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Convention Report: GAMA Trade Show 2006 - March 15, 2006 - Part 2 (Day 3)
By Rick Thornquist
March 17, 2006
This is the second part of my report for Day 3 of the GAMA Trade show, and this is also my final report from the show. In this part I report on my playing of play Rocketville and chat with some more publishers about their upcoming releases.
I had run in to Scott Larabee of Wizards of the Coast close to the beginning of the show and he kindly agreed to a time to show me the newest Avalon Hill game Rocketville. I wrote the appointment in my book only to have it completely slip my mind when the time came. I spotted Scott while walking by the Avalon Hill booth and decided it was an appropriate time to grovel and apologize for the missed meeting. Scott was very nice about it, fortunately for me! He grabbed a copy of Rocketville and we set out for the open gaming area to play the game.
Rocketville is a light to medium weight area control game. Surprised? The theme doesn’t really make you think of area control, but that’s what it is. The board is divided up into squares and there are groups of squares of the same color, delineating areas.
Players receive a hand of numbered cards, some of which are particular colors, some others are white (which means they’re wild).
One at a time, each square is auctioned off. Each player plays one card, face down, and then they are all revealed - 6 Nimmt! style. The highest card gets the square and that player puts a marker on it. This keeps going until all the squares have been claimed.
In the final scoring, each group of squares is scored and the players who claimed the most squares in an area gets some points (second place gets less points). Whoever has the most points wins.
There are a few other rules, but that’s it in a nutshell. I felt the game played like a combination of an area control game and 6 Nimmt!. It plays very fast - our three player game played in about 20 minutes (The box says 45 minutes - I think you’d have to be playing pretty slow to take that long). I didn’t think it was all that original, but I thought it was okay to pretty good - it may fill a niche of being a nice light to medium weight filler game.
After the game, I quizzed Scott about some upcoming Avalon Hill games we’ve heard rumblings about - Fu-Grammer and a game that’s supposed to be a reprint of an old Avalon Hill game. He was coy and wouldn’t give me any details right then, but promised to get back to me. When I hear back from him I’ll post an item with any news.
While wandering the aisles, I spotted a familiar game that I didn’t expect. The game was Terra Nova - a new game that was announced by Winning Moves Germany at Nuremberg. The company showing the game was Immortal Eyes Games - a company I had never heard before.
I quizzed the guys in the booth and it turns out the Immortal Eyes is a new branch of Winning Moves that will publish hobby games (as opposed to regular Winning Moves games which are for the mass market). They had three games that they were showing. Pecking Order is a quick, simple two player game from Richard Garfield that is to be available in June 2006. Conquest of Pangea is a two to four player board game where the super-continent Pangea breaks into pieces. The game is by Phil Orbanes and should also be available in June 2006. Terra Nova was designed by Rosanna Leocata and Caetano Evola and this is another two to four player boardgame. This one is to be available in August 2006.
Previously, Rio Grande was the company that brought us English versions of games from Winning Moves Germany. I guess that’s no longer the case! It was a very nice surprise to see these games and I’ll be keeping my eye on Immortal Eyes for future games.
My next victim was Keith Blume of Eagle Games. I had met with Eagle at the New York Toy Fair just a month ago so I already knew pretty much what they were up to. Keith gave me a quick update on their release schedule.
He told me that the Game Designers Toolkit should now be out in Mid-May 2006. Age of Empires III - The Boardgame should be out in Mid-July 2006. Sid Meier’s Pirates! - The Boardgame is scheduled for August 2006 to appear at Gencon.
Sharing the booth with Eagle Games was Uberplay. This was a bit of a surprise to me, as I knew Eagle and Uberplay had parted ways late last year. It turns out they were just sharing the booth space.
The full line of Uberplay games were on display. I didn’t get a chance to stop and chat with the guy at the booth (he was busy with other people the times when I stopped there). The good news was the Uberplay seems to be reasserting their presence in the game world.
Like Eagle, I had met up with Playroom at the Toy Fair and got the scoop on their upcoming games while I was there. At GAMA I chatted with Dan Rowen and got a quick update on their release schedule.
The Killer Bunnies Perfectly Pink Booster Deck should be released at the End of April 2006. The Killer Bunnies Bunny Blanks Set 2 is still on for June 2006. Dead Man’s Treasure, the new version of Der Schatz des Kapt’n Flint, is also on for June 2006. Knights of Charlemagne, the new version of Tabula Rasa, is to be released in July / August 2006.
