Andrea “Liga” Ligabue: Games in Italy, 2007

It’s that time of year when people are inclined to look back and ahead, ahead and back. Kids and romantics make promises and resolutions; scientists and engineers write reports and lists; and gamers—who are both kids and romantics, not to mention scientists and engineers—like to make game-related resolutions and reports!

I’d like to adopt Dale Yu’s resolution to play more. It’s something I need and I want! But for now I’ll focus on a report, in my personal view, of what has happened in Italy over the last twelve months: Publishers, designers, conventions and everything else that interests me and, I hope, you. I won’t claim to be exhaustive, but I’ve done my best to be as complete as possible.

Publishers: Large and Small, Self- and Selfless

First, I have to report that everyone in Italy seems to be developing a game. We are used to thinking that everyone says, “If I have time, I’ll write a book” but in Italy it now seems that everyone is developing a game!

A lot of new designers are pressing to make a place themselves in the game world; self-publishers are turning into small publishers, and small publishers are growing larger. Of course in the fierce fight for survival, if someone is going up, someone else is probably going down. I’m not sure whether more small publishers is good or bad, but I am sure that some of the more interesting ideas and games of the last year came from small publishers. (Look at the International Gamers Award winners in 2007 if you need proof!)

The market standards are rising. For a game to be noticed, it must be both good and appealing, and small and self-publishers also need to rise up to this standard. Of course, more games, designers and publishers also means more average and bad games. That’s the other side of the coin, but that’s okay for me as long as I have the skill to discern which are which, the time to play, and wise advice!

So welcome to Giochix, Homo Ludens (they still have to publish a game but they exist!), La Ludoteca de Cacciatori di Teste, Pangea - Niente di Troppo, and Red Glove. They are all, more or less, new small publishers. Ghenos Games, Scribabs and Post Scriptum are finishing the passage from self-publishers to publishers as they now publish games from other designers. Big publishers like Nexus and daVinci have been enriching their catalogues.

MdmV Games and Indie Games are new self-publishers, but there are too many to report on all of them since self-publishing areas have appeared like mushrooms in all the Italian conventions, thanks to pioneers like Angelo Porazzi who makes self-publishing his way of life!

I’m sorry to report no new games from Mind the Move and Zugames, two really interesting small publishers.

The Stats

Enough with the poems—here’s the data:

• 48 games published with one or more Italian designer
• 22 Italian publishers (including self-publishers) released new games or expansions in 2007
• 6 (at least) non-Italian publishers released games designed by Italians in 2007
• 3 (at least) Italian publishers released games designed by famous non-Italian designers
• 39 Italian designers released games in 2007 (which means I still have someone to interview for Cosa Bolle in Pentola?)

Designers and Publishers

The most active Italian designers of 2007 are:

• Leo Colovini (again) with 5 games (only one alone)
• Dario de Tofoli with 4 games
• Waletr Obert with 3 games
• Andrea Angiolino and Spartaco Albertarelli with 2 games each

The most active publishers are

• Nexus, with 6 games
• Clementoni, with 4 games
• daVinci and Stratelibri with 3 games

The Gory Details

This past year was also nice for game events. ModCon has reached the top, and for the next year we are looking for a better and bigger place since we are too much! A lot of small cons and events all around Italy are helping the game movement to spread, but we still have to grow!

Game Master Magazine, an Italian game magazine about all sort of games, has survived its second year, and Oracolo (Nexus Games) is going well supporting the CCG world. A new free downloadable magazine, ILSA, was released in the final months of the 2007, and other small fanzines (Dragoniere, ITP) are also online.

I’ll give a more detailed report, game by game, in later articles here or elsewhere, but for now here’s a small overview of publishers in alphabetical order:

• Angelo Porazzi Games: Angelo, the most prolific self-publisher, continued his trend of producing light, family-oriented games with BOL, Scaraball/Dodecaedron and LovePigs (published by Post Scriptum). His neverending WarAngel got a new reincarnation in the formula “Create Your WarAngel”.

• Clementoni: I’m not reporting all of the Clementoni releases, but just the ones from “famous” designers that could be of some interest for us: four games from Leo Colovini and co-designers.

• Dal Negro: Two simple but nice card games from Dario de Toffoli: Savana and Poker Cinese.

• daVinci Games: The top seller Bang! get a deluxe bullet edition. Also Borneo (from Paolo Mori) and F.A.T.A.L, a game that is not only a game but also an interesting multi-media project.

• Editrice Giochi: Spartaco Albertarelli had two games published by EG: Petropoli and Dust.

• Ghenos Games: Ghenos continues with its sport simulation releases: additional Bolide tracks, Race the Wind (about sailing races), Rubgy World and Camper Tour.

• Giochix: Giochi make its debut in society with two games: the nice Medievalia and the not so good Bulp!

• MdMV Games: This self-publisher/small publisher presented Daedalus.

• Nexus Games: Nexus is our flagship: Garibaldi: La Trafila, a horde of Wings of War releases, and Rattlesnake. Soon, in the first months of 2008, we will have also Micro Mutants Evolutions.

• Pangea - Niente di Troppo: This is not a true game company, but it did publish an Andrea Angiolino game this year: Fair play, about cotton production.

• Post Scriptum: Produced a light party game from Angelo Porazzi: LovePigs

• Red Glove: Although it started as a RPG publisher, Red Glove took steps into the board game world; after Koala in 2006, this year brought Easy School from Michele Mura.

• Rose & Poison: Canossa from Walt Castagno: a nice quite abstract game.

• Scribabs: This year Paolo Vallerga published another Walter Obert game: StarSystem, which is a really nice and funny two-player deduction game with a movie setting.

• Stratelibri: Stratelibri published Si Oscuro Padrino, Kragmortha and also Kingsburg, one of the best Italian games in 2007.

• TenkiGames: Released Chang Cheng from Walter Obert, another really good game.

• What’s Your Game?: After Leonardo da Vinci, Acchittocca gave us another quite good game: Ghost for Sale, a light deduction/bluffing game with a ghost theme.

Good play,
Liga

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