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 May 8, 2008
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Previews
Detailed descriptions and pretty pictures of upcoming game releases.
HeadlinesApril 29, 2008 - Game Preview: Merlin’s Company / Memoir ‘44 Campaign BagMarch 4, 2008 - Game Preview: Rapscallion February 25, 2008 - Game Preview: Ticket to Ride Card Game February 20, 2008 - Game Preview: Wasabi! February 1, 2008 - Game Preview: Gisborne: Die ersten Kartographen January 30, 2008 - Game Preview: Metropolys January 16, 2008 - Game Preview: Surf’s Up, Dude! December 15, 2007 - Game Preview: Gumball Rally Designer Preview December 4, 2007 - Game Preview: BattleLore Scottish Wars December 3, 2007 - Game Preview: Memoir ‘44 Air Pack October 26, 2007 - Game Preview: Gubs October 22, 2007 - Game Preview: ETI |
Articles
Game Preview: Merlin’s Company / Memoir ‘44 Campaign Bag
By W. Eric Martin
April 18, 2008
Publisher: Days of Wonder
Designers: Serge Laget & Bruno Cathala
Players: 3-8
Release Date: June in Europe, July in North America
Price: €25 / $25
Editor’s note: I bumped this preview to show off the new pics from Merlin’s Company. Enjoy!
Fresh on the heels of Ticket to Ride: The Card Game, Days of Wonder has announced two new items for Summer 2008, both of which build on existing games. The first item is Merlin’s Company, an expansion for the semi-cooperative game Shadows Over Camelot that allows up to two traitors to work against the forces of Camelot when playing with seven or eight players.
Game Preview: Rapscallion
By W. Eric Martin
March 4, 2008
Publisher: Bézier Games
Designer: Ted Alspach
Players: 2-6
Ages: 8+
Playing Time: 45 minutes
Release Date: April 2008
Price: $20
Ted Alspach is known in the gaming world mostly for multiple Age of Steam expansions and the Board 2 Pieces comic here on BGN, but his collected works include a tile-laying game (Seismic), a giant party game (Ultimate Werewolf), a goofy gift that’s also a game (Start Player), and the recently announced freebie, Ubongo Extrem Crazy Expansion.
Rapscallion, the next title to be released from Bézier Games, was birthed from Alspach’s love of blind bidding games, including Ys, Aladdin’s Dragons and For Sale. “I’ve had several different games in various stages of development over the past few years, but Rapscallion is the one that everyone seemed to really like,” he says.
Game Preview: Ticket to Ride Card Game
By W. Eric Martin
February 25, 2008
Publisher: Days of Wonder
Designer: Alan R. Moon
Players: 2-4
Ages: 8+
Playing Time: 30 minutes
Release Date: May 2008
Price: $25 / €15
The Ticket to Ride train keeps on rolling with a new line into the card game arena. The Ticket to Ride Card Game includes many of the familiar elements of the board game – drawing locomotives and eight types of train cards, playing cards, drawing tickets – but adds new elements of game play, including a chance to attack another player’s holdings.
Game Preview: Wasabi!
By W. Eric Martin
February 20, 2008
Publisher: Z-Man Games
Designers: Josh Cappel & Adam Gertzbein
Players: 2-4
Playing Time: 45 minutes
Release Date: Q2 2008
If you had to name two things that come to mind when you think of Japan, there’s a good chance you’d say “giant robots” and “sushi.” Strangely enough, these two items are connected in the development of Wasabi!, the first published game from designers Josh Cappel and Adam Gertzbein.
Game Preview: Gisborne: Die ersten Kartographen
By W. Eric Martin
February 1, 2008
Publisher: Clementoni
Designer: Carlo A. Rossi
Artwork: Michael Menzel
Players: 3-5
Ages: 8+
Playing Time: 30-40 minutes
While Italian designer Carlo A. Rossi has a few games to his credit, you would most likely have heard his name in association with Alchemist, released by Mayfair Games and Amigo Spiele in 2007. Alchemist, which in an alternate universe would be plastered with a Harry Potter license and on mass market toy shelves worldwide, has received decent ratings and far more publicity than his previous titles: Graverobbers, which is a card game from Jolly Roger Games, and a couple of giveaway games from daVinci.
