Boardgame News

Convention Report: New York Toy Fair 2006 - February 12, 2006 - Part 1 (Day One)

By Rick Thornquist
February 12, 2006

It’s February in New York and that can only mean one thing - Snow! Oh, and the New York Toy Fair…

In what seems to be becoming a Toy Fair tradition, New York was hit with a massive snowstorm the night before the show was to start. I woke up this morning to a huge pile of snow on the ground and as I walked outside the snow was still falling heavily. By the time I caught a cab I was completely covered in snow. The cab ride to the Javits Center, where the Toy Fair is being held, was hilarious - we went no more than five miles an hour the whole way and on more than one occasion the cab narrowly missed smashing into other cars that were sliding all over the road.

Anyway, enough about the weather, let’s talk about the Toy Fair! The Toy Fair is humongous and is filled any and all kinds of toys. Games are just a small part of the Toy Fair, and the games I’m interested in - the German style games - are even a smaller part.

The Toy Fair is made up of two massive levels at the Javits Center. There are also some companies that exhibit at their offices elsewhere in New York. Fortunately for me, the Toy Fair has set aside a Game Zone, a couple of rows of booths in the lower level, that are reserved for game companies (though a couple of publishers, like Out of the Box, are elsewhere). Most of the publishers I wanted to visit were in the Game Zone.

My first order of business was to get my press pass. It seems like every year the Toy Fair people move the press area to another location and they did it again this year (I think it’s a game that they are playing with us, to see if we can find it). This year it’s on the top floor of the Javits and through some windows I was able to get a nice birds-eye view of the massive top level of the fair (see the pictures below).

After getting my press pass, the show was officially open. It’s time to head down to the show floor and get things started!

Face2Face Games
In what’s becoming a tradition in my Toy Fair coverage, my first stop was the booth of Face2Face Games. Larry Whalen was on hand to give me the scoop on what games the company has in store for us.

Their first game out of the gate will be Winner’s Circle - the new version of Royal Turf, designed by Reiner Knizia. The game is being printed as we speak and Larry is hoping for a mid-March release, though it may end up being mid-April. The game has big horse and jockey miniatures that Larry is very excited about and it’ll come in a box that is the same size as Rheinlander, only thinner. The game is to retail for 35 US$.

After Winner’s Circle, Face2Face has two more Reiner Knizia games lined up for production. Genesis is a brand new Knizia boardgame and Dragon’s Secret is a new version of the German game Schatz der Drachen. Both of these games are due in the Summer. Later this year Larry expects to release Wizard’s Brew, a new version of Das Amulett.

R&R Games
My next stop was R&R Games. Head honcho Frank DiLorenzo is obviously quite busy with his Hide & Seek Safari toy, but he has taken a few moments away from it to get two new games into the pipeline.

The first game is called Disorder and it was designed by none other than… Frank DiLorenzo! I wonder if Frank had a tough time convincing himself to publish his own game? This is a word game and it involves player playing letter cards one at a time in a row on a board. At some point an opponent can challenge you to say a word made up of the letters - if you do, great, if you don’t you get some points (and you don’t want points). The game is for 2-6 players ages 10 and up and is to be released in June 2006.

The second game is Take Your Best Shot, designed by Aaron Weissblum. In this game, players are read a question that is on a card. There are three possible answers on the back of the card, which the other players can see. If you think you know the answer, you throw a little plastic ball into a plastic cup with the color of the answer you think is right (see the picture below). The cover is now taken off the cup and the balls are aligned vertically, the first one into the cup at the bottom. You not only get points for getting the answer right, you get points for getting your answer into the cup fastest.

The questions are not regular trivia questions, they are sort of trick word questions. For example, one question is “Does not contain a feline or a direction” and the answers are Holiday, Feast and Vacation. Vacation contains the word ‘cat’ so that’s out and so is Feast, which contains the direction ‘east’. The winning word is Holiday.

The game plays from 3-5 players and is also to be released in June 2006.

Talking about Hide & Seek Safari, Frank has big plans for the toy. He has more animals planned, such as a monkey and a dinosaur, plus some plush animals as well.

Playroom Entertainment
My next stop was a visit with the folks from Playroom Entertainment. The have a number of interesting games on tap, including a number of Reiner Knizia games.

First up is Dead Man’s Treasure. This is actually a new version of the German game Der Schatz des Kapt’n Flint, designed by Reiner Knizia. The idea of the game is to gain the most valuable treasure on a chain of six islands. The game plays from 3-5 players ages 8 and up and plays in 20 minutes. The game will retail for 15 US$ and is to be released in Q2 2006.