Mother Sheep is to be released in August 2006 at Gencon. Dan mentioned that gamers might want to check this one out - it may look like a kid’s game but he suggested that gamers may find it fun. The Killer Bunnies Wacky Khaki Booster Deck is up for End of August / September 2006. Both Trickery and Unspeakable Words are still due in Q4 2006.
I next stopped off at Atlas Games to see what was new. They were showing off three board games - Grand Tribunal, Recess, and Seismic, in addition to their Epic Dungeoneer card game Call of the Lich Lord.
Grand Tribunal is a boardgame inspired by the Ars Magica roleplaying game. In this game, players use tokens to create magic items. Votes are then held for the item types and spell categories. There are three scoring intervals where players are rewarded for having the magic items that got the most votes. The game is for 3-5 players, ages 12 and up, and plays in 60-90 minutes. The game is to be available in April 2006.
Next up was the Morgan Dontanville game Recess! I got a quick demo of this one and it sounds like silly fun. The board depicts a playground where boys and girls are tussling and trying to steal each others lunch money. Nuns patrol the playground to try to keep things under control. The object is to have your boy and girl pieces meet out of sight of the nuns so they can steal a kiss. There’s lots of goofy rules like having your kid tell on other kids, etc. The game is for 3-5 players, ages 8 and up, and plays in 10-30 minutes. It’s to be available in April 2006.
Game designer Ted Alspach was among the people showing off games in the Atlas Games booth. Ted was showing off his game Seismic, which I talked about in my first day’s report. Seismic is to be released in July 2006.
Epic Dungeoneer: Call of the Lich Lord is the first Epic set for the Dungeoneer series, where you can advance heroes from previous sets to higher levels. It is also a standalone game. This one is due in June 2006.
Like Eagle and Playroom, I had caught up with Mayfair at the New York Toy Fair but I did get one nice new bit of news on a new game. Mayfair is going to be doing an English version of the game Die Weinhändler to be titled Winehandler. This one was originally released in Germany by Amigo in 2004. The English version is due from Mayfair in Late Spring / Early Summer 2006.
A couple of small schedule updates for Mayfair: Valley of the Kings has been postponed until next Essen and the Phalanx game Inferno is likely to be released then as well.
I made a quick stop at the Out of the Box Publishing booth. It looks like there were no updates since I saw them at the New York Toy Fair.
Shortly after I stopped by Out of the Box, the exhibit hall was closing. I joined Ward Batty and Darcy Paulin for dinner before heading up to our next appointment - playing a prototype of the Eagle Game Sid Meier’s Pirates - The Boardgame.
Now before you get all excited, I have to tell you that though I did indeed play this game, it was still in the prototype stage so I can’t talk about it. I was hesitating to even mention that I played it, but I did want people to know that though this game has been in gestation for eons, a version of the game actually does now exist.
As I mentioned in my New York Toy Fair coverage, Eagle has two possible designs for the game - one from Glenn Drover and one from SDR (the designers of Bootleggers). I played the SDR version. Glenn is still in the process of deciding which version to use, or to create an amalgamation of the two.
After finishing up Pirates!, I headed down to the open gaming area to join up with Stephan Brissaud of Asmodée who wanted me to try out a prototype of his. This one I also can’t talk about except to say this is something a bit different for Asmodée.
By the time we finished up, it was after midnight and I was bagged. I headed up to the room to do some work and to get some shut-eye.
I woke up the next morning and though the show was going on for one more day, I needed to leave in the morning to head home (I couldn’t get a flight later in the day, unfortunately).
The show was very good - I got lots of great information from the publishers, including a few nice surprises, and played some very fun games. It would have been nice to stay for one more day so I could do a little more reporting, but I was able to get in most of the things I wanted to see. Of course, it was great fun to see the usual gamer crowd - the people are the most fun thing about these conventions.
And that’s it for our coverage of GAMA Trade Show 2006. See you next year!
| Pictures - Click the picture for a larger version | |
 | The Wizards of the Coast / Avalon Hill booth is bustling with activity |
 | Rocketville |
 | Immortal Eyes Games |
 | Pecking Order |
 | Conquest of Pangea |
 | Terra Nova |
 | Keith Blume holds court at the Eagle Games booth |
 | Playroom Entertainment |
 | Atlas Games - Ted Alspach proudly presents his game Seismic |
 | Grand Tribunal |
 | Recess |
 | Recess rules |
 | Mayfair Games |
 | Out of the Box Publishing |
© 2006 Rick Thornquist
Posted by Rick Thornquist on Mar 17, 2006 at 08:05 PM in Special Features, Convention Reports, Convention Report: GAMA Trade Show 2006 / 2173
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