This spring, Clementoni will publish Rossi’s Gisborne, which he describes as “a very well-themed family game with a fair amount of luck.” Gisborne, which is both a city and a district in New Zealand, is one of the first cities to see the sun each day since it’s within spitting distance of the International Date Line.
Game Preview: Metropolys
By W. Eric Martin
January 30, 2008
Publisher: Ystari Games / Rio Grande Games / HUCH & friends
Designer: Sébastien Pauchon
Players: 2-4
Ages: 8+
Playing Time: 45-60 minutes
Languages: French / German / English
Price: €36.00
Release Date: March 2008 (from Ystari)
Swiss designer Sébastien Pauchon has had only three games published to date: Animalia and Jamaica, both co-designed with Bruno Cathala and Malcolm Braff, and Yspahan, which won the Concours International de Créateurs de Jeux de Société (International Competition of Boardgame Creators) in 2005 and a Spiel des Jahres nomination in 2007.
With Animalia and Jamaica having received only minimal distribution, Pauchon’s résumé doesn’t give gamers much to go on. But Yspahan’s good reputation and strong reviews—along with the Ystari name—will undoubtedly be enough to get gamers to try Metropolys, Pauchon’s newest solo design that’s due out in Spring 2008.
Game Preview: Surf’s Up, Dude!
By W. Eric Martin
January 16, 2008
Publisher: Jolly Roger Games
Designers: Alan R. Moon & Aaron Weisblum
Players: 2-6
Ages: 8+
Playing Time: 30 minutes
Release Date: January 2008
Starting in 2001, Alan R. Moon and Aaron Weissblum have been the gaming community’s Lennon and McCartney, its Simon and Garfunkel. The pair has designed many well-received games—the 10 Days series, Capitol, San Marco, New England, Oasis, King’s Breakfast, Mammoth Hunters. Okay, maybe not Mammoth Hunters, but if you saw those two names on the box, you were usually keen to give the game a fair shot.
Every partnership must come to an end, and Surf’s Up, Dude! is the final ride for this team, although Moon has in fact said that the game was designed a few years ago, not recently.
Game Preview: Gumball Rally Designer Preview
By Ted Cheatham
December 15, 2007
Publisher: Z-Man Games
Designer: Ted Cheatham
Players: 3-8
Ages: 6+
Playing Time: 30 minutes
Release Date: October 2007
[Editor’s note: Designer Ted Cheatham has contributed a number of video recordings of game reviews to BGN over the past two years, in addition to a special video preview of Silk Road, his first published game which was co-designed by Bruno Faidutti. Now Ted is back in the interviewee’s chair, talking about newest game release, Gumball Rally.]
Game Preview: BattleLore Scottish Wars
By W. Eric Martin
December 4, 2007
Publisher: Days of Wonder
Designer: Richard Borg
Players: 2
Playing Time: Varies
Price: $30
Release Date: End of December 2007
Hammer of the Scots from Jerry Taylor and Columbia Games has already given gamers one take on the Scottish wars for independence, but just as there’s more than one way to tell a story, there’s more than one way to depict history in games.
Thus, Days of Wonder is bringing us the highland battles from a perspective that stands about three feet high. Yes, the Dwarves are back in a Scottish Wars expansion for BattleLore, and they’re part of the battles to toss out the English Edwards. Here are this expansions contents:
- 42 sculpted new figures including: 6 Iron Dwarves Cattle Riders, 8 Iron Dwarves Clan Chiefs, 12 Mounted Knights, and 16 Iron Dwarves Spear Bearers
- 24 New banners (12 for each camp)
- Rules Booklet with 5 new adventures - Stirling Bridge, Falkirk, Bannockburn, Dupplin Moor and Neville’s Cross.
- Seven Specialist cards, three Unit Summary cards and two Weapon Summary cards
Game Preview: Memoir ‘44 Air Pack
By W. Eric Martin
December 3, 2007
Publisher: Days of Wonder
Designer: Richard Borg
Players: 2
Playing Time: Varies
Price: approx. $40
Rules: English & French (both available for download)
Release Date: Week of December 17, 2007
Three years after the launch of Memoir ‘44, the battle gets taken to the skies with the Air Pack expansion. Air Pack includes eight painted airplane miniatures, with rules for how to incorporate them into any of the published or homemade scenarios. Designer Richard Borg says that adding airplanes to existing scenarios tweaks them in interesting ways, yet the air power doesn’t dominate the battle and make the ground forces to an afterthought.
