Convention Report: Origins 2006: June 29, 2006 - Part 2 (Day 1)

By Rick Thornquist
June 29, 2006

After finishing editing and posting the video and the first part of this report, it was time to head back down to the Exhibit Hall.  I visited a few publishers and got the latest scoop on their games. 

Playroom Entertainment
The first publisher I visited was Playroom Entertainment and I got the scoop from head honcho Dan Rowan.  Dan had his line of games on display and was showing off a few new ones - the Killer Bunnies Bunny Blanks Set 2 along with the Knizia games Dead Man’s Treasure and Knights of Charlemagne. He also had a prototype of the upcoming game Mother Sheep, designed by Jeb Haens.

Dan gave me the rundown on the release dates for their upcoming games.  Killer Bunnies Bunny Blanks Set 2 and Dead Man’s Treasure should be hitting stores now.  Knights of Charlemagne should be available in Mid-July and the Killer Bunnies Wacky Khaki Booster Deck in Mid August (that one should be available at Gencon).  The other three games on the production line - Mother Sheep, the Tom Jolly trick-taking game Trickery, and the James Ernest / Mike Selinker game Unspeakable Words will all be done in Late 2006 / Early 2007.  By the way, Unspeakable Words is a word game based on the Cthulu mythos - believe it or not!

Eight Foot Llama
My next stop was Eight Foot Llama.  Designer Jim Doherty had his entire line of games on display include Deluxe Penguin Ultimatum with cute penguin pieces.  He’s not coming out with any new games this year but is planning to have a new one for Origins next year.

Z-Man Games
Next up was Z-Man games.  Zev Shlasinger was proudly showing off his games including the brand spanking new The Scepter of Zavandor, which is in stores now.  His next games will be Take Stock in August, The End of the Triumverate in Late August / Early September (with early copies available at WBC and Gencon), and 1861 in September.  Midgard will come in September / October, Lifeboats in Late October Early November.  The Primordial Soup Expansion as well as Gheos are still on for the Fall.

Zev also gave me the scoop on another game that Z-Man is doing.  Zev is going to be publishing the game Feudo, designed by Mario Papini and originally published ZuGames in 2004.  The Z-Man edition will be similar to the ZuGames edition but will have improved colors plus better English rules.  Look for that one in October / November.

Café Games
The last publisher I visited today was Ron Magin of Café Games.  Ron had a selection of his games on hand including - wait for it - some copies of Tempus!  Ron only brought 26 advance copies to the show and they were sold out in 10 minutes (it would have been less, but Ron can only write down credit card numbers so fast!).  The rest of the copies of the game are on the boat right now and barring any problems with weather / customs / alien forces, the game should be available in Early August.

Ron also had with him prototypes of his three other upcoming games.  His prototype of Ave Caesar had what looked to be the final box and board art along with the pieces (I’ll try to get in a game to get pictures of it while I’m here).  This one is scheduled for Essen or perhaps before.  Ramparts had the final box and board art but prototype pieces (I did play this - see the third part of this report) and will be available at Essen or perhaps after.  Spectral Rails is now looking like it will come out at Christmas.

That was it for the publishers today.  I’ll be covering the rest of the publishers of interest over the next three days.  In the third part of today’s report I’ll go over some of the games I played.  Stay tuned!

© 2006 Rick Thornquist

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