Convention Preview: Spiel 2007 – Publishers A-M
By W. Eric Martin
Translations by Patrick Korner and WEM
To give you an idea of the awesome breadth of the BGN Spiel 2008 preview, last year’s Spiel preview is posted here for all to see. Because of its immense size, the preview is split into two parts with this half including the publishers beginning with letters A-M. (Publishers N-Z are available elsewhere.)
Due to the hundreds of hours needed to create each preview – which includes exclusive designer interviews and first impressions of games yet to be released – access to the Spiel 2008 preview is limited to BGN members only. Support Boardgame News and get an encyclopedic look at what your gaming future holds at the same time by becoming a BGN member. The cost is $25, and if this coverage saves you from buying just one stinker, you’ve made your money back. (More likely, of course, you’ll make a shopping list that will have you eating rice and beans for a month to afford all the cool titles coming out, but let’s not go there.)
Last Update: November 20, 2007
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| Jambo Erweiterung
Publisher: 12Spiel
A 55-card expansion set (in German) for Dorn’s Jambo, which was published by Kosmos. The expansion is self-published, and available through the German retailer 12spiel.de, which has a booth at Spiel. | |||||||||||||
 | Filou: Die Katze im Sack
Publisher: 2F-Spiele
Here’s an edited overview and game description from the publisher:
Rio Grande will publish Filou under the title Felix: The Cat in the Sack.
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| Funkenschlag: Die neuen Kraftwerkskarten
Publisher: 2F-Spiele
Friedemann Friese has designed a stand-alone deck of power plants to kick Power Grid fans in entirely unexpected directions. These power plants differ from those in the main game in cost, cities supplied, and raw material required, and you can incorporate them into your game by either (a) replacing your original deck with this one, (b) combining the two and throwing out duplicates as they appear, (c) creating a customized deck to emphasize certain types of fuel or some other game characteristic, or (d) throwing together a huge power plant stack to play Power Grid + in which you need to connect to 20 cities.
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 | Darjeeling
Publisher: Abacusspiele
You and your fellow players are trying to gather the best teas possible by crossing back and forth over an area composed of tiles showing 1-3 half-boxes of tea. You’re trying to put together as much tea of one type as possible in order to prepare it for shipment. The popularity of the tea matters for the victory points you earn, as does its age.
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| Zooloretto giveaway
Publisher: Abacusspiele
Michael Schacht announced in his August 2007 newsletter that the Abacus booth will have a Zooloretto-related giveaway that’s available on a first come, first served basis. This expansion is addition to the one due to appear in Spielbox issue 5/07. I hope it’s platypuses. Every game could use a platypus. | |||||||||||||
 | Bello
Publisher: Adlung-Spiele
A pattern-recognition game in which you’re trying to spot the dogs and watch out for confusing similarities.
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| Manimals: Dinos 1
Publisher: Adlung-Spiele
After the release of the original Manimals on 2006, Adlung has expanded the concept—which involves asking the players for examples of particular groups, such as “animals without noses"—with additional cards in a new category.
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| Manimals: Europa 1
Publisher: Adlung-Spiele
After the release of the original Manimals on 2006, Adlung has expanded the concept—which involves asking the players for examples of particular groups, such as “animals without noses"—with additional cards in a new category.
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| Oups,...Französisch
Publisher: Adlung-Spiele
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| Palastgeflüster
Publisher: Adlung-Spiele
A brief, translated description of the game: “There’s discontent in the courtyard of the king, and intrigue is being spun: The courtyard marshall has vanished with the treasurer, and the maid is whispering with the magician. He who behaves with loyalty will be rewarded and secure for himself the favor of the king.”
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| Teamwork: Fests & Feiern
Publisher: Adlung-Spiele
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| Teamwork: Mathematik
Publisher: Adlung-Spiele
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 | Paartie
Publisher: Aktuell-Spiele-Verlag
Here’s a brief description of this communication-based game, courtesy of Patrick Korner:
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| |  Age of Steam: War in Iraq / New York Subway
Publisher & Designer: Alban Viard
Alban Viard, designer of two highly-rated Age of Steam expansions—the Moon and Mars: Global Surveyor—is releasing a new pair of Age of Steam expansions at Spiel, and although the locations are Earthbound this time, they’re probably not ones you would have expected to see. Age of Steam: War in Iraq, which is for 3-4 players, takes place in the Iraqi desert sometime after the end of the current conflict. (Viard has wisely not included a date for this setting.) Lucrative new oil fields have just been discovered, and your goal is to ship this oil off to the U.S. and Europe. Viard says, “The U.S. Army will, of course, aid your cause...” Age of Steam: New York Subway is for 3-6 players, with Viard saying it’s probably best with 6. Although the clouds on the map might suggest otherwise, players are charged with building subway routes underneath Manhattan skyscrapers. “This map features innovative rules which drastically augment both the track building and goods shipment phases of the game,” says Viard. “In a few words,” Viard explains, “cubes represent the stations, discs are the goods, and cities are skyscrapers, so discs can be tranported and are stacked to symbolize skyscrapers. Before placing stations, you have to dig the subway by placing tiles with the black side face-up (creating a kind of hole in the map...). I have also changed the way to score to create a relation between the height of the skyscrapers in the last turn and the number of stations that players have nearby.” As for the clouds, Viard says the board is one part of NYC viewed from the clouds with the names of skyscrapers printed on the map instead of cities. The full-color maps are printed on double-sided heavy stock and packaged in a triangular tube—along with 12 green wooden cubes (for the six-player NY game) and rules in English and French—that’s illustrated by cartoonist Brian Barling, whose work appears both in the Christian Science Monitor and on BoardGameGeek. “I love the cartoons he draws,” says Viard. “Because of the theme of the maps this year, i thought it was a fantastic idea to ask him to draw two cartoons to represent my expansions. I did not know him, but he is a very kind grognard and he agreed to make this job for me.” This expansion will be available only at Spiel in the Winsome Games booth on Thursday, October 18th, from 10am to noon. To reserve a copy of Age of Steam: War in Iraq/New York Subway, which costs €25, email ageofsteam07@yahoo.fr. Viard also has a few copies left of his previous Moon and Mars AoS expansions, so ask for those at the same time if you’re interested.
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 | Im Jahr des Drachen
Publisher: alea
Here’s a translated description of the game from alea:
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 | 4 in 1
Publisher: Amigo Spiele
As the title suggests, this is a collection of four games, specifically four trick-taking games:
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| Aus die Maus!
Publisher: Amigo Spiele
A new edition of Maus pass auf!, which Amigo published in 2004. Here’s a translated description of this card game:
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| Bohnanza: das Fanbuch
Publisher: Amigo Spiele
This item isn’t a game, but a history of the development of Bohnanza, its expansions, and the boardgame, with profiles of the designer and illustrator.
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| Bohnröschen
Publisher: Amigo Spiele
The Bohnanza universe expands yet again, beaning fairy tales in this installment:
Note that you need either Bohnanza or Ladybohn to play this expansion.
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| Gangster
Publisher: Amigo Spiele
Here’s a translated game description from the publisher:
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| Lauras Ertse Übernachtung
Publisher: Amigo Spiele
Here’s a translated description of this game, which would be called something like “Laura’s First Sleepover” in English:
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| Little Amadeus Maestro
Publisher: Amigo Spiele
A new edition of Hoffman’s Maestro, which first appeared from Hans im Glück in 1989. Here’s a new description of the game as well, as translated by Patrick Korner:
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 Patrizier
Publisher: Amigo Spiele
Mayfair Games is publishing an English language version of this game under the title Patrician. Head to the Patrician entry under Mayfair for details of game play.
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| Schnapp, Land, Fluß
Publisher: Amigo Spiele
A new edition, with a smaller box, of a game that was first released in 2002. Schnapp, Land, Fluß! is a reaction game in which a number of letter cards are laid out face-up, then a category is revealed. Whoever thinks of something that fits the category and starts with a letter on the table slaps that card, claiming the card (worth one point for blue cards, two points for red) and revealing the next category.
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| Ziegen Kriegen
Publisher: Amigo Spiele
The title is a play on words and can mean both “Goat War” or “Goat-Getting” (i.e. “Get Your Goat"). In any case, here’s a description of the game, as translated by Patrick Korner:
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 | BOL (Balls of Light)
Publisher: Angelo Porazzi Games
Players are balls of light competing in a race (around a cyclotron perhaps?), and they can receive special powers if they pick up energy balls on their way around the course. You can also bump other players. Each turn, a player says a number, then rolls two dice: If the total rolled is lower than your number, you move a number of spaces on the track up to the total rolled; if the total rolled is higher, then double your number and move that many spaces; if the total rolled matches your number, triple your number and move.
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| Create YOUR Warangel
Publisher: Angelo Porazzi Games
In an effort to provide all gamers with the Warangel mix that they want, Porazzi is selling customized sets of Warangel. You can order multiple races, multiple maps, multiple reference sheets, and so on. To see everything that’s available, visit Porazzi’s Create YOUR Warangel webpage. Says Porazzi, “At Essen I will bring several races already painted and mounted to offer a wide choice of races, maps, sheets...” In fact, at least 80 races will be available with rules in English.
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| Defence for Agarthi
Designer/Self-publisher: Pierluca Zizzi
A brief description from the designer: “ There is a world that from time to time suffers the chaos forces invasions. There are implacable enemies with supernatural powers dedicated to war and destruction. There are the watchmen of the cosmic balance who want to defend that world. Which are the forces YOU will side up with?” | |||||||||||||
| Porcellini (Love Pigs)
Publisher: Angelo Porazzi Games
Italian publisher Post Scriptum is handling the production for Porcellini, but the box carries the APG logo as well. Head to the Porcellini listing under Post Scriptum for game details. | |||||||||||||
| Scaraball
Publisher: Angelo Porazzi Games
Scaraball comes paired with Dodecaedron 2007, and both games use the same components: a hexagonal playing field, a “ball” token, and teams of athletes. In Dodecaedron 2007, a player uses his fingertips to push his team in order to move the Dodecaedron Cap (called the DOD) into an enemy goal—but not so far that it passes through the goal. A boardgame version of curling, if you will. For Scaraball, players don’t use their fingers to move their team members, but a deck of “hit cards” that allow players to hit the DOD or opponents with their team members. In addition to trying to score goals with the DOD (worth three points), you also score by pushing opponents from the field (one point).
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 | 1001 Karawane
Publisher: 1001 Karawane
A description of the game from Argentum’s 2007 catalog:
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| Die Jagd nach dem Gral
Publisher: Argentum Verlag
A description of the game, which appears to be a remake of Eric Solomon’s Conspiracy, from Argentum’s 2007 catalog:
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 | Down Under
Publisher: Bambus Spieleverlag
Here’s a description of Down Under from the publisher, which includes a second game that’s played with the same components:
Down Under comes with a twenty-page (German) brochure of information and photos related to Australia written by Elke Meinert. Cornett notes that the main shipment of the game will arrive one or two weeks after Spiel. “At the fair I’ll have a demonstration game and 100 games in simple quality,” he says.
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| So spielt die Welt
Publisher: Bambus Spieleverlag
A book (in German) about games and game players from thirteen countries, along with rules for classic games from those countries and new games by Michael Schacht, Rudi Hoffman and Ingo Althöfer.
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 Sudoku Moyo
Publisher: intellego holzspiele
Gamers have been slammed with Sudoku board and card games over the past couple of years, so it might seem odd for yet another one to debut in mid-2007 after the apparent crest of the trend, but Günter Cornett has created a different take on the game, one that turns it into a pure two-player abstract. In Cornett’s version, the central region remains neutral ground, while each player owns and plays in four of the remaining regions. Players have all their pieces (black or red) available to them, and their goal is to create unplayable spaces in the opponent’s fields. Whoever does this best wins.
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| | Arctica
Publisher: Beleduc
A game to promote color and shape recognition, with four variants that all require you to complete your igloo before anyone else.
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| Mariposa
Publisher: Beleduc
Players assemble butterflies to learn how to recognize colors and the proper ways to match them.
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| Quasselbox
Publisher: Beleduc
The two young players find printed and illustrated tasks in the wooden box, and they must successfully explain a randomly chosen task to the other player so that player can solve it. The designers are both educators, and the game is meant to promote verbal abilities.
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 | Linq
Publisher: BeWitched Spiele
Andrea Meyer was showing a prototype of Linq, which was published in English by Endless Games in 2004, at Spiel 06, and the game might be ready for release this October. The game requires a combination of bluffing and deduction; two players each turn receive a card with the same word on it while all other players receive bluff cards. Two rounds of clue-giving take place in which the word holders try to identify each other and everyone else tries to identify them. I think this is one of those games that really need to play to understand…
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 | Age of Steam: America / Europe
Publisher: Bezier Games
Ted Alspach has already released a baker’s half-dozen Age of Steam expansion maps, with settings ranging from the realistic (San Francisco Bay Area) to the otherworldy (Soul Train). In the latter half of 2007, he’s going to nearly double his output of Age of Steam expansions with three new pairs of expansion maps. The most traditional of these new expansions is Age of Steam: America/Europe. This expansion, which comes mounted on gameboard similar to the original Age of Steam, is compatible with both Age of Steam second edition (from Warfrog Games) and the forthcoming Mayfair Games’ Age of Steam.