What’s more, all of the published scenarios from the base game and the expansion packs (Terrain Pack, Eastern Front, Pacific Theater) have been revised and assembled into a single glossy book. Borg points out that the terrain and other tiles that didn’t exist when the main game was published have now been incorporated into the scenarios.
Game Preview: Gubs
By W. Eric Martin
October 26, 2007
Publisher: Cole Medeiros Games
Designers: Alex & Cole Medeiros
Artwork: Darin Quan
Players: 2-6
Playing Time: 15-30 minutes
Release Date: October 2007
Game designers Alex and Cole Medeiros are hitting the market the way that many first times do, with a small card game. The game is called Gubs, after the little creatures who decorate the cards, creatures that Cole Medeiros has been drawing for more than a decade, creatures that you need to capture in order to win the game.
The Gubs deck consists of gubs, traps, hazards, barricades, events, and a few other odds and ends. Your goal is to have the most gubs under your control when the game ends, and all the other cards provide tools in order to make this happen.
Game turns have an optional draw phase, a play phase in which you can play as many cards as you wish, and a discard phase. The heart of the game is the play phase as you can combine the cards for multiple effects.
Game Preview: ETI
By W. Eric Martin
October 22, 2007
Publisher: Eye-Level Entertainment
Designer: Mark and Matt Anticole
Players: 3-6
Ages: 12+
Playing Time: 60-120 minutes
Release Date: January 2008 at the latest
Eye-Level Entertainment has made a name for itself through Nature of the Beast, a non-collectible card game that is still somewhat collectible since different sets are available. Eye-Level had planned to release a new Nature of the Beast set in 2007, but the Prairie vs. Polar battle box will instead appear in the summer of 2008, just in time for the North American convention circuit.
Instead, Eye-Level will release ETI, which stands for Estimated Time to Invasion. As the name might clue you in, ETI is going to sic a bunch of aliens on us hapless humans. Naturally, players get to do something to defend the planet. According to Matt Anticole, ETI “revolves around the idea of researching advanced new technologies in preparation for an alien invasion.”
Unbeknownst to all loyal humans, one player is secretly fulfilling his dream of being an Alien Patsy and will do what he can to aid the aliens once they start invading our precious planet. “There are plenty of strategic options available to the Alien player, but he has to be careful not to be too conspicuous about his dastardly plans or else the other players might grow suspicious,” says Matt. If all the Human Facilities (non-alien players) are destroyed, then the slimy aliens win; if one Human Facility remains, then that player wins.; if more than one Human Facility survives the attack, then the player with the most Fame wins. Fame is acquired during the game by completing projects and through other decisions, such as making your research public rather than keeping it secret.
Game Preview: Laborigines
By W. Eric Martin
October 16, 2007
Publisher: Czech Board Games
Designers: Tomas & Jakub Uhlir
Players: 2-6
Ages: 8+
Playing Time: 30-60 minutes
Release Date: October 2007
Downloadable rules: English
People who complain about boring themes might be looking in the wrong corners of the game world because the unusual and unexpected is out there, just waiting to be discovered. Take, for example, Laborigines, one of two new titles from Czech Board Games, the company that stormed into Spiel in 2006 with Through the Ages and Graenaland.
Laborigines puts players in the role of oddball creatures created through scientific experiments who now suffer the perils of the laboratory environment in which they were born and thrashings from a disturbing-looking brute named Moa. Your goal: Survive longer than anyone else and earn your freedom from the lab.
The game plays like an extended chase between cat and mouse—or since these are genetically mutated creatures, jabberwocks and hufflepuffs. The lab is represented by a ring of discs, which have different colors or symbols on both sides, and each laborigine (and Moa) starts on a disc. On a turn, you roll two dice, assign one die to Moa and one die to your laborigine. If you are infected—more on that later—you carry out the effect of any disease currently running through the lab.
Game Preview: Race for the Galaxy Designer Preview #3
By Tom Lehmann
October 8, 2007
Publisher: Rio Grande Games / Ystari Games
Designer: Tom Lehmann
Artwork: Mirko Suzuki (graphics) & Martin Hoffman and Claus Stephan (illustrations)
Players: 2-4
Ages: 12+
Playing Time: 20-40 minutes
Release Date: October 2007
Price: $34.95
[This is the third of three previews that BGN will run before RftG is published, and it includes a downloadable English rulebook. The long wait is almost over...]