Next up is another Knizia game, Knights of Charlemagne. This one is a new version of the game Tabula Rasa. In this game, you command the forces of Charles the Great and deploy your knights to various estates, taking control from your opponents. The game is for 2-4 players ages 8 and up and plays in 20 minutes. The game is scheduled for release in Q3 2006.

The next new game is Mother Sheep. This one was designed by Jeb Havens. This is more of a family game where the first player to round up Mother’s lost little sheep wins the game. This is done by strategically placing fences. The game is for 2-6 players ages 8 and up and plays in 20 minutes. The game will be released in Q3 2006.

For Killer Bunnies fans, Playroom has two new expansions - the Perfectly Pink Booster Deck (coming in Q2 2006) and the Wacky Khaki Booster Deck (coming in Q3 2006). They are also coming out with Bunny Blanks - blank cards with which to create your own Killer Bunnies cards. There will be two different Bunny Blanks packs, each comes with some special cards in addition to the blank ones. The Bunny Blanks are to be out in Q1 2006.

Playroom has two more games to round out their lineup. Tom Jolly’s Trickery is a trick-taking game designed by Tom Jolly (Hmmm… I guess that was obvious). In addition to a regular card deck, this game has a rules deck. At the beginning of each hand, the rules deck is shuffled and four rules cards turned up that are in effect for the hand. Each rule card changes the game in some way - assigning trump to a suit, making certain cards worth more or less, etc. The game plays from 2-8 players ages 10 and up and plays in an hour. It will be out in Q4 2006.

The last game is Unspeakable Words, a Call of Cthulhu word game. This one was created by the design team of Mike Selinker and James Ernest. In this game, players use cards to spell out words, which are worth a certain amount. Unfortunately, the more a word is worth, the more likely you will lose one of your precious sanity chips! You roll a die and if the roll is less than the value of the word, you lose a sanity chip. You start out with five and if you lose them all, you are out. The first player to reach 100 points without losing their sanity wins! The game plays from 2-6 players ages 10 and up and plays in 30 minutes. This one will be out in Q4 2006.

After chatting with Playroom, it was time to head up to the press room to get some work done. As I was walking, I heard this din which started to get louder and louder. In the distance I saw a figure on a stage, hopping around and singing. It was none other than William Hung, everybody’s favorite tone-deaf American Idol alumnus! William was singing his signature tune, the Ricky Martin song ‘She Bangs’. I watched for a short period of time, bemused. I then decamped for the press room (where, unfortunately, I could still hear the din).

Funny thing, I was up in the press room a few times during the day and, unfortunately for me, it always seemed to coincide with one of William’s shows. I think he was performing every hour on the hour. Yikes.

Knucklebones
At 11:45, I headed back down to the show floor - this time to the Knucklebones booth. The magazine had set up a nice area in the middle of the Game Zone where they had scheduled a series of talks by people in the game business. Bruce Whitehill gave a talk earlier in the day, and now it was Erik Arneson’s (of About Board / Card Games) turn to give his talk ‘Getting Media Attention for Your Game’. Erik did a great job and had many good tips for game publishers. Later in the day I caught another talk, this one by John Kaufeld called ‘Increasing Traffic to Your Store’. I enjoyed that one as well.

Deflexion
After Erik’s talk I hooked up with one of the Deflexion guys - Michael Larson. As most of you probably know, Deflexion is a game that has an actual working laser. They are planning an expansion for the game with some new pieces. Michael showed me one of the new pieces - a beam splitting piece called the Eye of Ra. With this piece, the laser both goes through it and is reflected (and is an invincible piece). The expansion will include some other pieces and is to be released by the end of this year, in time for Christmas.

And that’s it for Part 1 of today’s report. The second part will go over any games I see later this afternoon plus any games I play this evening (if I get the chance).

Pictures - Click the picture for a larger version
	The snow outside the Javits Center
	The inside of the Javits Center
	A birds-eye view of the upper level from the press room
	Another birds-eye view
	Another birds-eye view
	Another birds-eye view
	Another birds-eye view
	Larry Whalen of Face2Face Games
	R&R Games
	Disorder
	Take Your Best Shot
	The gang of Playroom Entertainment
	Some box covers from the upcoming Playroom games
	The boxes of the new Killer Bunnies expansions
	William Hung sings and jumps
	Erik Arneson does his talk at the Knucklebones booth
	John Kaufeld does his talk at the Knucklebones booth
	The Deflexion Boys at their booth
	Deflexion
	The Eye of Ra expansion pieces for Deflexion