 Age of Steam: America, for 3-6 players, is set in the 19th century, the golden age of railroading on the North American continent when the U.S. government was throwing money at any company that promised to connect far-flung cities. As such, each player starts the game with a government-subsidized 6-link locomotive that requires no expenses throughout the game. The drawback for all these government handouts is that there’s a scarcity of goods for you and everyone else to deliver; each city starts with only one good, and each turn has only one round of goods delivery. “A lot more thought goes into which good you’ll deliver, and which goods your opponents will deliver,” says Alspach. “In the midgame of a typical AoS game, there are so many cubes and so much track that players often are figuring out which goods they’ll ship on the fly, with the knowledge that if an ideal ‘maxed’ good is taken by another player, there’s undoubtedly other cubes that are as valuable or possibly one link less. In America, you’ll find that each turn you’ll have narrowed your deliverable cube choices down to a small finite number, and you’ll be working towards ensuring delivery of one of those specific cubes.” Players who can’t maximize their plans that efficiently can vie for the Locomotive Action, which in AoS:America gives its lucky holder the right to ship two goods on a turn. “Unlike typical AoS, this action is usually worthless on the first turn of the game, as there just isn’t enough track and available cubes to guarantee taking advantage of the action. In the mid-game, however, it’s exceedingly valuable, as it can catapult you ahead of your opponents by a significant amount of income,” says Alspach. How do these changes affect game play? “One of the results of the single delivery and auto-6-train is that track sharing during the early and midgame is very common; seeing that one of your opponents has access to a certain cube already allows you to build track to extend the number of links to deliver that cube, giving your opponent one or two income while you take four or five,” says Alspach. “Many times you’ll see players split a five or six link delivery, especially in five or six player games, as helping a single opponent and yourself is strategically valid vs. taking less income for a shorter delivery. Jockeying for position is important, but not as critical in the early game. In the late game, you’ll be focusing on deliveries that use only your track, and in many cases players will take measures to prevent you from accessing a city of theirs directly, so you’ll be forced to use their track.” From the past to the present, we move to Age of Steam: Europe, which has three to five players running a high-speed and highly efficient rail system in Western Europe. Speedy delivery takes the form of Express Links, which cost twice as much to build, but which net you two income for each good carried over that link. “Each tile still only counts as a single tile build, so a four tile build between two cities is possible (though expensive) on a single turn,” says Alspach. “You can treat a sea route as an Express Link if you’d like as well, again for double the cost; the London to Paris sea route would cost a player $20 to build as an Express Link, but it can actually pay off quite handsomely for that player by the end of the game, especially if the other towns in England are urbanized.” For the endgame scoring, these Express Link tiles still count for only a single VP. The other switch-up is that goods are added to the board only if someone chooses the Production Action. “When it’s time for Goods Growth, the player with the Production action takes X cubes from the white side of the production chart and X cubes from the black side of the production chart, where X = number of players,” says Alspach. “They can pick from any of the cubes on the production chart (not just from the top rows) that have cities on the map. There are two catches to this. First, if no one chooses the Production action, then NO cubes enter the map that turn. Second, the player with the Production action MUST place the required number of cubes from both the white and black side on the board. That means that it’s often the case that while you’ll bring cubes onto the board to help yourself, you have to be careful not to bring cubes onto the board that are going to be helping your opponents. This has the result of unoccupied cities filling up with cubes quickly; it isn’t uncommon for the ‘corner cities’ of Lisbon, Rome, Sarejavo and Dublin to get all their cubes early on, as the player choosing the city tries to hoard them for themselves as well as populate unconnected cities instead of ones where opponents are.” Adds Alspach, “If you’ve grabbed a section of the map just for yourself (like England/Ireland or Spain/Portugal), you’ll need to grab the Production action in the first few turns or your cubes will dry up.” As mentioned, Age of Steam: America/Europe is one of three expansions that Ted is releasing. The preorder cost for all six maps is $60 plus shipping, unless you plan to pick them up from Ted in Essen in which case there is no shipping charge. Age of Steam: America/Europe should be available for individual order in October for $30; check the link below for details.
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| Age of Steam: Barbados / St. Lucia
Publisher: Bézier Games
Solo Age of Steam maps have appeared online, but Alspach’s Barbados is the first to appear in print. (Well, another solo AoS map will appear at the same time. Details in another preview...) “Age of Steam: Barbados gives you exclusive rights to build a train system on the beautiful Caribbean island of Barbados,” says Alspach. “The first thing you notice is that all the cities want Pineapples (yellow cubes). The second thing you notice is that due to your remote location, you can take out only one share at a time. And finally, you realize that the only way to win is to be able to pay off your shares at the end of the game.” Barbados lasts ten turns, after which you must pay back each share ($5) you’ve taken out. Your score is the cash left on hand. No cash = you lose!
 While Pineapple is the most desired good on Barbados (who knew?), the other goods come into play as well. Says Alspach, “As you begin to connect the cities and towns, you’ll be able to urbanize some of the towns into cities which like Cherries, Blueberries, and Licorice. (There’s not really a black fruit, is there?) There’s no Purple city or goods (sorry, grape-lovers!) in the game, and you can’t urbanize a town into yellow either. (Cities E, F, G and H are not available.)” Adds Alspach, “Goods are on the production chart (all colors except purple) in the top row to start, and if you choose production as your action on a turn, you can add two goods to the production chart. You can even choose production on your first turn since there are spaces available for cubes then—and that’s not a bad strategy at all, actually!” Age of Steam: Barbados features a single-player action selection system to keep the Actions an integral part of the game, despite not having any opponents. “There are four actions available: Engineer, Production, Locomotive, and Urbanization,” says Alspach. “There’s a catch, however. When you choose an action, you put a player marker on it. On the next turn, you have to choose from one of the remaining three actions, and put a marker on that.” Once you’ve chosen all four actions, you clear the board and have all four to choose from again. “Deciding which action to choose each turn adds a new decision making tree to AoS in this way.” Since Barbados is designed for solo play, you naturally want to know about random elements that will make each play different. “The map is initially seeded with random cubes (one per city), and the production chart has a random cube in the top row of each city,” says Alspach. “Goods Growth is somewhat normal (though you roll two dice instead of just one), and there’s also the random grab from the bag if you choose the production action. Placing a kitten on or near the production chart or map can also add to the randomness, but my experience hasn’t been super-positive with that particular variation.” Says Alspach, “You can play a full game, including setup, in less than 30 minutes, and still enjoy all the strategy and fun that Age of Steam has to offer...with absolutely no downtime!” The Caribbean nation of St. Lucia is only 239 square miles, but that’s still enough land for a full-fledged rail system, at least in Ted’s mind. “Age of Steam: St. Lucia is full of natural resources just waiting to be harvested from its fertile ground,” he says. “And what better way to get those resources than by building a complex series of train tracks on the island directly to them!” In Age of Steam: St. Lucia, the goods are scattered across the island, conveniently placed one good per hex. Whichever player builds track to a good has the ability to deliver it. “There are no other goods than the ones placed initially (no goods growth or production),” says Alspach. “You could plan out the entire game before you lay any track—assuming that your opponent doesn’t interfere with your plans...” Game play is quick, since the map is for two players only, and AoS: St. Lucia features a special two-player turn/action selection system. Unlike AoS: Austria, which has a fixed turn-order system, St. Lucia has a “turn order/action selection mechanism that adds back some tension for turn order and action selection,” says Alspach. “Turn order alternates for the length of the game, but there’s a catch. In order to go first, the player who is scheduled to go first must pay $5. If they do not (either because they don’t want to or cannot), their opponent has an opportunity to pay $5 to go first. If the opponent declines, the original player gets to go first for free.” But wait, there’s still more! “To make it even more interesting,” Ted continues, “turn order is determined before shares are taken, so you’ll have to have money left over from the previous turn in order to buy first place. The reality of this is that to ensure going first, you’ll need to budget an entire turn ahead, and being off even $1 can allow your opponent to jump in and go first. Of course, you never know whether your opponent is going to feel it is worth $5 to go first or not either, which adds another layer of metagaming to a game that already has a lot of metagaming going on.” Age of Steam: Barbados/St. Lucia is printed on double-sided heavy cardstock that fits in the AoS box with the rules printed directly on the maps. Both maps in this set are compatible with Age of Steam second edition (from Warfrog Games) and the forthcoming Mayfair Games’ Age of Steam. The preorder cost for all six new AoS maps from Bézier Games is $60 plus shipping, unless you plan to pick them up from Ted in Essen in which case there is no shipping charge. Age of Steam: Barbados/St. Lucia should be available for individual order in October for $20; check the link below for details.
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| Age of Steam: Jamaica / Puerto Rico
Publisher: Bézier Games
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.
 Age of Steam: Jamaica is for two players only and features a mini map to match the smaller number of players. In addition to a special turn- and action-selection system designed for only two players—the same one used in Alspach’s St. Lucia map for Age of Steam—Jamaica features a distinctive game-ending condition: In Alspach’s words, “Instead of a standard turn-order marker, Jamaica keeps going until there are no more cubes left on the island; considering that goods growth happens after you deliver goods, you’re never quite sure when the game will end!” Alspach takes a guns-and-butter approach for Age of Steam: Puerto Rico, which is for solitaire play only. You are required to deliver weapons (black cubes) in secret while openly delivering livestock (red cubes). “For delivery purposes, both red and black cubes are delivered to San Juan,” says Alspach. “The catch is that only the red cubes provide income. The black ones give you nothing when you deliver them—but any black cubes remaining at the end of the game take 10 income away from your score.” Puerto Rico can be played at different difficulty levels so you’ll always find the game challenging. “The ratio of black to red cubes is determined by the difficulty level you select,” says Alspach. “The more black cubes, the higher the difficulty.” This unusual set-up also comes into play with Puerto Rico’s unique single-player action selection system. Says Alspach, “You can pay $5 to use either the Locomotive action or the Engineering action; all of the other actions aren’t available. You can’t use one of those two actions unless you pay for it, so it’s a nasty trade-off: Do you give up a delivery for a $5 fee—which of course snowballs into $1 more for each of the remaining turns? If you take a share on turn 1, you receive $5 for it, but it costs you $10 over the course of the game. Considering that you’ll be scrounging for every dollar, that’s an expensive price to pay...” Age of Steam: Jamaica/Puerto Rico is printed on double-sided heavy cardstock that fits in the AoS box with the rules printed directly on the maps. Both maps in this set are compatible with Age of Steam second edition (from Warfrog Games) and the forthcoming Mayfair Games’ Age of Steam. The preorder cost for all six new AoS maps from Bézier Games is $60 plus shipping, unless you plan to pick them up from Ted in Essen in which case there is no shipping charge. Age of Steam: Jamaica/Puerto Rico should be available for individual order in October for $20; check the link below for details.
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| Ultimate Werewolf Expansion set
Publisher: Bézier Games
Bézier Games is bringing a small number of Ultimate Werewolf Expansion sets to Spiel. These sets contain 25 custom cards for Ultimate Werewolf, which will also be on sale. No reservations will be taken for these Expansion sets, and the sets are available only at the Bézier Games/Warfrog booth.
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 | BiWo Spielesammlung
Publisher: BiWo Spiele
The deck consists of picture cards that show things and people, and throughout seven different games—one speed, one memory, one risk, and so on—the players try to combine the cards to create new words and new combinations. | ||||||||||||
 | Talisman (4th edition)
Publisher: Black Industries
Black Industries showed off the Talisman, 4th Edition prototype at the New York Toy Fair back in February 2007, which BI rep Vince Rospond says is based on the 2nd edition of the game, to “get back to the roots of Talisman.” As such, the game includes stand-up cardboard figures instead of molded plastic ones. Rospond also said that while the company has the basis for the expansions in hand, Black Industries has no plans to release expansions for now. “We have to concentrate on getting this out first,” he says. “If this goes rah-rah, then we’ll look further.” For those who aren’t familiar with the 2nd edition or any other edition, here’s a brief description of the game:
Frank Schulte-Kulkmann, of Kulkmann’s G@mebox, published a detailed and well-illustrated preview of Talisman 4th Edition in July 2007.
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| | Cat Attack
Publisher: Boardroom Productions
Cat Attack came out in 2002, and the game actually showed up at Spiel 06, but since it hasn’t yet been featured in a BGN Essen Preview, let’s look at the description from the publisher:
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 | Affentennis
Publisher: Braunkohl Verlag
Affentennis (aka Monkey Tennis) will be back at Spiel 07 after wowing the crowds in 2006. The first production run of 150 copies is long gone, and designer Jürgen Kohl says that only 90 copies remain out of the 500 copies in the second edition. “But no worries—I started producing the third edition already,” he says. “It’s about 1,000 games, and I really hope that I will sell them all one day....” In addition to the regular game—can you say “regular” when you’re writing about tennis-playing monkeys?—Kohl has also created special editions of Affentennis that are limited to only ten copies each: gold, silver, bronze, Malcolm X, Nautilus, and Möbius. Says Kohl, “I made the special editions mainly to have an eye catcher at the big tennis turnaments (BMW Open in Munich, Gerry Weber Open in Halle, and Austria Open in Kitzbühel) where I presented Affentennis, but I sell them as well.” The cost for these special editions is €69. If you want one of these limited releases, you should contact Jürgen through the Affentennis website to make sure it’s available. One final note: Jürgen may or may not be in Essen with his creation as his wife is due to deliver on Spiel’s opening day. Hope all goes well with the newborn, Mr. and Mrs. Monkeytennis!
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 | Kamisado
Publisher: Burley Games
Peter Burley will be at Spiel 07 with Take it to the Limit (now in its second print run) and a prototype for a two-player strategy game called Kamisado, which will be available for purchase at Spiel 08. Kamisado has no chance elements, and as you might expect from the designer of two of the most non-confrontational games on the market, there’s no capturing or combat. Instead, a player’s goal is to move on his dragon towers to the opponent’s home row. Players take turns moving pieces, but the piece you move must match the color of the square on which the opponent landed in his previous turn. When you reach the opponent’s home row with a piece, you score one point, players reset their pieces in the home row according to certain rules, and the piece that reached the opposite side is upgraded to a Sumo dragon tower. Says Burley, “These marked dragon towers have special powers, which are counterbalanced by a restriction in the number of spaces they are allowed to move.” A game ends once players reach a predetermined number of points.
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 | The Circle
Publisher: C4 / creative cell
C4 is a new publisher from Germany, and The Circle is its first game. Here’s a description:
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 | Das verlorene Amulett
Publisher: Californian Products
A translated description of this game:
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 | Bäumchen-wechsel-dich
Publisher: Clemens Gerhards Holzwaren
Swap the positions of the two trees. Solutions of 23 and 21 moves are possible, but you’ll really have to work to do it in only 17 moves.