In this final preview before Race for the Galaxy is released (expected release at Essen), I’ll touch on some issues that arose during its development.
Race for the Galaxy’s initial development was extremely smooth, mainly because I reused so many card ideas from my old Duel for the Stars prototype. In one week, I constructed the first deck, tested and revised it, and had a working game which was quite popular with playtesters.
One choice I made was to have a very large card set (over 90 different cards, some with multiple powers), but not to overwhelm new players with lots of “specialized” powers.
Most powers are “parameterized"—that is, variations on a theme. For example, drawing one extra card when you sell a good and drawing two extra cards when you sell a good are two separate powers, but once you’ve learned one of them, learning the other power is trivial. Depending on how you count variations like this, there are about 37 different powers in the Race for the Galaxy base set. For comparison, San Juan has about 20 different powers for its roughly 30 distinct cards.
Game Preview: Hamburgum
By W. Eric Martin
October 2, 2007
Publishers: Eggertspiele / Rio Grande Games
Designer: Mac Gerdts
Players: 2-5
Ages: 12+
Playing Time: 75-90 minutes
Release Date: October 2007
With Imperial, game designer Mac Gerdts gave players the chance to run the entire European continent. In his latest game, Hamburgum—which debuts at the Spiel game fair in Essen, Germany in mid-October 2007—he’s asking players to think smaller. More importantly, he’s asking them to be generous. After all, to win this game you need prestige points, and to earn prestige you must donate to the building of Hamburg’s six churches.
Why choose Hamburg for a game setting? Hamburg is the second largest city in Germany and the second largest port city in all of Europe, but of more importance perhaps is that Mac Gerdts lives in Hamburg and has long wanted to incorporate the city’s history into a boardgame. “When researching, I decided to set it in the 17th century, which was a golden era for the city,” he says. “Hamburg was a prospering port and eventually became the biggest city of Germany at that time. It was a secure haven for Protestant refugees, and as only citizens with Lutheran beliefs were allowed to get official posts, the Church of Hamburg had to play an important role. At the same time, Hamburg was quite a modern city with many republican elements in its constitution, which was not natural in a time when absolutism was on the rise elsewhere.”
Game Preview: Borneo
By Andrea “Liga” Ligabue & W. Eric Martin
September 25, 2007
Publisher: daVinci Games / Lucca Comics & Games
Designer: Paolo Mori
Artwork: Alberto Bontempi
Players: 3-5
Ages: 10+
Playing Time: 30-45 minutes
Languages: Italian / English* / German*
Release Date: October 2007 / 2008 (see below)
Set in Europe during the XVII century, Borneo is a game about merchants, ships and spices. Each player tries to have his merchants in the right place at the right moment when one of the different sea companies starts loading the cargo for an expedition.
This card game by Paolo Mori, whose first published title was UR in 2006, won the Best Unpublished Game (BUG) contest—the Gioco Inedito—held annually by daVinci Editrice and Lucca Comics & Games, a famous Italian convention for gamers and comic readers. As with Lucca Città and Oriente, two previous daVinci publications, Borneo was chosen from among dozens of other game prototypes to be developed and published.
Game Preview: Quinamid
By W. Eric Martin
September 5, 2007
Publisher: Third Dynasty Games
Designer: Antony Brown
Players: 2
Ages: 8+
Playing Time: 15 minutes
Price: €25
Languages: English, German, French, Spanish, Dutch & Italian
Release Date: October 2007
You’ve undoubtedly encountered this winning condition before, so let’s get that out of the way first: The first player to create a line of five counters wins. Naturally there has to be a twist. The twist for Quinamid, says designer Antony Brown, “is that the counters are placed in a series of five boards of differing size that are formed to make a pyramid.”
On a turn, a player must make one of three moves:
- Place a counter in a vacant space,
- Rotate a board (including those boards above it) 90 degrees, or
- Move a board (including those boards above it) one position in any orthogonal direction.
