I recommend to any aspiring designers.

From gallery of tyclone
Chroma Mix five years ago

I bring up my experience designing small games because it caused a fundamental shift in the way I approach game design. As you can see from the image above, five years ago Chroma Mix had a lot going on: individual player boards, a player action auction system, a main board, three different types of resources, individual decks for each player, and more.

This isn't a knock on heavy games, but on how I arrived there. Game design requires a lot of problem solving, and whenever I encountered a problem, I solved it by adding more components and rules. I knew I was probably onto something, but it wasn't working the way I wanted it to — and ultimately I stopped working on it.

Board Game: Chroma Mix
Chroma Mix now

Four years and many designs later, I decided to revisit Chroma Mix. The game came together at a lightning-fast pace: I started seriously working on the game in February 2023, launched on Gamefound in June, and delivered the game to backers in October of the same year.

The secret? While there were several near-disasters — including a last-minute graphic overhaul: shoutout to artist and graphic designer Nikolaj Cyon for his wonderful work — years of designing smaller games had taught me how to let go of mechanisms. Instead of adding, I ruthlessly cut. I decided to focus on mixing, a mechanism in which you give up two cards and "fuse" them together to make a single stronger card.

From gallery of W Eric Martin

The fused card is determined using CMYK. In the above example, Cyan and Jungle (made up of Cyan and Yellow) creates Turquoise. The mix mechanism is fun because it presents an interesting decision space. Do you give up your two cards or save them for something else? Which two cards do you mix together and which ones do you save?

Once I knew to focus on mixing, it instantly became clear which mechanisms should be cut. For each mechanism, I could simply think about whether it enhanced or distracted from the mixing mechanism. The central board mechanism was all about preventing mixing, so that had to go. Auctions took the focus away from mixing, so that was also cut. A "mix" card that you would play to mix, then had to recover with an action in order to mix again slowed the pace of mixing so that also got cut.

As a side benefit, Chroma Mix was a card-only game after all was said and done, making it much less risky to publish.

A Solo Mode in which You Play Against Yourself as Badly as Possible

Board Game Publisher: Jayzee Games
The solo mode of Chroma Mix sort of happened by accident. During the design process, I would frequently playtest Chroma Mix solo by playing against myself as if I were two different players. I found this fun because I felt that I was playing against someone with a real strategy. The downside is that it was not terribly satisfying to "win"...if you can even call it that. I'd often have a side that I would want to win, so I'd then feel incredibly weird playing as the other side and trying to prevent myself from winning. I realized that I wanted to play the other side sub-optimally. This led me to an idea: What if the solo mode was a two-player game in which you played against yourself with one side playing normally and the other side trying to lose on purpose?

The obvious issue was that when one side is trying to lose, they'd always succeed. I needed to create rules to guarantee that given enough time, the opponent would eventually win the game even when trying to lose. I needed to prevent frivolous mixing, so I settled on a simple rule: The opponent cannot mix for something they already have.

I also needed to force mixing, so I came up with a deck system in which mix cards would be shuffled with the opponent's other cards and force a mix when drawn. I didn't want the opponent's turn to be too involved, so I greatly simplified it and made it so that they didn't use any card effects. Finally, the opponent would need something to overcome this player-introduced suboptimal play, so now the opponent's average turn progresses them farther than the player's average turn.

What's Next?

A few distributors have agreed to carry Chroma Mix, so you may see it pop up at your local game store. As for me, I am still designing games, but as an actual job because I am now a game designer for Z-Man Games. Who knew that Chroma Mix could help me get a job?

I could say more about Chroma Mix, but given that I spent a good chunk of this post writing about how less is more, I'll leave it at that for now. Thank you for reading!

Jorge Zhang
Jayzee Games
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Sun Apr 21, 2024 7:00 am
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Designing Fallout: Wasteland Warfare, and Wearing Dungeons & Dragons

W. Eric Martin
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North Carolina
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Board Game: CATAN
Board Game: CATAN: New Energies
• In mid-April 2024, CNN ran an article aimed at mainstream gamers by Saira Mueller that explains some of the process of getting a board game onto retail shelves, using CATAN, Wyrmspan, and A Gentle Dream as examples along the way.

Interesting trivia from the article: CATAN: New Energies, which hits the U.S. retail market on May 24, 2024, "was in development around ten years ago before getting shelved. During the pandemic, [Klaus and Benjamin Teuber] revisited the idea and have been working on it since." Hmm, how many other CATAN prototypes might still make it into print down the road?