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| Cambio
Publisher: Clemens Gerhards Holzwaren
Shift the red pieces to the right and the blue pieces to the left in 30 moves; each move counts, regardless of how many spaces the piece is moved. Be sure to make jokes about the Democrats and the Republicans while you play…
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| Innur24
Publisher: Clemens Gerhards Holzwaren
The name of the game is “In Only 24,” which gives you the goal of the game: Swap the pieces in only 24 moves by either moving or jumping a piece on a move.
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| Menos
Publisher: Clemens Gerhards Holzwaren
A solitaire game in the peg-jumping family in which your final score is based on the pegs left on board, with each color of peg having a different value.
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| Sim Serim
Publisher: Clemens Gerhards Holzwaren
With most abstract games, your opponent can move any number of ways and you have to determine which ones are best in order to counter them and succeed. In Sim Serim, on the other hand, your opponent can move in only one way—yet there’s still lots of uncertainty on each turn. Here’s how the game is played: A 7x7 board with two opposing corner spaces removed is placed diagonally between the players (or teams, if you’re playing with four). On a turn, you and your opponent each choose to conceal from 1 to 4 stones in your hand. After revealing the stones, whoever offered fewer stones places them in a diagonal row from left to right, then the other player follows. “The stones must be placed one after the other, adjacent to the last stone placed in the row,” says designer Heinrich Glumpler. “You may not choose which position in the current row is filled. In the case of a tie in the number of stones offered, the same player goes first who went first in the previous round. (In the case of a tie in the first round. black goes first.)” Whenever a row is filled, the current player chooses which row the players will next start to fill. The game ends when the board fills, then the players rotate the board 45 degrees and look at the horizontal rows and vertical columns they created. They score points for each set of exactly three stones in their color—but they lose points if any horizontal or vertical set has more than three stones. Glumpler says that this scoring condition sets up a lot of thinking and counter-thinking each turn, with the ability to determine which new row to fill being another crucial element.
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| Zoom
Publisher: Clemens Gerhards Holzwaren
You get two, two, two games in one, with a translation of the game play courtesy of Patrick Korner: 1. Zoom—four marbles in a square: Which player will be the first to make a square in the middle of the gameboard. The game is played from the outside (starting spaces) inward, and each marble may be moved in a straight line as far as teh player wishes. The catch: All free starting spaces can be used to gain access to the inner area. 2. TriHop—a tactical triple jump: Players jump from the inside to the outside—just the opposite of Zoom—and each jump must turn 90 degrees at least once. At the start of the game, the board is empty and players take turns placing their marbles in the inner area. Whoever places the last marble starts the game and makes the first “trihop” (aka triple hop). The goal is to be the first to reach the target spaces with all your marbles.
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 | Michael Bully Herbig Spiel - Trilogie
Publisher: Clementoni
The game is apparently inspired by a Munich comedian and combines word-guessing and dexterity. On a turn, a player reads a bit of text in which one word has been replaced by the word “bully”; others try to guess this word, and when someone does, the active player immediately tries to slam a cup onto the playing board to catch the figures of the other players. They’re trying to yank the string connected with their figures in order to keep their figure free and not lose points. | ||||||||||||
 | Old Town Solo
Publisher: Clicker Spiele
Riedel is presenting a small standalone item that fits the spirit of his Old Town. Old Town Solo is a set of 12 solo games and two puzzles. Says Riedel, “You don’t need the board game to play Old Town Solo. You just need the cards, the rule (both inside of the game), a sheet of paper and a pen.” | ||||||||||||
 | Aficionado
Publisher: Cocktail Games
Aficionado will likely appeal only to those well-versed in French culture, but for those few souls who fit this category while reading the preview in English, here’s how you play. The game includees 45 cards, each of which has six “enigmas” printed on it, three per side. Each enigma consists of three sentence beginnings. The active player will read these three fragments, including any voice inflections that are felt needed to throw off other players, then the other players race to give the answer, which is a sentence formed by the endings of these three sentences when read in order. Whoeover does this first wins the card, and whoever wins seven cards first wins the game. Check out the enlarged cover image to see how elephants play the game.
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| Bonne Question
Publisher: Cocktail Games/Repos Production
The first co-production between these two companies. Since the cover bears a sombrero, the description more properly belongs under the Repos Production heading.
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| Papillons (Butterflies)
Publisher: Cocktail Games
Papillons will be distributed by Asmodee in France; Cocktail Games will have its own booth at Spiel. Here’s a translated description of the game from the publisher:
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| Tai Chi Chuan
Publisher: Cocktail Games
Tai Chi Chuan will be distributed by Asmodee in France; Cocktail Games will have its own booth at Spiel. Here’s a translated description of the game from the publisher:
It’s a push-your-luck game, says designer William Attia, “where you need to keep finding (different) words including all the letters you have turned over. If you fail to do so, you don’t score anything (and other players who have found an adequate word can score). When you find a valid word, you can choose to continue or to stop. If you stop, other players may challenge you—another card is turned over, and whoever finds a valid word first wins the challenge, earning the points.” Attia says that Tai Chi Chuan is best with 3-6 players, although it remains playable with only two or more than six. “The players need a broad vocabulary to do well, so the publisher thought it would be labeled for players aged 12+. (Nothing would prevent younger children from playing, though - like in most word games, they just would be less competitive),” he says. The game is designed to work with the letter distribution patterns of French, but it should play equally well (albeit a bit differently) in English. “Some letters, such as K, W or Y, are really unusual in French words, while they are much more common in English,” says Attia. “In French Scrabble, these letters are 10-points tiles (along with X and Z) and there is only one copy of them. Conversely, Q in French is used in common endings such as -ique, where English uses -ic (still Q as a starting letter is quite rare). In Tai Chi Chuan, the most difficult letters have been paired on the cards, and you can choose to use any one of them when they appear. I found it necessary to make four such pairs in French, while I had only two in my English prototype. It would probably be easier to play Tai Chi Chuan in English with the French letters than the opposite—but I haven’t tried that.” As for the style of game, Tai Chi Chuan is about as far as one can get from Caylus. Says Attia, “I just happened to realize one day that, as far as I know, there was no push-your-luck word game so far. I thought about this game and proposed it to Cocktail Games, thinking it might fit quite well in their game range. The fact that Matthieu d’Epenoux (from Cocktail Games) had always refused to play Caylus because of its length and complexity was an additional incentive for me to propose a game to him.” “Also, I thought it would be nice to try and design something very different from the Caylus CCG, the Caylus dice game, the Caylus miniatures game, the Caylus special DVD edition, the Caylus role-playing game and the few other secret Caylus projects I am working on,” he adds.
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 | Gipsy King
Publisher: Cwali
The curse of early knowledge strikes again! In March 2007, von Moorsel released Land of Lakes on Mastermoves, an online game site, and said that he would release a print version of the game at Essen. He confirmed this later, but noted that the title might change in addition to the number of players and other details. Now Land of Lakes is out and Gipsy King is in. Says von Moorsel, “I don’t tell more about the game because it will not help to get an impression. It is a game you must play to get a first impression.” I pressed for more details, asking “So Gipsy King isn’t Land of Lakes? It’s something completely new?” The answer from a wily Corné: “With some games, a description will not give an impression of how it is to play it. That is the case with Gipsy King. So I don’t say more than ‘Yes and no.’” Then he vanished in a puff of black smoke…
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| Territories
Publisher: Cwali
Territories was first released on Mastermoves, an online game site, in March 2007, but this Essen Moorsel will release a print version of the game. Territories will be given away free to buyers of Gipsy King as long as supplies last. Here’s the basics of the game: Eight houses are randomly placed on a 6x8 playing surface. Players take turns claiming houses, then laying logs on the grid to divide the territory between the two players. Each new trunk must be placed at the open end of a trunk already on the board, so the path snakes through houses for the first several turns. Close off an area by placing a log on the edge, and you get to take another turn immediately. Whoever claims the most land spaces wins the game. Editor’s note: Territories is a nicely designed luck-free abstract, and even after only a few plays, it’s clear that the house-claiming phase at the start of the game is as important as the log-laying later on. The restriction of placing a log at the end of another log gives some welcome direction to game play as opposed to being able to place anywhere.
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 | Jantaris
Publisher: Czech Board Games
Zbynek Vrana’s Legion was released in 2006 by CBG, but Jantaris (originally announced as The Guild of Merchants) is something completely different. Each player leads a minor guild which is trying to expand into new territory. To do this, the guilds try to take control of provinces in the kingdom, gain valuable items in the auction hall, and sell their goods during the great market in the capital city. Proper assessment of the other players’ moves plays a vital role in the game. Says Pavel Prachar of Czech Board Games, “The game might offer conventional game mechanics, but they’re seen and combined from a new point of view.”
You can preorder this game for €25 on the CBG website. You must pick up the game by the
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| Laborigines
Publisher: Czech Board Games
The title creatures have lived an odd and unusual life because they’re by-products of mysterious scientific experiments. Every moment of their lives presents a new threat due to the laboratory environment they’re in, so their goal is simply to survive as long as possible, perhaps even having a bit of fun along the way. “This is a very interesting and extremely original family game, which uses an interesting mechanic of dice rolling and also the element of memory of the players,” says Prachar. You can preorder this game on the CBG website. You must pick up the game by the evening of Oct. 20.
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 | Galaxy Trucker
Publisher: Czech Games Edition
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. CGE’s Petr Murmak says, “Unlike the hardcore Through the Ages, this is an amusing real-time action game with a space background. It’s very easy to get addicted to this one.” Here’s a description of the game from publisher Czech Games Edition:
As for how the game is played, at the start of each of the three rounds, players rummage through the Warehouse, trying to grab the best components and build the best spaceship possible. Once the ships have launched, the players try to avoid snares and obstacles, while grabbing financial opportunities, with each hoping to be the first to finish with an undamaged ship. As Murmak explains, “In Round 1, players build Class I ships and fly them on a safe short hop. In Round 2, they build larger Class II ships to take on a more daring journey. In Round 3, they build gigantic Class III ships and set out for the farthest, most dangerous corners of the Galaxy. Longer journeys offer greater rewards, but also present greater dangers.” The snares and obstacles mentioned above come in the form of adventure cards, which have events that can affect all players. Says Murmak, “The funny thing about the flights is that players typically lose some tiles from their ships during the voyage, so their ships are breaking apart soon.” In the image of the Class III ship below, the bank of three laser cannons on the front of the ship is attached only on the right cannon, so if the ship takes damage there and loses the cannon, the other two are shed as well. In the end, whoever nets the most cosmic credits by the end of the third round wins the game. For an early review of the game, click on the First Impression link below. Czech Games Edition has opened its website for preorders, and if you preorder a copy and pay by September 30, you receive a €5 discount. You can also reserve copies at full price for pick-up at Spiel, which will give you a chance to try before you buy. Everyone who preorders a copy will receive two bonus adventure cards; the supply of these cards might be enough that other purchasers will also receive them. Editor’s note: Here’s an excerpt from my first impression of the game: More spacey than Space Dealer, more fun than Factory Fun, Galaxy Trucker is a blast of entertainment that will undoubtedly be Vladimir Chvátil’s second runaway hit at Spiel. Don’t expect the second coming of his Through the Ages, however. Galaxy Trucker plays nothing like 2006’s must-have title and might even be a turn-off for folks who prefer deep thinking and careful planning over freewheeling mayhem. Played in the right spirit, Galaxy Trucker is incredibly fun, and the size of the adventure decks provides a lot of variability in what you’ll encounter each game. Even if you’re blasted apart by a barrage of lasers, you’ll most likely still enjoy yourself. For the complete review, head to my first impression of Galaxy Trucker here on BGN
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| League of Six
Publisher: Czech Games Edition
Petr Murmak from CGE describes this title from first-time designer
Murmak says that the cards will be printed on card paper with rounded corners. “We learned a lesson from producing Through the Ages,” he says. The German title of the game is Sechsstädtebund, and the Czech title is Sestimestí.” Czech Games Edition has opened its website for preorders, and if you preorder a copy and pay by September 30, you receive a €5 discount. You can also reserve copies at full price for pick-up at Spiel, which will give you a chance to try before you buy. Editor’s note: Here’s an excerpt from my first impression of the game: If you had to classify League of Six, that would be a tough job—because you probably haven’t played the game. I have, though, and League of Six strikes me as a great example of an efficiency game, a term I use for games like Caylus and Notre Dame to describe a player’s need to squeeze out an advantage on each move. Efficiency games require players to make dozens, perhaps even hundreds, of little decisions over the course of the game, and the player who has accrued small advantages over his or her opponents will usually end up with the larger pile of points or money and win the game. The bottom line: If you like efficiency games, you’ll probably enjoy League of Six. You’ll find lots of small elements to ponder during the course of play, and the game feels different with differing numbers of players. With four players, for example, more goods and more guards entered the game, so the bids were higher when competing for towns—similar to how bidding in Amun-Re is more dynamic with more players—and the value of the goods felt different while filling the royal and civic stores. If you’re not a fan of this type of game, League of Six has everything you don’t like and probably won’t change your mind. To read the complete review, head to my first impression of League of Six here on BGN
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 | Bang! La Pallottola (The Bullet)
Publisher: daVinci Games
Bang! has been a huge hit with fans since its release in 2002, and designer Emiliano Sciarra has created several expansions for the game—expansions that quickly disappeared from the market.
Now you’ll have a chance to buy a bigger Bang! than you ever thought possible. Bang! The Bullet! is a compilation of everything that’s been released in the past five years, along with a few extra items. The cards have been redesigned to make the special abilities easier to understand and the different card types easier to recognize by the color-blind. Here’s what you’ll find inside a giant shiny bullet-shaped package:
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| Borneo
Publishers: daVinci Games & Lucca Comics & Games
Set in Europe during the XVII century, Borneo is a game about merchants, ships and spices. Here’s a description of the game from the publisher:
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. Players will first be able to get their hands on the 110 cards in Borneo at the Spiel game convention in Essen, Germany in mid-October. The rulebook included in the box will be in Italian, but English and German rulebooks will be available at the time of purchase or as a download from the daVinci Games website. The minimal text on the cards is in English, Italian and German. This version will be a limited-edition release, and the international edition will follow in a few months.