Game Preview: Conquest of Paradise
By W. Eric Martin
August 31, 2007
Publisher: GMT Games
Designer: Kevin McPartland
Players: 2-4
Playing Time: 60-90 minutes
Price: $46
Rules: Available for download (PDF) from GMT
Release Date: October 2007
After years spent in the GMT P500 queue, Kevin McPartland’s long awaited Conquest of Paradise is just over the horizon, but if you’re hearing about the game for the first time, let’s start with a description from the publisher:
Game Preview: Galaxy Trucker
By W. Eric Martin
August 22, 2007
Publisher: Czech Games Edition
Designer: Vladimír Chvátil
Players: 2-4
Ages: 10+
Playing Time: 60 minutes
Languages: English, German or Czech
Release Date: October 2007
The housing market may have slowed in the U.S. since the start of 2007, but there’s always room for growth in other parts of the world. Heck, why think small? Let’s start exploring the intergalactic housing markets for new business opportunities. Czech designer Vladimír Chvátil is already there with his newest publication, Galaxy Trucker. Here’s a description of the game from publisher Czech Games Edition:
Game Preview: Monkey Business
By W. Eric Martin
August 20, 2007
Publisher: Gigantoskop
Designer: Peter Hansson
Players: 2-6
Ages: 10+
Playing Time: 15-45 minutes
Languages: English, German, or Swedish
Release Date: October 2007
Swedish publisher Gigantoskop is returning to its roots this fall with an expansion for the company’s first game release in 2003. In the card game Spank the Monkey, players had to pile up junk to commit domestic abuse on a primate who had invaded a junkyard. Now players get to reach into their wallets and add a few more tools to their arsenal. Here’s a description of the game from the publisher:
Game Preview: League of Six
By W. Eric Martin
August 17, 2007
Publisher: Czech Games Edition
Designer: Vladimir Suchy
Players: 3-5
Ages: 12+
Playing Time: 60-90 minutes
Release Date: October 2007 (Spiel)
Czech Games Edition—the new company from Vladimir Chvatil, Petr Murmak and others—is releasing two titles at Spiel 07, and one of them is the first release from a new designer, Vladimir Suchy. (No, not all Czech game designers are named Vladimir.) Here’s an overview of League of Six:
Game Preview: Medievalia
by Andrea “Liga” Ligabue & W. Eric Martin
August 8, 2007
Publisher: Giochix.it
Designer: Michele Quondam
Players: 2-4
Ages: 10+
Playing Time: 50 minutes
Languages: Italian, English, German
Release Date: Essen 2007
You’ve just been bequeathed a plot of land by the King and named Lord of your own fief. Of course, your worst enemies have been granted plots of their own, right next to yours in fact, and they’re now plotting to get you out of the way. Time to build up your land—and fast—to protect yourself and show your charming neighbors who really deserves to hold onto the land.
Game Preview: Bulp!
by Andrea “Liga” Ligabue & W. Eric Martin
August 6, 2007
Publisher: Giochix Edizioni
Designer: Michele Quondam
Players: 2-4 (5-8 with 2 decks)
Ages: 8+
Playing Time: 20 minutes
Languages: Italian, English, German (See below)
Release Date: Essen 2007
A water spring has been discovered on the hill of Bulp, but the trickle of this precious fluid is so meager that it can serve only one of the surrounding villages. Rather than decide which village should receive this bounty—and thus enrage all of the villages not so blessed—the governor has decreed that the first village to successfully run pipe from the spring to its border has permanent rights to the water. Expect sabotage from your fellow players, and prepare to wreck a little mischief of your own.
Game Preview: Fair Play
by Andrea “Liga” Ligabue & W. Eric Martin
August 3, 2007
Publisher: Pangea - Niente Troppo (See below)
Designer: Andrea Angiolino
Artwork: Valeria De Caterini
Players: 2-6
Ages: 11+
Playing Time: 90 minutes
Languages: Italian, Greek, Maltese, Portugese & Czech
Release Date: September 2007
Andrea Angiolino is best known for the Wings of War series of games from Fantasy Flight and Nexus, but he’s designed more than twenty other games as well, many of which lie far afield of aircraft combat. Fair Play just might be the most obvious example of such a game.
