Gone Cardboard News: Massive Z-Man Games Update

Zev Shlasinger has an incredible number of plates in the air right now, and while he’d love to take a rest, most of them will be spinning against his will until June or July. (Hmm, that analogy doesn’t really work, does it?) Here’s an update on many titles forthcoming from Z-Man Games:

• Neuland is arriving at the Z-Man warehouse on May 8th, so expect to see it in stores soon.

• The second edition of Ideology will probably be out sometime in June rather than the previously announced date of April.

• Wasabi! is coming from the same printer as Ideology and also expected in June.

• Chinatown should appear in June as announced. Filosofia has already released the new version of the game in French, and the English one is almost ready.

• Traders of Carthage, from Susumu Kawasaki is expected in June as well.

• Agricola has been delayed until late June or early July as Lookout Games, the original publisher, is coordinating a simultaneous printing in eight different languages and waiting for final approval from everyone involved before going to press. Due to preorders and orders from distributors, Zev says that this print run is already sold out, which means that he won’t have copies available at Origins (assuming the game would be released by then). He has already ordered a reprint, but of course the initial run needs to be printed first!

• Tom Lehmann’s Middle Kingdom will be released in June or July, as well as Dylan Kirk’s Genji. Zev said that July might be more likely for these two titles since a handful of games are already in the pipeline for June.

• Shadow Hunters, from Owner’s Choice designer Yasutaka Ikeda, is another June/July release.

• Neuroshima Hex! will appear in July or August, possibly with some graphic tweaks to tone down the brightness of the gameboard. The Z-Man edition will include the Mad Bomber tile previously available only as a tournament promotion as well as a special four tile Mercenary army.

• Tales of the Arabian Nights should be Z-Man’s big Gen Con release in August. One addition to the game will be individual quest cards; each player takes one card as they leave Baghdad to give them a sense of direction in the game. If you complete the quest, you’ll receive a reward, although you can also choose to ignore it. The quest and merchant rules have been removed from the game, and Zev says that a thousand new paragraphs have been added. The graphics are also being reworked, which leads to delays in another Z-Man project, as noted below.

• Susumu Kawasaki has yet another title from Z-Man, Master of Rules, this one due out in August or September. I wrote a first impression of the game back in October 2007 and have since played a few more times. Some folks are bothered by the forced playing of rules, but one element of every card game is working your hand the best that you can. Since you draft cards after each round, you do have some control over possible plays in the future.

  

• The three expansions for Prophecy have been pushed back to late fall or early winter of 2008 – and early 2009 isn’t out of the question. Part of the delay results from the wait for new artwork while the artist completes Tales of the Arabian Nights first. Zev says that designer Vlaada Chvatil is also testing out various elements of the expansions.

• Finally, in terms of reprints, No Thanks! and Saboteur will be back in stock in late May or early June after being out since Christmas 2007. And Pandemic will soon reappear in blink-and-you’ll-miss-it fashion. “I’ve already sold out of the second print run,” says Zev. In fact, not enough copies are coming to refill the distributor orders that he already has, so another reprint is already in the works. If you’ve been looking for a copy, grab the first one you see because it may be a couple of months before it’s available again!

This long list of games – which is only about half of what Z-Man has in the works – has been updated on Gone Cardboard.

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Any chance of a Z-Man release of Reef Encounters of the Second Kind at this point, or is that all but dead now? Posted by Matt Fullenwider on May 8, 2008 at 12:36 AM | #

Lots of good stuff coming from Z-Man. Posted by Jim Cote on May 8, 2008 at 02:21 AM | #

I strongly second Matt’s request for Reef Encounters of the Second Kind, but at this point am losing hope of ever seeing a version of that expansion with 2nd edition artwork sadly… Posted by Tom Rosen on May 8, 2008 at 12:22 PM | #

I am trying to understand. If a print run is completely sold out before printing, why not print more in that print run? Posted by Sterling Babcock on May 8, 2008 at 04:11 PM | #

Sterling, Zev said that the wooden bits for Agricola are ready and waiting for the other publishers to finish approval of their paper and cardboard components. To make more copies, they’ll need to get more wooden bits ready, which will take time. Also, you typically have to schedule time with a printer, with the printer promising to print X copies within some time period. Asking for more copies would eat into another manufacturer’s scheduled press time, so you have to wait for another day. Matt and Tom, REII might still appear at some point. Zev said that he’d get back to me after running numbers and consulting the moon. Eric Posted by W. Eric Martin on May 8, 2008 at 04:25 PM | #

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