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| F.A.T.A.L.
Publisher: daVinci Games
F.A.T.A.L., the game with the most annoying title to type since Ca$h’n Gun$, is a successor of sorts to F.A.T.A., which was released by daVinci in 2006. The game has grown since its initial release into an entire world—"a new weird project” is how the daVinci press release describes it. F.A.T.A.L. is a world of ideas to which many different authors will contribute. To continue from the press release: “The evocative background full of fairies, techno-enchanters, trimagics, technology and fantasy inspired dozens of different artists who told through their own specific art (music, painting, writing, game,...) parts of the complex world where the Enchantress Queen lives. Visit the F.A.T.A.L. website and discover little by little what the cooperation with famous artists, both Italian and international, has led to.” “That may be,” you ask, “but what about the game?” Yes, well, F.A.T.A.L. is a card game set in this world from long, long ago when magic was a part of everything. F.A.T.A.L. the card game represents a “secret magical-technological war” being fought between the players. And if that’s not enough for you, here’s daVinci’s description of the game:
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| Leonardo da Vinci: Codex Leonardi III: the Edicts
Publisher: da Vinci Games
As a last minute addition to its offerings at Spiel, da Vinci Games will have a new, postcard-sized expansion for Leonardo da Vinci called Codex Leonardi III: the Edicts. The expansion has a small board on the front and rules on the back. Says Silvano Sorrentino, “Playing with this expansion you will find that the role of the City Council becomes even more important than in the past, because now the apprentices in the Council have the right… to vote!” The expansion comes free for any purchase at the da Vinci booth.
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 | Ticket to Ride: Switzerland
Publisher: Days of Wonder
Alan Moon’s Ticket to Ride franchise has a new expansion coming out that might not be so new to some people—Ticket to Ride: Switzerland, which was previously available only in the Ticket to Ride computer game. Unlike previous Ticket to Ride spin-off titles that contained everything you need to play the game, Ticket to Ride: Switzerland will contain only the gameboard, a set of 46 new destination tickets, and rules. “We believe that nearly all players who are interested in playing the Swiss map will already own either the original Ticket to Ride or Ticket to Ride Europe,” says Days of Wonder’s Mark Kaufmann. “Rather than sell them another set of plastic trains which duplicate what they already have, it made sense to offer the Swiss map as an expansion at a much lower cost than a full game would be.” (Ticket to Ride Märklin doesn’t contain the same mix of train cards as the first two TtR titles, so using these cards with TtR Switzerland—minus the passenger and 4+ locomotives—would work, but give a different play experience.) Designer Alan Moon has said that this map is the favorite of all the ones he’s designed. “I designed the game with the focus on drawing tickets—and drawing tickets is what I enjoy the most of all about Ticket to Ride,” he says. “So in most games on the Switzerland map, at least when I’m playing, all the tickets get drawn.”
For those who haven’t played the computer game, here’s a rules summary for how Ticket to Ride Switzerland differs from the base game:
If you want to know more about how to play the game, here’s advice from the one who probably knows best: “My usual strategy is to build a route between Bern and Zurich to start with, then draw tickets each turn till they are gone,” says Moon. “I keep any tickets that are basically between Geneva in the southwest and St. Gallen in the northeast. Then I try to expand my route to encompass Bern-Geneva and Zurich-St. Gallen. I may also try to hook up Basel and Schaffhausen and a few other cities off the main route, depending on the tickets I draw.” Moon says that using this strategy against the computer will bring you victory most of the time. “But when you are playing against live opponents and they are either playing the same strategy or trying to interfere with your strategy, the game reaches the ultimate tension level for me.” “Don’t get me wrong,” says Moon. “This strategy isn’t the only way to victory. One other very good strategy is to do the exact opposite: Draw only a few tickets and try to focus on east to west routes on the southern part of the board. You’ll get more points for building longer routes, and the tickets will be worth more. You’ll also probably be the only player interested in most of these routes so you won’t be under too much pressure.”
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| | Die Wiege der Renaissance
Publisher: DDD Verlag
Here’s a translated description of the game from the publisher:
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 | 18US
Publisher: Deep Thought Games
Here’s a brief description of this release: “18US is a ‘high-end’ 18xx game of the history of US railroading up to the 1950s on two map panels. It features twelve companies, four different categories of trains with either two or three levels of each (a total of eleven train types), and a substantially different set of mechanisms than the ‘classic’ 18xx games. 18US is intended to appeal to those players who enjoy such games as 1837 and 1844: large games with many subsystems.”
As for other 18xx games that might appear at Spiel, Deep Thought’s John Tamplin says that the elimination of economy parcel post by the US Postal Service will have him bringing many fewer games to Spiel. “I am taking only what will fit in four pieces of luggage (50-70 games, roughly) and only pre-orders,” he says. The list of available games and their prices is:
Says Tamplin, “The prices vary depending on how the games are configured. (We print each game to order and offer options ranging from basic kits that are unlaminated and uncut to fully ready-to-play, including play money and wood tokens.) Also, I don’t know what I will be charging in Euros yet as the exchange rate may change. Paying with dollars at the show is also fine at these prices.” To preorder any of the 18xx games, visit the Deep Thought Games website.
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| 18West
Publisher: Deep Thought Games
Here’s a brief description of this release: “18West incorporates a variety of mechanisms into the 18xx framework, including four different types of companies (private, Granger roads, land grant, and public) and subsidized track laying. Mergers are also involved, in which public companies can acquire Granger roads.” John Tamplin, who runs Deep Thought Games, says that the price for the game hasn’t been set as the components are still being finalized. The exact price will depend on how “finished” the user wants the game to be: unlaminated vs. laminated, play money vs. providing your own, etc. To preorder a copy—which is the only way to obtain one at Spiel—write to Tamplin through the Deep Thought Games website. | |||||||||||||
 | Hai-Alarm!!!
Publisher: Drei Magier Spiele
Nothing more than the designers names, a title, and a cover shot for the moment.
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| Kakerlakensalat
Publisher: Drei Magier Spiele
Here’s a translated description from salad king Patrick Korner:
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| Mäusekarussell
Publisher: Drei Magier Spiele
Here’s a very brief translated description:
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| Dust
Publisher: DustGames
Dust is set in an alternate fantasy world created by artist Paolo Parente, who creates artwork for Magic the Gathering cards. The game will be distributed by Editrice Giochi (Italian), Fantasy Flight (English), and Millenium (French, Spanish, German). Here’s a long, edited description of the setting and game play from the designers:
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 | Tschuk
Publisher: 3-Hirn-Verlag (see below)
Tschuk was released as an online game in May 2007 on the Edition Erlkönig website, and it can be played online with one or two players. German publisher 3-Hirn-Verlag released a 100-copy edition of Tschuk, and designer Heinrich Glumpler will be selling these from his booth at Spiel. The components of Tschuk are basic: seven blue poker chips with the numbers 1-7 on one side, and 21 red poker chips; each red chip has a number from 1-7 on one face and a different digit on the opposite face, so all combinations (excluding duplicates such as 7-7) are represented on the 21 chips. You randomly mix these chips, then stack them according to their upper face under the respective blue chips. On a turn, a player chooses one red chip, guesses which number might be on the opposite side, and flips it over to see whether he’s right. Players alternate taking turns, and as more chips are revealed, you can puzzle out which chips must be where. Says Glumpler, “Tschuk is more a game system than a game—we will definitely publish quite some variants at our website.” The solitaire version on the Edition Erlkönig website has you scoring points when you correctly deduce which number is on the opposite side of a chip.
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 | Utopia
Publisher: Editions du Matagot
Here’s a brief description of the game from the Utopia website:
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 | All-Zeit
Publisher: Eggertspiele
An expansion for Space Dealer, that includes nine different type of cards (and 42 cards in all). Ten wooden cubes represent energy for the Time Sphere and Energy Shield.
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| Cuba
Publisher: Eggertspiele
Patrick Korner wrote this report on Cuba after one play of the prototype in April 2007:
Cuba will be on sale in two different versions: the regular game for €38 and a version in a wooden box for €49.50. Peter Eggert has mentioned that copies are available by preorder through the Eggertspiele website.
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| Hamburgum
Publisher: Eggertspiele
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.” Researching city history identified three main trades—beer, sugar and cloth—and the buying and selling of those goods drives the economic engine of the game. To determine the look and layout of the city, Gerdts visited nearby Lübeck, a trade partner of Hamburg as far back as the 13th century and a town with well-preserved architecture, unlike Hamburg. Says Gerdts, “99% of the old Hamburg buildings are destroyed.” Hamburgum fits more into the Eurogame category than Imperial or Antike as the game lacks military combat and players are traders who need to build up economic engines, along the lines of Puerto Rico or St. Petersburg. Unlike those games, though, Gerdts says, “When you feed the prestige-engine [in Hamburgum], you sacrifice your resources instead of investing them into your own economy. Players who own the most buildings/ships/goods/money often do not win because they underestimate the church donations. On the other hand, if you give everything you have to the churches, you won’t win either. You have to be balanced, and you always have to be aware of other players as there is a tough competition for buildings in the city, ships in the harbour, and donations to the churches.” Where Hamburgum veers from the Eurogame path, however, is the absence of luck in the game, a trait it shares with Gerdts’ previous designs. “Hamburgum was luck-free from the start,” he says. “What I find so interesting about designing games without luck is that they have to be very carefully balanced: How to cope with a runaway leader? Which catch-up mechanisms are on offer? Are there different strategies, and how viable are they in comparison to each other? Does the gameplay feel scripted, are there too many repetitive turns? How to ensure that each playing is different from other ones? Can the game remain tight to the finish? Is it prone to analysis-paralysis, as there is full information about possible turns for every player? For many gamers, the obvious answer to all these questions is throwing dice. To design a satisfying boardgame without luck really is a challenge.” Hamburgum certainly isn’t deterministic, but instead of dice or cards, uncertainty in the game results solely from player choices. Thankfully you can make assumptions about what opponents might do thanks to the return of the rondel, a game mechanism that debuted in Antike. With the rondel, a player’s possible actions are laid out in a circle, your token rests on one of the spaces in the circle, and you can take any of the next three actions in clockwise order for no cost. You can choose to move additional spaces around the rondel, but each space past the third costs you a prestige point. “I wouldn’t say that the rondel is better than a list of choices,” says Gerdts, “but it has advantages: The choice is limited to only a few obvious turns, and planning ahead for several turns is required and rewarded. Both of these characteristics help to speed up the game. In addition, you can see the options of the other players and take them into account. Finally, the rondel makes it very difficult to choose the same action over and over. As an example, in Hamburgum you cannot afford to produce beer in every turn; you have to take other turns in between. There is an interdependency between your own turns which a simple list of choices wouldn’t offer.” After Antike, Imperial and the intense conflict within those games, players might be surprised to find the rondel used with the tamer topics of trade, construction and brewing, but Gerdts points out the rondel is simply a game mechanism with no inherent restriction on its use. “It can be used for a wide range of very different games and themes,” he says. “Therefore the rondel is not necessarily associated with battle and conflict.” Again, as with Antike and Imperial, the gameboard in Hamburgum is double-sided, with the non-Hamburg side featuring London (or rather “Londinium"). The Great Fire of London in 1666 destroyed the homes of 90% of the city’s inhabitants, not to mention the city’s churches, and players are once again responsible for building the churches. “The theme is not the only difference,” says Gerdts, “as London has the more balanced map. In Hamburg, the biggest church district is in the West, and the smallest district in the middle of the city. In London, the big church district is located in the middle, surrounded by the other districts, all of which have the same size. This makes for a different strategic challenge, which I hope will appeal to many gamers!”
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 | Quest for the Princess
Publisher: Elven Ear Games
Five somewhat noble knights are all eager to marry the princess, but she’s been kidnapped by a dragon (as princesses are wont to do). Not all is lost, though. You now have a chance to show off how heroic you are and make a good impression on the princess. Every other knight has come to the same realization, however, which means you’re all going to undermine one another on the way to rescuing the princess. In the end, whoever makes the best impression on the maiden fair wins the game. Jansen notes that the difficulty rating of this game is “2 out of 3 peppers.”
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| Wadi
Publisher: Emma Games
Here’s a description of the game from the publisher (who happens to be the designer as well):
Martyn notes that the game comes with four different scenarios, and he’s already added a new downloadable scenario to the Emma Games website with more to come in the future.
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 | Cheeky Monkey
Publisher: Face 2 Face Games
A herd of animals has been set free at the zoo, and you’re trying to capture more than anyone else. The animals include dogs, pigs, walruses and (of course) monkeys with three of one type, four of another, and so on up to ten monkeys. To start a turn, you pull an animal token from the bag. You can stop and keep the animal, or draw another token. If the animal matches one already drawn this turn, you’re out of luck and return them to the bag; otherwise you face the same question: stop your turn, or draw again. If you draw an animal that’s on the top of someone else’s stack, you get to nab their critter. Draw a monkey, and you really get to put one over on them! The game ends when all the animals are claimed; bonus tiles are handed out to whoever grabs a majority of each type of animal, and the player with the high score wins. Editor’s note: Reiner Knizia already has one great push-your-luck game in Circus Flohcati. I’ve played Cheeky Monkey close to ten times and think the game is every bit of fun that Circus Flohcati is. Each decision to stop or keep going is minor, but they add up turn by turn and create great tension. Playing with five and six players can be hard if (a) players are slow or (b) you’re playing on a large table since it’s harder to see the top animal on everyone’s stack. Those issues aside, Cheeky Monkey is a great filler and a perfect gift for those gaming neophyte friends of yours.