Game Preview: Uptown
By W. Eric Martin
July 31, 2007
Publisher: Funagain Games
Designer: Kory Heath
Players: 2-5
Ages: 8+
Playing Time: 30-40 minutes
Release Date: Summer 2007
Before I start looking at the game itself, I want to spend a moment on part of the box copy for Uptown. Here’s the opening paragraph in all its fevered glory:
| It was a hot August night in ‘23—the “Roarin’ 20’s”! Enzo and Alex were headed UPTOWN for a night of blues, blackjack, bubbly, and fun again at FRED’s. They donned top hats and canes, grabbed their limo, and picked up YuYu, lookin’ flapper-fine, dressed to the nines and flashing that 4k diamond ring. Suddenly, out of nowhere, THIS BOX appeared. They opened it and heard: “Your mission is to create a unified group tonight. It is as easy as 1-2-3; minding your ABCs; and melding into familiar territory. Achieve this witout capturing your companions and your name will like in UPTOWN fame forever!” They were told that if they failed, this mission would pass on to others in distant cities and countries. Given that you now hold THIS BOX in your hands, it looks like that UPTOWN mission is now yours! |
What a trippy, beat game description! Charlie Kaufman seems to have landed a job at a certain game publisher, or perhaps he’s writing sales copy only on a freelance basis. In any case, I’d like nothing better than to make unified groups this evening, so let’s look more closely at how the game is played.
Game Preview: Easy School
by Andrea “Liga” Ligabue & W. Eric Martin
July 30, 2007
Publisher: Red Glove
Designer: Michele Mura
Artwork: Drow Art Studio
Players: 3-5
Ages: 8+
Playing Time: 15-30 minutes
Languages: Italian, English, French, German and Spanish
Release Date: September 2007
While the list of potentially boring game themes is extensive—real speed sock-sorting, a race game about paint drying, anything involving hedge trimmers—few themes are the stuff of nightmares.
Michele “Favar” Mura, however, has dared to go where other game designers have feared to tread. In Easy School, each player takes on the role of a college student who has to pass as many exams as possible. To succeed in this quest, players may ask for help from nerds, hack computers to change their marks, give gifts to teachers, and (to throw out an oddball suggestion) study. As those who recall their university days will recall, stress is always right around the corner, and stressed students can’t hope to succeed. Students can just try to avoid stress or they can look for relaxation by interrupting their opponents’ own attempts to study.
Game Preview: Age of Steam: Jamaica/Puerto Rico
By W. Eric Martin
July 27, 2007
Publisher: Bézier Games
Designer: Ted Alspach
Players: 1-2
Release Date: October 2007
Ted Alspach is releasing a half-dozen new Age of Steam maps at Spiel 07, and two-thirds of those maps are for only one or two players, thereby serving an underserved market. One set of those maps is Age of Steam: Jamaica/Puerto Rico, which allows players to set up rail empires in tiny temperate nations.
Game Preview: Chang Cheng
by Andrea “Liga” Ligabue
Updated week # 4 - 26-07-2007
Publisher: TenkiGames
Designer: Walter Obert
Players: 2-4
Ages: 12+
Playing Time: 60 minutes
Release Date: August 2007
I’ll be updating this new in the next weeks. I’ll write a full preview in the end of July, just before the final release.
week #1: quick description and box art
week #2: the action cards
week #3: the mongols
week #4: the map
week #5: designer’s notes and pictures of the bits
Game Preview: Age of Steam: Barbados/St. Lucia
By W. Eric Martin
July 25, 2007
Publisher: Bézier Games
Designer: Ted Alspach
Players: 1-2
Release Date: October 2007
Aside from the large and meaty America/Europe expansion, Ted Alspach has created a few smaller, more intimate maps for Age of Steam, which he’s debuting at Spiel 07 in a six-pack of new maps. The first set of smaller maps we’ll look at is Age of Steam: Barbados/St. Lucia.
Game Preview: Jungle
by Andrea “Liga” Ligabue
Updated week # 5 - 24-07-2007
Publisher: Tenkigames
Designer: Piero Cioni
Players: 3-6
Ages: 8+
Playing Time: 45 minutes
Release Date: postponed
Tenkigames has just notified BGN that the production of Jungle will be postponed, and the game won’t be available at Essen in 2007. Everything below is now an example of what could have been or what will someday be.
I’ll be updating this new in the next weeks. I’ll write a full preview in the end of July, just before the final release.
week #1: quick description and box art
week #2: the characters
week #3: the object cards
week #4: ghost!
week #5: Designer Notes