Board Game Publisher: Hasbro
• In early April 2024, Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks was interviewed on WBUR's "Here & Now" about what's happening with Dungeons & Dragons, why the company laid off more than a thousand people in late 2023, and whether the Magic: The Gathering market is being flooded.

• Speaking of people leaving Hasbro, on April 17 the company notified the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that on April 15, "Cynthia Williams, President of Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro Gaming, informed the Company of her resignation from the Company effective April 26, 2024. The Company is conducting a process to identify her successor, looking at both internal and external candidates."

• And speaking of D&D, on April 11, 2024 Converse launched the Dungeons & Dragons Collection, a limited edition line of shoes, hats, and shirts "that commemorates the world's greatest roleplaying game and its 50th anniversary".

From gallery of W Eric Martin

From gallery of W Eric Martin

• And speaking of Magic: The Gathering, Hasbro's "first billion-dollar brand in terms of annual sales", let's turn to an article on Dicebreaker from Magic creator Richard Garfield about "how to share grown-up games with younger players". An excerpt:
Quote:
When I first introduce a game, I am usually doing something I call semi-solitaire play. As the children learn over many games, I will shift over to handicapped play of some form. I find that it is not important to tell children many rules — after all, kids are used to navigating the world with partial information. I teach the bare minimum for them to get started, sometimes not really explaining anything beyond the flavor and general goals...

Once a child can actually play a competitive game, I like to choose a handicap that allows me to challenge myself, ideally one that allows the child to win sometimes but not all the time. Children I am around will play a lot of games, and it is important that they can handle both winning and losing. If you play enough games with reasonable handicaps, there will be plenty of both to experience.
Board Game: Magic: The Gathering
Garfield's handicap suggestions span a great range: extra points per score in any VP game, extra time, a larger hand size, extra dice rolls, bonus cards, an extra piece, and so on. Another excerpt:
Quote:
The second type of handicaps are what I call "soft handicaps", which are restrictions you place on your play to give you a challenge. This might be playing a worse deck in a game like Magic: The Gathering, using no two-letter words in Scrabble, or a strange opening in chess. The rules of the game are the same, but you are intentionally playing in a restricted way. Properly chosen, this limitation will allow you to play as hard or as casually as you like with your child.

You don't need to establish your soft handicap immediately, but can just keep your eye out for unusual strategies that you wouldn't normally try and throw yourself into them. This isn't "playing down" to the level of your opponent; this is exploring less-travelled roads within your game.
Garfield has been responding to questions and comments from BGG users in this thread.

• At the 2024 Games Developers Conference, designer James Sheahan gave an hour-long talk about his efforts to convert the Fallout video game series into Fallout: Wasteland Warfare, which debuted from Modiphius Entertainment in 2018. Says Sheahan, "It covers the whole process of why I designed many of the things in Wasteland Warfare the way I did, with the last half focusing on specific game mechanics."

You can watch this presentation on the GDC website.

Board Game: Fallout: Wasteland Warfare

• In August 2024, Dark Horse Comics will debut that first issue of Arkham Horror: The Terror at the End of Time, which it describes as "the first comic-based addition to the Arkham Horror universe from Fantasy Flight Games". Here's a summary of this four-issue mini-series, which is written by Cullen Bunn, with art by Andrea Mutti:
Quote:
Between time and sanity, horror waits in Arkham Horror: The Terror at the End of Time.

From gallery of W Eric Martin

Life is all just one big game to adventuring socialite Jenny Barnes — or it was, until her sister Izzie was abducted by a dangerous cult. Although Jenny thwarted the cultists' sacrificial endeavors and battled the eldritch monsters at their command, the high priestess Abigail Olmstead fled — and took Izzie with her.

Private investigator Joe Diamond may not understand Jenny's story, but he understands loss. Joe and Jenny
must work together and follow the clues to find Izzie, but more horrors await them in Arkham, Massachusetts, and time appears to be running out.
I'm amused by the phrase "the Arkham Horror universe from Fantasy Flight Games" since it encapsulates how creative work can enter the public domain, then be reclaimed by a company, owned anew, and licensed and monetized again. We have strange and interesting legal systems...
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Sat Apr 20, 2024 7:00 am
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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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North Carolina
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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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