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| Moai
Publisher: Face 2 Face Games
In Moai, players control tribes of Rapa Nui, the natives of Easter Island who have lived on the island for hundreds of years. You’re not celebrating an anniversary, though—you’re fighting for survival and honor for your tribe. The gameboard consists of three main playing areas: the fields, the forests, and the lava pits. Players place their Rapa Nui tokens in a semi-blind-bidding process in order to collect food from the fields (to keep their tribe members from starving), wood from the forest (to build boats and create fires), and stone from the lava pits (to build Moai, the enormous stone statues that exemplify Rapa Nui culture). You live on a tiny island, however, with minimal resources, so you can’t get everything you need. Some tribe members will die, and sometimes you’ll lose out in the forests. If you manage your resources and tribe members well, you’ll build an impressive collection of Moai and become the most honored tribe on the island. Oh, and win the game. The first 300 buyers of Moai at Essen will receive a special wooden tiki that can be used in place of the first player card. Editor’s note: I’ve played Moai twice and find it an engaging yet unforgiving game. Just as the real tribes of Rapa Nui deforested their environment and suffered food shortages, you’ll experience great hardship in the game, with tribe members falling away turn after turn. Yes, you can give birth to more, but often you feel like you’re fighting against twice as many opponents because the competition for resources is so fierce. Dinu has done a good job of capturing the history of Easter Island in this game, so expect to feel pummeled (in a good way) by the time the game ends.
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 |  Arkham Horror: The King in Yellow
Publisher: Fantasy Flight Games
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| Beowulf: The Movie Board Game
Publisher: Fantasy Flight Games
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| Cold War: CIA vs KGB
Publisher: Fantasy Flight Games
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 Condottiere
Publisher: Fantasy Flight Games
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| Descent: The Road to Legend
Publisher: Fantasy Flight Games
This expansion probably will be on display at Spiel 07, but not available for purchase.
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| Dust
Publisher: Fantasy Flight Games
Fantasy Flight Games is publishing an English language version of Dust, which is described in detail under the Dust entry at DustGames.
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 Micro Mutants Evolution
Publisher: Fantasy Flight
Fantasy Flight is releasing Nexus’ Micro Mutants Evolution in English, so head to the Nexus entry of Micro Mutants Evolution for more details. | |||||||||||||
 Penguin
Publisher: Fantasy Flight Games
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 Rattlesnake
Publisher: Fantasy Flight
Rattlesnake is an English version of Nexus’ Rattle Jungle. For a description of game play and box cover, head to the Rattle Jungle entry under Nexus. | |||||||||||||
 Starcraft: The Board Game
Publisher: Fantasy Flight Games
Note that the image is only preliminary and might not represent the published product.
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 Tannhäuser
Publisher: Fantasy Flight Games
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 Tide of Iron
Publisher: Fantasy Flight Games
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 Tide of Iron: Days of the Fox
Publisher: Fantasy Flight Games
This expansion won’t be released by Spiel 07, but it should be on display at the fair. Note that the image is only preliminary and might not represent the published product.
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 Warrior Knights: Crown & Glory
Publisher: Fantasy Flight Games
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Publisher: Fantasy Flight Games
Note the box image is only preliminary and might change before publication.
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 | En Garde
Publisher: Ferti
Ferti’s En Garde is a new version of (can you guess?) En Garde aka Duell, the Reiner Knizia two-player game which pits two fencers against one another on a long, skinny board. True to the nature of Ferti’s production values, the materials used in the game will be somewhat unusual, such as an 80cm long 3D board.
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 | Antler Island
Publisher: Fragor Games
Whenever you hear someone complain about boring and rehashed themes in the future, direct them to this game, which features one of the oddest and most unexpected themes ever: You are a stag during the annual rut on a Scottish island. The time of the year has come for food, fighting, and females, and your goal is to stand tall as the dominant stag on the island. The Lamont Brothers are aiming at multiple audiences this year with easy-to-understand game play that’s appropriate for families, but a mix of complex and meaningful decisions that will appeal to gamers. “We have designed a quick start to get players into the game pretty much straight away,” say the Lamonts. “The game is probably slightly less complex than Shear Panic.” Speaking of Shear Panic, each player has an action sheet with four possible actions on it: move, eat, rut, and grow antlers. Each round, players allocate their five action markers—1, 2, 3, a joker, and a blank—to these actions; players place their markers face down (so the blank serves as a bluff), and the same action can be chosen multiple times. “For instance, if you are in the centre and there are four does, you may choose to select rut four times,” says Gordon. The actions are then resolved in order, with players resolving the number 1 action in player order, then 2, then 3. “The joker action can be played instead of the next number in the sequence, though,” says Gordon, “and part of the game is planning which action to leave as the joker action to give yourelf a bit more flexibility in case things do not work out quite how you imagined them to!” With all that antler growing going on, conflict is inevitable. By moving into an area with another stag, you challenge him to a fight. If both stags decide to fight, each player decides how many food tokens (worth 1-3) to add to his antler size, and whoever has the best combination of conditioning and antlers wins the fight. The losing stag has one of his antlers broken off and is chased down the hill by the winner. All food spent preparing for the fight is lost. (The gameboard will have three levels, with stags fighting for the high ground.) “This simulates what happens in the wild because as the stag in the centre becomes more tired it is more difficult for him to retain the centre area,” says Gordon. “The centre area becomes more attractive as the game progresses because it fills up with doeples. [Yes, doeples! Fourteen wooden ones in all.] However, food tokens only ever appear on the outside of the board and remain there. Accordingly, although a stag may capture the centre area, he will have difficulty holding on to it.” Antlers are easier to hold on to and grow, but that strength is more visible, painting a target for others.
Antler Island has a few more sources of luck than Hameln and Shear Panic, specifically:
“There is enough luck in the game to stop it from being a dry abstract game,” says Gordon. “However, it does not play a major part. Players can minimise the effects of luck with good gameplay.” The set-up is also randomized to some degree. “Each stag will be equally as far away from all other stags and will have a food token and a doe next to it,” says Gordon. “The first round options are limited, and we have used this to our advantage—it means we can do a quick start to the game where players can do the first round easily and have picked up a large number of the rules easily.” Unlike last year’s Hameln—which came in 1,000 copies that were all preordered within three weeks—the latest title from Fragor Games is being released in an edition of 2,500 copies. If the clashing of antlers sounds good to you, write to fragorpreorder@yahoo.co.uk with “Antler Island” in the subject line; include your name in the body of the message and let the Lamonts know whether you plan to pick up the game in Essen or will need it posted.
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 | Black Box+
Publisher: Franjos
To mark the 20th anniversary of Franjos, the company is publishing a new edition of Eric Solomon’s Black Box, which has been part of the Franjos line since 1990. In addition to the standard version of Black Box, which celebrates its 30th anniversary, Eric Solomon has designed a hexagonal version of this classic deduction game. For those who don’t know how to play, here’s the scoop on the basic game: One player hides four or five “atoms” in a rectangular paper grid; the other player then shoots light rays (with his mind) into a particlar entry point on this grid. The light is absorbed if it hits an atom directly and reflected if it enters the sphere of influence around the atom. The first player marks where the light escapes on the grid. Eventually the second player will suss out where the atoms are located and announced his findings. Players alternate roles, and whoever scores fewer points wins. This new version includes a hexagonal grid as well, which has five or six atoms placed on it. More atoms and more entry points lead to an increased need for brainpower to have any hope of solving the set-up…
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 | Blazing Aces
Publisher: FRED Distribution
Blazing Aces is a new book of card games from master designer Reiner Knizia. No other information is available for this item at this time.
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| Rails of Europe
Publisher: FRED Distribution
The Rails of Europe expansion for Railroad Tycoon consists of a 30x36” gameboard, a deck of operation cards, and rules—but that’s all you’ll need to take the action of Railroad Tycoon to a new continent. Here’s a game description from the publisher:
The prototype of Rails of Europe will be on display at Spiel, with the published game due out by the end of 2007.
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| Through the Ages
Publisher: FRED Distribution
FRED Distribution is releasing a second edition of the game that won the International Gamers Award for multi-player games in 2007. Here’s a description of the game from the publisher:
The prototype of the new edition of Through the Ages will be on display at Spiel. The game is currently scheduled for release before the end of 2007.
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| Uptown
Publisher: Funagain Games
Uptown is an abstract strategy game with simple rules and intuitive game play. On the surface, it seems like a take on Sudoku, with its 9x9 grid, but in fact players take turns placing tiles on the gameboard with the goal of creating the fewest groups of their color. You can remove tiles placed by other players, but if the game ends in a tie for the number of groups, then the player who “attacked” fewer tiles wins, making planning and indirect attacks more valuable than head-on confrontation. For more on the game play and design, click over to the Uptown preview that I published on Boardgame News in July 2007.
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 | Skyline of the World (second edition)
Publisher: The Game Master
Skyline of the World appeared at Spiel 05 and sold out in 2006. For Spiel 07, van Tol is releasing a second edition of the game with new game elements, new material, and a redesigned box and gameboard. The additional game materials and rules will be available as a separate purchase at The Game Master booth at Spiel for those who own the first edition. The cost will be roughly €2.50.
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| The Game Master is also showing Rotterdam, which was released in Spring 2007, at Spiel, and in addition to demoing and selling the game, the company is holding a contest in which booth visitors can win up to €100. The details are unclear, but visitors need to visit the Game Master booth at 13:00 or 16:00 on any day and throw a game coin. Throw it where and why? That’s unknown, but apparently there’s a boat race on a giant gameboard and all will become clear once you’re ready to toss the coin. | |||||||||||||
 | Cop & Killer
Publisher: GameHeads
Here’s a translated description of this game from the publisher:
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| Saloon Poker
Publisher: GameHeads
A poker variant with a specialized deck. | |||||||||||||
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| The World Cup Game, plus two expansions
Publisher: Games for the World
Designer Shaun Derrick released The World Cup Game in 2006, and the game allowed players to recreate the 1930 or 2002 World Cup tournaments. The expansions bring other events into the mix; the first expansion has boards for Sweden (1958), Chile (1962) and England (1966) and additional rules as the formats of the World Cup changed over the years. Expansion 2 will include the 1934, 1938 and 2006 World Cup tournaments, and sells for £7.45 through the GamesfortheWorld website and €10 at Spiel. Since the 2006 event took place in Munich, Derrick says, “I will also have a special German langauge version of the 2006 World Cup also for sale at €10.00.” Expansion 2 was iffy for Spiel delivery initially, but according to Derrick, “I have just delivered the board files to the printers today and they have promised completion by Friday.” Games for the World is located at the JKLM booth.
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 | Army of Frogs
Publisher: Gen Four Two Games
Army of Frogs resembles Hive in that the gameboard is created while you play. The goal of the game is to create one large group of frogs—an army, if you will—through tactical manuevering and placement of the pieces, which are hexagonal bakelite frogs. Says Yianni, The molded frog figures have high backs so that they can easily be picked up and moved during play. Each player starts with two randomly drawn frogs, and on a turn a player takes the following three actions to build and shift an island of frogs in the center of the table: (1) if possible, move a frog of his color that’s on the board to a new location (something that’s obviously skipped on the first turn), (2) add one of the frogs in his supply to the board, and (3) draw a new frog from the bag and add it to his supply. The first player to create a group of seven or more frogs wins the game. The game includes a few placement rules along the line of Hive. You can’t split the island of frogs, and you can’t create a long peninsula of frogs, thus tieing up other players. “You can’t add your own colour touching your own colour stones, and the way you move is by jumping in a straight line but with multi jumps allowed,” says Yianni. As for the language issue, Yianni says, “I tend to prefer to have multiple editions each with their own rules and Army Of Frogs will go that way, but for the Essen fair the game will be available only in the English edition.”
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| Hive: Mosquito expansion
Publisher: Gen Four Two Games
The Mosquito set—one black, one white in bakelite matching the third edition—is being given away at conventions, tournaments, and other events. The Mosquito can be added to the game prior to playing, giving each player 12 pieces. The Mosquito is placed like other pieces, but for movement it takes on the characteristics of any piece that it touches, a grasshopper one turn, a spider the next, and so on. The only exception is that a Mosquito that Beetles its way onto the hive remains a Beetle until it’s back on the ground again. Says John Yianni, “Essentially the Mosquito is just a promo piece to encourage sign ups to events and tournaments, but it would also add a extra dimension to the game for those who want just that extra bit of brain burn.”
Yianni says that the Mosquito is likely to be available at the booth of HUCH & friends, the German distributor of Hive, but the giveaway still hasn’t been confirmed as of August 21. There will be only one edition of this release, with rules in every language in which Hive appears.
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 | Bolide Tracks #2
Publisher: Ghenos Games
Ghenos Games might have a new set of tracks for Bolide in time for Spiel. “Our wish is to release every year for Essen a new Bolide track,” says Anna Genovese, who handles administration for Ghenos. No details yet on which courses will be included.
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| Camper Tour
Publisher: Ghenos Games
This game will likely be released at Spiel. | |||||||||||||
| Rugby World
Publisher: Ghenos Games
This game will be shown as a prototype at Spiel. | |||||||||||||
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Publisher: Zoch
A French version of the Zoch game Volle Wolle. | ||||||||||||
| Brin de Jasette Entre Copines
Distributor: Gigamic
The latest title in a series of communication games with categories of questions such as “Brise-glace” (Icebreaker) and “À Coeur Ouvert” (With an Open Heart). The English version is sold under the title “A Bit of Banter,” and this is the “Between Friends” edition. I’m going to stop now.
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Publisher: Zoch
A French version of Zoch’s Burg Appenzell.
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Publisher: Zoch
A French version of the Zoch release Gloria Picktoria (aka Get the Goods/Reibach & Co.). | |||||||||||||
| Famille Hérisson
Publisher: Chelona
Apparently a family game of some sort about hedgehogs. The release date has been changed from September to “Reporte Date Inconnue” or as we say in English, “I dunno.”
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| Inside
Publisher: Gigamic
A description of Inside from Gigamic, the release date for which was September, but was changed on July 31 to “date uncertain”:
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| Kaleidoscope
Publisher: Gigamic
Kaleidoscope isn’t a new game, but it’s new to Gigamic.
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| Marrakech
Publisher: Gigamic
A translated description of Marrakech from Gigamic:
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Publisher: Amigo
A French version of the Amigo game Der Elefant im Porzellanladen (aka Playroom Entertainment’s Bull in a China Shop). | |||||||||||||
 | Monkey Business
Publisher: Gigantoskop
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:
And now, more details about the game play:
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| Spank the Monkey combo edition
Publisher: Gigantoskop
Gigantoskop is releasing a combo pack of Spank the Monkey and the Monkey Business expansion.
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 | Bulp!
Publisher: Giochix Edizioni
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. In addition to the languages listed above, the Giochix website will have rules available in Spanish, French, Swedish, Finnish and Danish as well.
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| Medievalia
Publisher: Giochix Edizioni
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. During the first phases of the game, players develop their fief by adding more cultivated fields and population, then they start constructing buildings, training the public, and building an army. All of this activity takes place with cards played from your hand. Cards cost a certain amount of resources, but produce some as well. The more you produce, the more powerful the card you can play and the more you’ll be able to stick it to the other players. In addition to the languages listed above, the Giochix website will have rules available in Spanish, French, Swedish, Finnish and Danish as well.
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 | Stations of the Cross
Publisher: Golden Laurel Entertainment
The publisher has briefly described this as “a Christian educational boardgame.” | ||||||||||||
| Vineyard
Publisher: Golden Laurel Entertainment
The only description from the publisher right now is “a mass-market, wine-making, resource-trading game.” | |||||||||||||
 | Landlord
Publisher: Goldsieber
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| Liebe & Intrige
Publisher: Goldsieber
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| Passtah
Publisher: Goldsieber
I believe this is a two-player abstract game published as Tunnelz in the U.S. by Educational Insights. More details to come… | |||||||||||||
| Saba: Palast der Königin
Publisher: Goldsieber
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 | Phenomena: Kampen om Aldra
Publisher: Gyldendal
Here’s a description of the game from BoardGameGeek:
Designer Kristian Østby doesn’t have a booth at Spiel, nor does the publisher Gyldendal, but Østby will have 20 copies on hand at Spiel. “All game contents are in Norwegian, but all cards are open information, and I will provide an English card translation,” he says. “It could be labeled as a medium-light strategic adventure game.” To preorder a game, contact Østby by email. He isn’t sure what the price will be as he must first buy the game directly from the publisher, but he’s estimating the price at about €30.
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Link:
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 | Ach, du Mauseschreck!
Publisher: HABA
Here’s a translated description of the game:
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| Buchstabenzwerge
Publisher: HABA
A translated description of the game:
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| Charly im Zoo
Publisher: HABA
A translated description of the game:
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| Die große Ratz-Fatz Spielewelt
Publisher: HABA
For the tenth anniversary of the Ratz Fatz series, HABA has a giant edition of the game with fifty game figures as well as 30 stories, poems and riddles to use with different game ideas included in the booklet.
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| Kalle Kanalratte
Publisher: HABA
A translation of the game description:
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| Käpt’n Kuck
Publisher: HABA
Players use “telescopes” to spot treasures on the map.
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| Kleiner Teddy
Publisher: HABA
A set of four games, such as memory and reaction, that revolve around dressing the bear in the right clothes—as if you’d ever get close enough to dress a bear…
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| Löwenstark!
Publisher: HABA
A description of the game from the publisher:
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| Ratz-Fatz Spiele
Publisher: HABA
Three different games that emphasize listening and memory to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Ratz-Fatz series of games.
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| Spiel dich schlau!
Publisher: HABA
Four game and book packages to introduce youngsters to basic concepts of letters, numbers, shapes and more.
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| Würfelwurm
Publisher: HABA
Here’s a translated game description from the publisher:
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 | Carcassonne: Abtei und Bürgermeister (Abbey & Mayor)
Publisher: Hans im Glück
Here’s a translated description of this expansion from Patrick Korner:
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| Ming Dynastie
Publisher: Hans im Glück
Nothing more than the title and designer name right now, although a Hans im Glück employee did say that this game would correspond in complexity to El Grande. Not bad company! If you really want to know more, here’s an old description of the game from when it was entered in the 2001 Hippodice game design competition:
Keep in mind that at least six years have passed since this description was written…
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| Oregon
Publisher: Hans im Glück
Åse & Henrik Berg have passed on this brief game description: “Oregon is a family/strategy game with a colonization-theme with a card-driven placement mechanism. The aim of the game is to position farmers and point-giving buildings in the best possible locations on the board.”
Pictures: (Click on the picture to see a larger version)
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 | Rattlesnake City
Publisher: La Haute Roche
Here’s a translated description of the game from the publisher:
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Links:
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 | Arger Dich Schwarz
Co-publishers: Nürnberger-Spielkarten-Verlag / Heidelberger
Heidelberger is co-publishing this title as well as distributing it in Germany. For more on the game, visit the Nürnberger Arger Dich Schwarz entry. | ||||||||||||
| This is a German version of Fantasy Flight Games’ Arkham Horror: Dunwich Horror expansion, which was released in English in 2006. The game sells for €39.90. | |||||||||||||
| Beowulf: Das Spiel zum Film
A German version of Reiner Knizia’s Beowulf: The Movie Board Game, which is due out in English in October 2007 from Fantasy Flight Games. The price is €29.90. | |||||||||||||
| Heidelberger is distributing the German-language edition of Repos Production’s Ca$h ‘n Gun$: Live, with a retail price of €19.90. | |||||||||||||
| Heidelberger is distributing the German-language edition of Repos Production’s Ca$h ‘n Gun$: Yakuzas, with a retail price of €29.95. | |||||||||||||
| Condottiere
This is a German edition of the new version of Condottiere, which is due out in English in August 2007 from Fantasy Flight Games. The German edition sells for €14.95.
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| This is a German version of Fantasy Flight Games’ Descent: Well of Darkness expansion, which was released in English in 2006. The expansion costs €39.90. | |||||||||||||
| Fury of Dracula
This is a German version of Fury of Dracula, which was released in English in 2006 from Fantasy Flight Games. This version retails for €44.90.
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| This is a German edition of Fantasy Flight’s Lord of the Rings: Battlefields expansion, with a retail price of €24.95. | |||||||||||||
 Khronos, Second Edition
Heidelberger is distributing the German-language version of Khronos, Second Edition, which Rio Grande Games is releasing in English. The game sells for €44.90. | |||||||||||||
| Mexican Hold’em Poker
Repos Productions has released this game with French rules; Heidelberger is handling the German edition, which retails for €6.60. For details on the game play, head to the Repos Mexican Hold’em Poker listing.
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| MicroMutants Evolution
Heidelberger is releasing a German edition of this game, which Nexus Editrice is releasing in Italian and Fantasy Flight in English. Visit Nexus’ MicroMutants Evolution entry for a description of the game play and components. This edition retails for €39.90 | |||||||||||||
| Mobbing
Co-publishers: Nürnberger-Spielkarten-Verlag / Heidelberger
Heidelberger is co-publishing this title as well as distributing it in Germany. For more on the game, visit the Nürnberger Mobbing entry. | |||||||||||||
| Runebound Abenteuer Packs I
This is a German edition of the first six expansion packs for Runebound, Second Edition: Relics of Legend, Artifacts and Allies, The Terrors of the Tomb, The Dark Forest, Crown of the Eldar Kings and The Sceptor of Kyros. Each pack retails for €6.95
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| Tribun
Co-publishers: Moskito / Heidelberger
Heidelberger is the co-publisher and German distributor of this new Schmiel deal. For more about the game, visit the Tribune listing under Moskito Spiele. | |||||||||||||
| Warrior Knights
Heidelberger is releasing a German edition of Fantasy Flight’s Warrior Knights with a retail price of €49.90.
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| This is a German edition of Fantasy Flight’s World of Warcraft: Shadow of War expansion, retailing for €24.95. | |||||||||||||
| BallCube
Publisher: Herz-Spiele
First, a poem from the publisher:
And now for the rest of this evening’s entertainment, a more concrete description of the game: BallCube seems to be a multi-dimensional approach to the old mass-market game Stay Alive! In the two-player game, players take turns inserting the 24 plastic pushers into the slots of the cube; the pushers have different numbers of holes and different arrangements of them. Players take turns placing their eight marbles in the 16 holes, then take turns pulling out the pushers by a single notch—or pushing them back in if they’re already out. Whoever gets all their marbles through the ballcube first wins. The game includes rules for three and four players as well as a two-player variant where you must first retrieve your seven colored balls, then let loose a white one. Drop the white one before you’re ready, and you lose.
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 | Buchstabenbeutel
Publisher: HiKu-Spiele
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| Katalon
Publisher: HiKu-Spiele
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| On Q
Publisher: HiKu-Spiele
An abstract game with a Q-shaped gameboard. Two stones are placed on each space of the board, and the stones come in four colors. Players take turns removing the stones and placing them in a personal line while following certain rules. Sylvester says, “As you see, my prototypes are not very ‘flashy.’ The published game will feature a ‘board’ made of leather and real stones, and will come in a small wooden box like Pajonk and Monochrom last year.”
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| Schischa
Publisher: HiKu-Spiele
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 | King of Siam
Publisher: Histogame
The setting is Siam in the year 1874. Siam’s king has initiated reforms that have caused a power struggle to break out between the Malays, the Lao, and the Royalists. To the outside world, these groups must appear to remain unified or else the British might take advantage of the chaos to colonize Siam. Can the Siamese maintain this image of unity while settling their differences? With two or three players, each player plays as an individual; with four players, they play in teams of two. The set-up phase contains the game’s only random elements; each of the country’s eight provinces receives four randomly drawn supporters, with each supporter belonging to one of the three factions (i.e. being one of three colors). In addition, the order in which the provinces will be scored is also randomly determined. Players start the game with two supporters of each faction. Each player also starts the game with a set of eight action cards. “These eight actions are all the players get during the game, so they have to be sure when to use them!” says designer Peer Sylvester. “Each round every player can play as many actions as he wants and can—so he can blow all eight actions in the first round if he wants, but this isn’t the smartest thing to do.” The actions usually change the distribution of the supporters on the board in order to gain control over the different factions and to push the factions they support into control of the country. However, if the conflict between the different factions becomes too intense, the British intervene, which changes the victory conditions players must achieve. Here’s how that possibility plays out in game terms: Each round ends with one faction gaining control over the province to be scored, with action cards possibly affecting the scoring order. Once scored, a province is off-limits for the remainder of the game. After eight rounds, the faction in control of the most provinces wins control of Siam, and the player with the most supporters in that color wins the game. But, says Sylvester, “In case of a tie within a province, the British will move in. If the British claim their fourth province, then the game ends immediately and new victory conditions occur,” specifically the player with the most “sets” of supporters wins. “The conflict in the game is two-fold,” says Sylvester. “First, to use the limited number of actions to manipulate the supporters in a way that benefits me, and second, to take the right supporters, the ones I think will win—but if I take a supporter, I raise my level of control over that faction, while also weakening this faction on the board.” King of Siam will include rules in German and English, and the components will be language independent. The game will be distributed in the U.S. by a distributor to be named later.
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Publisher: Simmons Games
Histogame will distribute Napoleon’s Triumph in Germany and throughout Europe. Histogame’s Richard Stubenvoll says that the game includes language independent components; the German rules will either be included within the box or available for download from the Histogame website. Here’s a description from the Simmons Games website:
Links:
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 | Tobynstein
Publishers: Homoludicus / Perra Comics
A game about re-animating dead animals. No, seriously. The subtitle of the game is even “You will give your paw again.” Here’s a short description of the game:
To purchase a copy of Tobynstein, which is limited to 1,000 copies, you need to contact Homoludicus and give your name as the company will have few, if any, copies available for the general public. Better not let PETA get their eyes on this one…
Pictures: (Click on the picture to see a larger version)
Link:
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| In addition to Tobynstein, Homoludicus has other games that will be available at Spiel by reservation only, so write the company if any of these sound intriguing: Café Race (€20), Agora Barcelona (€40), Pròxima Obertura (€35), Gaudí (€35), Ekonos (€40), and Dead End (€16, and the obligatory zombie game that each company must produce at least one of). The links for these games take you to the BoardGameGeek listing. | |||||||||||||
 |  Amyitis
Publisher: HUCH & friends
HUCH & friends will publish and distribute a German language version of this Ystari title. For game details, see the Amyitis listing under Ystari Games. | ||||||||||||
| Graffiti
Publisher: HUCH & friends
A drawing game of some sort.
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| Zoologic
Publisher: HUCH & friends
A series of 60 logic puzzles in which the solver needs to fill the grid with a certain number of dogs, cats, mice, and their favorite foods—but without allowing rivals (such as dogs and cats) or dinner table partners (such as mice and cheese) to be adjacent.
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 | Animalia
Publisher: GameWorks SàRL
Animalia, previously available only to customers of the Swiss insurance company Assura SA, will be available for sale at the Hurrican Games booth at Spiel. The game will be available in two editions:
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| Mr. Jack Expansion
Publisher: Hurrican Games
In early 2007, Hurrican held a contest in conjunction with the designers to accept new character submissions from fans for an expansion. Cathala and Maublanc had already created three new characters of their own, and after reviewing 137 submissions (some identical to the already chosen new ones), two additional characters were selected: Spring-Heeled Jack, by Steve McKeogh, and Abberline, by Arnaud Fillon. Here are a few words about each of the new characters:
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 |  Durchblick
Publisher: Hutter Trade GmbH
I believe this is a German version of Vitrail, published in 2006 by Cocktail Games and recently announced for a 2008 U.S. release by Gamewright as On the Dot. | ||||||||||||
| Sagrada
Publisher: Parland Spiele
A German game that helps you learn Spanish, whether you want to or not.
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Link:
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Publisher: Hutter Trade GmbH
This is a German version of La Grande Parade, released in 2006 by Cocktail Games. | |||||||||||||
| | Ramses: Wettlauf um die Reichtümer Ägyptens
Publisher: Isensee Verlag
Players are museum directors in the aftermath of the great Egyptian tomb discoveries in the 1920s and need to acquire the best and most beautiful collection of Egyptian art available on the market. | ||||||||||||
 | Exxit
Publisher: Jactaléa
Starting from a field of four hexagons, players try to extend their territory | ||||||||||||
| Gygès
Publisher: Jactaléa
An updated version of a classic game from Leroy. Your goal is to move one piece to the opponent’s last row; the trick is that no one owns any of the pieces, and you can move only those pieces in the row nearest to you. Pieces are comprised of 1-3 rings, and the number of rings equals the number of spaces it can move. Land on another piece, and you can either displace it or move spaces equal to this piece’s rings. | |||||||||||||
| Kamon
Publisher: Jactaléa
A hexagonal board is first filled randomly with 36 pieces, with each piece having one of six symbols and a value from 1 to 6. The first player replaces any of the pieces with a pawn of his color; from then on, a player must replace a piece that matches either the symbol or value of the piece previously claimed with a pawn of his color. A player wins the game if he (1) connects opposite sides of the board with a line of his pawns, (2) surrounds one or more spaces, whether empty or not, or (3) prevents the opponent from taking a turn due to a lack of matching pieces. | |||||||||||||
| Khan Tsin
Publisher: Jactaléa
Pieces of three colors are placed on the gameboard, and each turn a player moves one of the four closest pieces (or stacks) onto another piece (or stack). A stack of pieces may contain at most three of the same color. To win, create a stack of nine pieces, that is, with three pieces in each of the three colors. | |||||||||||||
| Mana
Publisher: Jactaléa
Each player tries to capture the opponent’s Damyo with his own Damyo or one of his five Ronins. | |||||||||||||
 | Festival
Publisher: Grimpeur
Here’s an edited description of the game—only 80 copies of which will be on sale at Spiel—from the distributor:
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Link:
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| Goita
Publisher: Grimpeur, Inc.
Here’s a somewhat edited game description from the distributor:
Only eighty copies of this game will be on hand at Spiel.
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Link:
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| Highschool Election
Publisher: ROLL
Here’s an edited description of the game, which will have 40 copies available, from the publisher:
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Link:
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| Magical Athlete: 2nd Edition
Publisher: Grimpeur, Inc.
Here’s an edited description of the game—only 50 copies of which will be on sale—from the distributor:
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Link:
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| Master of Rules
Publisher: Kawasaki Factory
Here’s a game description from the distributor:
Only 100 copies of Master of Rules will be available at Spiel.
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Link:
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| NI-SHI-KI
Publisher: C-NO TOY
Here’s an edited description of the game from the distributor, Japon Brand:
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Link:
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| NI-SHI-KI-Shouden
Publisher: C-NO TOY
Here’s a description of the game from the distributor:
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Link:
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| Origin of Failingwater
Distributor: Japon Brand
Here’s an edited description of the game from the publisher:
Another description mentions having a seventh card in your hand and being able to play this card in place of one of the cards you’ve already “played.” This description also mentions that the absolute value of your score is what matters, so scoring only negative points can still be a good thing since the total number of points is large. BGN’s Larry Levy got to play the prototype in early 2007, and he offers this assessment and added description of the game:
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Link:
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| Tosenkyo
Publisher: Ginsen-an
A fan-throwing dexterity game that supposedly dates back at least 200 years. Players sit about 10 feet apart on opposite sides of a wooden box that has a small target placed on top of it. Players take turns throwing fans at the target, which is called Chou (meaning “butterfly"). The score a player receives depends on the way in which the items land: a complete miss is 0 points, all three items (fan, Chou, box) lying separately is 1 point, the fan covering the Chou 8 points, and so on. Five fans are thrown by each player, who are watched over by a judge (who announces the score), a resetter (who removes the fan and places the Chou atop the box), and a scorekeeper. Kimonos and ceremonial tea service not included. Only five copies of Tosenkyo will be on hand at Spiel, so if you fancy a fan battle, don’t hestitate to visit the Japon Brand booth!
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| Word Basket
Distributor: Japon Brand
You probably won’t pick up this game on a whim like other titles in the Japon Brand booth as Word Basket is a fast-paced word game based on kana. Most cards in the deck have a single kana letter on them, while a few have five letters (presumably rarely used ones) and a few have only numbers, which relate to the length of the word. Your goal is to create a word that starts with the kana of the card placed in the basket and ending with a kana in your hand; do this, and you can throw the card in the basket. The first player to empty his hand wins.
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Link:
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| Japon Brand will also have roughly a dozen other games in its tiny booth: Q-Jet (24 copies only at €32), R-ECO, Magi, Trouble School, Magical School, Tekeli-li, Cucco, Lo Tarot, Go-nin-Kan, and a couple of solitaire items. Copies on hand range from 15 to 70. If last year is any guide, Japon Brand will have English and German rules for all of the items available for purchase. | |||||||||||||
 | Kogge: Bornholm
Publishers: MoD Games / JKLM Games
All 98 copies of this mini-expansion for Kogge, 2nd edition have been preordered, but they must be picked up by 17:00 on Saturday, so you can always swing by with hope at that time. | ||||||||||||
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Publishers: MoD Games / JKLM Games
Details of this title, which has only 500 copies available, are included under the MoD section of this preview.
Link:
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| Murdero
Publisher: D’Avekki Studios Ltd
Collect the right set of cards, and you can solve a murder! Okay, you’re not really solving a murder, but the game thinks you are and that’s what counts: making the game happy. The deck includes 60 cards divided up into 45 case cards numbered 1 to 5 and 15 action cards, which mess with the gameplay. Assemble a complete set of case cards to solve a murder. Multiple decks are available—although they are fixed and not collectible—and you can create different play experiences by mixing cards from different decks.
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Link:
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Publisher: Surprised Stare
Details of this game can be found in the Surprised Stare section of this preview.
Link:
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| Stoplights
Publisher: JKLM Games
Here’s a description of the game from the JKLM website:
Link:
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| KRIMI total: Der verfluchte Schatz der Piraten
Publisher: JMcreative
Somewhere in the Caribbean lies a Spanish galleon filled with gold that was bound for Europe. Its location is noted on no map, and only the most learned sailors can even think of searching for it through certain deadly reefs and shallow passages. In this party game, which is kin to the murder mystery dinner games, players get to search for buried treasure and see whether they can avoid the curse that hangs over this lost vessel.
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Link:
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 | Anno 1701: Das Brettspiel
Publisher: Kosmos
Here’s a brief description of the game from the publisher:
Anno 1701: Das Brettspiel follows Anno 1503 and Anno 1701 as the third title in the boardgame conversion of the PC game. This game bears a Catan logo on it since, as the Kosmos press release puts it, the 1701 boardgame contains elements that will be clearly identifiable by game connoisseurs as typically Catan. Each player receives an individual gameboard, which has raw material fields with numbers upon them (a la Catan) along with empty fields that can be filled with buildings over the course of the game. Many buildings strengthen the contentment of the settlement’s inhabitants; others let you move faster and sail further over the sea. On the large gameboard are islands composed of three to six hexagonal tiles. The players have their ships on the edge of the seas, ready to see what the islands hold: Valuable raw materials? Promising trade bases? Ideal spots for a fort? During the game, you’ll build up your island and use its wealth to improve the standing of your civilization. You’ll explore new islands and establish new colonies, which are the only place to find desirable items like tobacco. You can earn additional favor points (i.e. victory points) by having the largest lake power or the best trading power. The first to obtain five favor points wins, and while that total sounds small, you’ll need to work towards it by building a small empire of your own and slowly gaining the favor of the queen. The component photos, courtesy of Knut-Michael Wolf at Spielbox, show handmade components that feature the artwork to be included in the published game.
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| Der Goldene Kompass
Publisher: Kosmos
Pictures: (Click on the picture to see a larger version)
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| Der Goldene Kompass: Das Spiel zum Film
Publisher: Kosmos
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| Die Säulen der Erde: Die Erweiterung
Publisher: Kosmos
Here’s a brief description of the game from the publisher, as translated by Patrick Korner:
In addition to the master builders, worker figures, and starting craftsmen for players five and six, the expansion includes ten new advantage cards, four new event cards, and six new workmen cards. For only two gold, for example, you can have an assistant that increases the capacity of your own workmen from round to round. All of these additional cards can also be used when playing with 2-4 players. A new gameboard sits to the left of the original and gives players four more locations at which to use their master builders as well as spots to send workers directly in order to earn victory points. Two of the new locations are the Tax Collector where you are exempt from taxes and collect the taxes paid by others and the Harbor, where you can sell as many goods as you want, receiving one gold more for each than in the marketplace. The handling of the master builders has also changed a bit, which might address the concerns about lucky draws that some players have. Players throw only two master builders in the bag and set the third one aside. When one of your pieces is drawn, you can spend gold to add it to the board or defer placement for later. Whoever first pays to place the builder then places his final builder on the last open space, meaning he’ll place last with his third builder. Presumably other players who pay then line up in front of this one, although that’s not clear from the summary I’ve seen. The component photos, courtesy of Knut-Michael Wolf at Spielbox, show handmade components that feature the artwork to be included in the published game.
Pictures: (Click on the picture to see a larger version)
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| Die Siedler von Catan: Die Kolonien
Publisher: Kosmos
Here’s a brief description of the game from the publisher:
With Seafarers of Catan reaching its tenth anniversary, Kosmos is taking the “Colonies” scenario from Das Buch and publishing a revised version of it with new frame parts, additional water, volcano, gold and jungle tiles, and other components. Unlike normal Seafarers, players receive only three ships in their color and ships move from one intersection point to another rather than being strung out in a line. Ships can erect bases or discover wares (gold, ore, jewels and more) that will be shipped back to the Catan homeland. This expansion requires both the basic Settlers game and the Seafarers expansion.
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| Die Siedler von Hessen (Catan scenario)
Publisher: Kosmos
A Catan scenario set in the German area of Hessen, with the hexagonal fields laid out to match the real world geography and spaces for settlements and cities that match the ones that actually exist. The rules for the scenario are those of the base game, except for a few exceptions: First, you may create settlements only in the round areas on the map, and those settlements are sometimes separated by only a single road (just as they are in Germany itself). Whoever builds a road into one of these areas can’t build a road outward until they have established a settlement there. Finally, to gain the port advantage, you need merely to connect a road to one end of the red construction marker. Die Siedler von Hessen is available at the Kosmos booth at Spiel for a €2 donation to charity. Around the beginning of November, the scenario will be available in the Catan store on Catan.com. Die Siedler von Hessen is the first in a series of biannual scenarios based on all the areas of Germany. The next scenario will be Die Siedler von Rhine, Pfalz und Saar.
Pictures: (Click on the picture to see a larger version)
Link:
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| Die wilden Fußballkerle: Bolzplatz
Publisher: Kosmos
A game to mimic soccer skills.
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| Einfach Genial: Junior
Publisher: Kosmos
Here’s a brief description from the publisher, as translated by Patrick Korner:
Reiner’s second penguin game of 2007! Whodathunkit? Game play in the junior edition of Einfach Genial is similar to the regular game, but scaled down to match the size of the youngest players. Only four different shapes/colors are used in the game, and the tiles are consequently attached squares, not hexagons. The gameboard starts with one single tile of each color on the board. On a turn, a player draws a tile from the bag and places it somewhere on the board. For each adjacaent tile that matches the symbols being placed on the board—and not all matching tiles in a straight line—the player scores one token of the appropriate shape. When a player has four different shapes, he grabs one of sixteen penguin tiles and fills up the penguin’s belly. Yum, crosses! The game ends when all the penguins have been fed or when no more pieces can be placed on the board. The player with the most satisfied penguins wins. As with its parent, Einfach Genial Junior includes a solitaire version in which you’re trying to fill as many penguins as possible.
Pictures: (Click on the picture to see a larger version)
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| Entdecker: Im Reich der Jadegöttin
Publisher: Kosmos
This title is listed on Klaus Teuber’s Catan Shop as forthcoming in August, but Kosmos hasn’t released any info about the game, which makes this date seem unlikely. Here’s a description of the game:
Entdecker: Im Reich der Jadegöttin (In the Realm of the Jade Goddess) plays similarly to Entdecker and Die Neuen Entdecker, but now players are exploring the deep jungle. At the beginning of the game, players form a cross from four arms and a central square. (Think Kramer’s Goldland, but with the playing field extending in four directions instead of one.) On a turn, a player can leave his jeep in place or drive it adjacent to an undiscovered location. He then flips a face-down tile, and if he can place it in the empty space, he does so, then moves his jeep on the tile. He can place from 1 to 3 archaeologists on the tile and his turn ends. Tiles show forest and discovered city, which show either coins, artifacts or nothing. If a player can’t place a tile, he places it in front of himself and can pay to go again. When a city is completed, the player with the most archaeologists receives a number of face-down artifact tiles equal to the number of artifacts shown in the city; other players in the city receive fewer tiles. If coins are pictured, each player receives two coins. Your goal is to assemble these artifact fragments into complete works (which take four pieces)—but fragments can be in good condition or poor, and poor quality artifacts score you fewer points. If you return to the central cross, however, you can exchange a fragment with one of five face-up fragments, thus either completing an artifact or upgrading it. The Catan shop notes that Entdecker: Im Reich der Jadegöttin won’t be sold in supermarkets, department stores and other non-game intensive locations; instead it’s for toy and game stores only. The title is also the first in a series, with 2008 bringing the releases of “Entdecker: Im Reich der Wüstensöhne” (In the Empire of the Desert Sons) and “Entdecker: Im Reich der Dämonen” (In the Realm of Demons). Teuber’s sending players down below for infernal exploration? Now that sounds like a specialty product!
Pictures: (Click on the picture to see a larger version)
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| Money Lisa
Publisher: Kosmos
Here’s a brief description from the publisher, as translated by Patrick Korner:
The cards in the game show famous works of art from different eras, from da Vinci’s Mona Lisa to Warhol’s soup can paintings. The back of each card has information about the painting and artist as well as the winning bids for the work in previous auctions. If you can purchase paintings from the same era or featuring the same subjects at auctions during the game, your collection’s value will increase dramatically and you’ll receive a correspondingly huge boost in points. The component photo, courtesy of Knut-Michael Wolf at Spielbox, shows handmade components that feature the artwork to be included in the published game.
Pictures: (Click on the picture to see a larger version)
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| Pentago: The Mind Twisting Game
Publisher: Kosmos
Kosmos is releasing a new version of Pentago, which first appeared in 2003, won Swedish Game of the Year in 2005, and won the Mensa Select award in 2006. For those unfamiliar with the game, players alternate placing black and white balls on a 6x6 grid that’s composed of four 3x3 squares. After placing a ball, a player must rotate one of the grids by 90º. The first player to have five balls in a row wins.
Pictures: (Click on the picture to see a larger version)
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| Perry Rhodan: Die Kosmische Hanse
Publisher: Kosmos
It’s common knowledge that German game publishers rarely publish anything related to science fiction—yet that doesn’t stop game designers from trying. Heinrich Glumpler, a self-described “big fan of Merchant of Venus,” decided that he wanted to create a Merchant-type game that would capture the flavor of the original in a smaller format. Building on suggestions from his Edition Erlkönig partner, Mario Truant, Glumpler eventually created Venus Connection. “When I presented the game [to Kosmos], it was praised for its mechanism, but declined because of the theme,” says Glumpler. “Only as an afterthought, the license for a Perry Rhodan game came to mind. After that, I made adjustments to fit the game better into the Perry Rhodan universe.” This integration was fine tuned by Perry Rhodan publisher Pabel-Moewig. Glumpler had set a self-imposed limit of 110 cards on the design of Venus Connection, but the final version will be a typical member of the Kosmos two-player line with nice-looking cards and a gameboard. As for the game play, in Perry Rhodan: Die Kosmische Hanse—which translates roughly as “The Intergalactic Trading League"—players fly through the universe trading goods between planets, earning money which can be used to add additional cargo spaces or faster engines. You can also pick up passengers for higher payouts. Glumpler is well-known for including solitaire playing rules in games published by his own firm, Edition Erlkönig, but Kosmos’ Perry Rhodan is strictly a two-player game. “All the same,” says Glumpler, “I am working at a solitaire version of the Perry Rhodan game currently and will publish these rules at my website.” The component photo, courtesy of Knut-Michael Wolf at Spielbox, shows handmade components that feature the artwork to be included in the published game.
Pictures: (Click on the picture to see a larger version)
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| Pippi Langstrumpf
Publisher: Kosmos
On the 100th anniversary of Astrid Lindgren’s birth, her most famous creation—one Pilotta Viktualia Rullgardina Krusmynta Efraimsdotter Långstrump, better known as Pippi Longstocking in English—appears in a new game from Kosmos, and Kai Haferkamp is the obvious choice for a designer as he’s already transformed “Das kleine Gespenst” and “Die kleine Hexe,” among other titles, from book to game. Haferkamp took his inspiration for the game from a Pippi Longstocking story in which the characters had to pass through the kitchen without setting foot on the floor. In Pippi Langstrumpf, the gameboard is placed on the bottom part of the game box. The gameboard shows 12 pieces of furniture, and each piece of furniture is surrounded by a circle. Players reproduce these circles on the floor with string, then place cards within the circles that correspond with the household items pictured on the gameboard. Players must leap from circle to circle based on the cards they draw from a deck. More challengingly, they must leap in a manner specified on another randomly drawn card: perhaps with their arms spread wide, or their hands clasped over their head, or maybe holding a plush monkey named Mr. Nilsson that’s included with the game. If a player succeeds, he receives a gold coin; he can continue his turn, earning more coins or losing everything gained that turn. The first player to earn seven coins wins the game.
Pictures: (Click on the picture to see a larger version)
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| Schotts Sammelsurium
Publisher: Kosmos
Here’s a brief description from the publisher:
Schotts Sammelsurium is yet another of Kosmos’ adaptation of a literary work into a game, and in this case the game is based on the work of Ben Schott, specifically Schotts Sammelsurium (which is probably a German version of Schott’s Original Miscellany). Schott has sold more than two million copies of his various works—yet I’ve never heard of him before. Who’s buying these books?
Pictures: (Click on the picture to see a larger version)
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| Ubongo Extrem
Publisher: Kosmos
More of the same except that it’s E*X*T*R*E*M*E!!!! And by “extreme” I mean “played using game pieces composed of hexagons instad of squares although the goal of the game remains the same, namely to find the right pieces to cover a given silhouette completely and in less time than your opponents.” Amazing how compact the English language is sometimes… Ubongo Extrem includes 54 puzzleboards with 432 possible challenges, 52 puzzle pieces in four colors, 54 jewels, a drawbag, and a sand timer. As with the original Ubongo, each round players try to use three or four puzzle pieces to exactly cover a particular shape. The pieces are composed of 4-6 connected hexagons. Nine sapphire and nine amber jewels are laid out on the table, and the remaining gems added to the bag. Whoever completes the puzzle first takes a saphhire (worth 3 points) and draws a random gem from the bag; the second-place finisher gets one amber (2 points) and a random draw; the other players who finish the puzzle in time get only a randow draw. Gems are worth 1-4 points each, and whoever has the most points in the end wins. In the press release for this game, Kosmos notes in passing that the Ubongo titles have sold more than 200,000 copies to date. Pretty darn impressive!
Pictures: (Click on the picture to see a larger version)
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 | Agricola
Publisher: Lookout Games
“Agricola” is the Latin word for “farmer,” and players are farmers back in medieval times when you had little more than a spouse, a tiny wooden shack, and lots of broken land that you needed to tame and cultivate. You have lots of possibilities for improving your land—collecting clay, wood or stone; building fences; herding sheep, boars or cattle—but each turn you have only two actions, one each for you and your spouse. You might think about having kids in order to get more work accomplished, but first you need to expand your house. And what are you going to feed all the little rugrats? Lookout’s Hanno Girke says, “We’re 95% sure we can make it to Essen,” although the game will be only in German with text on the cards. Hanno says that he hopes to have an English translation ready in time, but if that’s not possible, he says, “The beginners’ game can be played with just rudimentary knowledge of German as you leave out the card decks.” The advanced (or standard) version adds more than 160 “educations,” to use Hanno’s term, as well as 140 improvements or acquisitions, such as buying an oven or getting more food out of your grain. Agricola lasts for 14 turns and plays pretty fast, according to Hanno. The game lasts 60 minutes, plus about 10 extra minutes for each player. Note that the number of players runs from 1 to 5. Says Hanno, “There are rules for playing solo; you just have to beat a given score or your previous one. With all those different cards, no game will be the same.” Update Sept. 18: Hanno Girke will run demos of Agricola in English each day at 2pm and eight spots can be reserved each day for individuals and groups.
Pictures: (Click on the picture to see a larger version)
Link:
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| Bohnanza Fan Edition
Publisher: Lookout Games
To celebrate the tenth anniversary of the release of Bohnanza, Lookout Games is publishing a special edition of the base game (which is for 3-5 players) with unique, fan-created art for each one of the 104 cards. In other words, you’ll have six different garden bean images, eight different red beans, and so on. The frames and beanometers will be the familiar ones from Bohnanza to make the game easier to play. Says Lookout’s Hanno Girke, “We received more than 400 entries. The entries were balanced to some degree unfortunately, so there were so many nice garden beans to be turned down (or made into 3rd bean fields), while the number of reasonable entries for stink beans was, well, relatively low—but we still had a choice.” Ten people made up the jury: three game industry professionals, four graphic designers, and three Bohnanza fans. Says Girke, “When the artwork was chosen, names were excluded. There were several factors involved: not too many beans with a similar theme, no lookalikes, and so on. For determining the first and second prize in each category, each jury member had 3, 2 and 1 points to give. In case of a tie, the total number of votes for that bean was the tiebreaker (e.g., 1-1-1 beats 3).” This game was originally announced as a single print run of 3,000 copies, but Rio Grande will now release an English-language version at a later date. As such, Lookout Games won’t be taking preorders on this release. Lookout Games is holding a pre-release party for the Bohnanza fan edition on October 13th at the Die Schreinerei gallery in Radbruch near Hamburg. “We’ll present the original entries and the final cards there,” says Girke. “Any Essen travellers already in Germany that weekend will be welcome.”
Pictures: (Click on the picture to see a larger version)
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 | Ice Flow
Publisher: Ludorum Games
Ludorum Games will be showing Ice Flow at Spiel 07, but the game won’t be released until early 2008. Here’s a short description from the publisher:
Pictures: (Click on the picture to see a larger version)
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| 18Rhl
Publisher: Marflow Games
This is a revised edition of 1838 that’s set in the Rhineland in western Germany. | ||||||||||||
| Bezzerwizzer
Publisher: Mattel
Link:
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Publisher: Mayfair Games
Mayfair Games will import an English language version of this Phalanx Games title—without using the Mayfair logo on the box—so head to the Chicago Poker entry under Phalanx for game details. | ||||||||||||
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Publisher: Mayfair Games
Mayfair Games is releasing an English version of this game in November 2007. For more details on the game play and a look at the components, head to the Amigo listing of Gangster. | |||||||||||||
| The Monuments of Antiquity
Publisher: Mayfair Games
Phalanx Games was associated with this title, but The Monuments of Antiquity (which carried a working title of Phaistos) will now appear only in an English version published by Mayfair. The game won’t be published until 2008, but Stefan Risthaus has said that the prototype will be available at the SAZ booth on Sunday afternoon and possibly at the Mayfair booth as well. (SAZ is an association of game designers that hosts a huge booth each year where members can show prototypes and upcoming releases. For more details, visit the SAZ website.) | |||||||||||||
| Patrician
Publisher: Mayfair Games
Patrician takes place in the Middle Ages when men were men and wealthy men were inspired to build magnificent towers in order to show off how prosperous they were. As the old saying goes, the taller the tower, the more influential the family. Players are master builders trying to profit from these vanity-driven families. You build these towers floor by floor, ready to take credit for making them look good. From Mayfair’s description of the game: “You must shrewdly accept the building orders of the patrician families to position yourself in the right place at the right time. Play your cards right, and your name will be famous among the rich and powerful!” Patrician comes with 149 wooden tower pieces, 55 building cards, 20 prestige tokens, and a double-sided playing board.
Pictures: (Click on the picture to see a larger version)
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 | Daedalus
Publisher: MdMV Games
Mattia has already released Daedalus in Italy, but he’ll have a booth at Essen and is ready to show off his first publication. Daaedalus is an abstract strategy game that is more move-and-roll than roll-and-move. Players lay tiles to form a labyrinth of streets and intersections. Each tile has one of four colors (blue, green, red, yellow) on each corner, and whenever a player completes a circle, he can take a number of actions equal to the number of quadrants in the circle of his color. The actions are:
You can preorder Daedalus for a discounted price of €15 and watch two video tutorials on the game’s webpage. Mattia says that he might have another game at Essen as well, although he’ll know for sure once October gets a bit closer.
Pictures: (Click on the picture to see a larger version)
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 | Kogge: Bornholm
Publishers: MoD Games / JKLM Games
The Bornholm expansion allows you to add a fifth player when playing the second edition of Kogge. The expansion also includes a pirate variant and a solo scenario. Steding notes, “As we had got only 98 ships, we have only 98 copies. Preorder is necessary. There will be no second printing!” As of September 25, all copies of this expansion have been preordered. If you’re desperate for a copy, swing by the JKLM booth on Saturday at 17:00 as all preorders must be picked up by then.
Pictures: (Click on the picture to see a larger version)
Link:
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| Macht & Ohnmacht (Power & Weakness)
Publishers: MoD Games / JKLM Games
Here’s a somewhat translated description of the game from designer Andreas Steding:
Only 500 copies of Macht & Ohnmacht are being produced—with JKLM Games handling the production, by the way—so you might want to preorder a copy if you’re interested. Even better, the preorder cost is only €22 instead of €25. Click on the link below to preorder.
Pictures: (Click on the picture to see a larger version)
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 | Seigo: Conquer the Japanese language!
Publisher: Mondainai Strategy Games
Possibly the world’s first linguistic strategy game. Only 100 copies will be on hand in Essen. Here’s a description from the designer and publisher’s website:
And a more detailed description from designer and publisher, Harald Enoksson:
If Japanese isn’t your thing, wait until next year when Seigo: Conquer the Chinese language! debuts at Spiel ‘08.
Pictures: (Click on the picture to see a larger version)
Link:
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| StreetSmart
Publisher: Mondainai Strategy Games
Here’s a long description from the designer:
But wait, there’s still more! Act now and you’ll receive the Bureaucrat Expansion, the Cholera Expansion, the Power & Water Expansion, the Chess-Player’s StreetSmart variant, and the Politican’s StreetSmart variant—all within the main game for the low, low price of €20. Only 100 copies will be on hand at Spiel, so don’t miss out… | |||||||||||||
 | Tribun
Co-publishers: Moskito Spiele / Heidelberger
Karl-Heinz Schmiel has a new release coming for Spiel 07: Tribun, which Fantasy Flight Games is releasing in English as (wait for it) Tribune. Here’s a description of the game a la Fantasy Flight:
Note that Fantasy Flight doesn’t expect to release its version until November. | ||||||||||||
 | Bonus
Publisher: MoxiBox
Players try to unload their cards to the table before anyone else in order to score the fewest points. Players can also play as partners to accommodate 4, 6 and 8 players.
Link:
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| The Crazy Gift Game
Publisher: MoxiBox
The Crazy Gift Game, which is available under the title Das Verrückte Geschenkspiel in German, is a party game that’s played with real gifts. Yes, players bring one or more gifts to your party, then you play this game, during which the gifts will shift around in various ways. The “winner” is the person who ends up with the most gifts—assuming the gifts are any good, that is! For each set of cards that you add to the game, another 15 people can join in.
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 | Nature Detective
Publisher: Murmel
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Posted by W. Eric Martin on Jul 1, 2008 at 12:31 AM in Special Features, Convention Previews / 8408
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