Pony Express, Coming from Funforge for Spiel 09

Pony Express is a new game from Bruno Faidutti and Antoine Bauza that Funforge – which debuted with Illusio in 2008 – will release at Spiel 09, the giant game convention held in Essen, Germany each October. As Faidutti mentions on the Pony Express page on his website, he designed a western-themed game with poker dice at about the same time that Bruno Cathala and Ludovic Maublanc designed Dice Town. Dice Town made it into print first, courtesy of Matagot, but thanks to Faidutti’s collaboration with Bauza – who made the game “more dynamic, more varied, faster paced,” according to Faidutti – Pony Express will also appear on game tables soon .

While Dice Town has similarities to Yahtzee, in that players want to roll certain combinations on the dice in order to score points, Pony Express is a race game in which players want to cover ground quickly between St. Joseph, Missouri and Sacramento, California. As Funforge publisher Philippe Nouhra explains, ”Pony Express uses a simple poker dice system combined with bluffing and bluff-calling to resolve the moves of the players along their way on the board. Combined with the fact that dice are also used as bullets to shoot the other players’ pawns during duels or other gunfights, you get an idea of the unique ambiance around the table during a Pony Express game session.”

Pony Express is for 3-5 players, ages 8 and up, with a playing time of 45 minutes, and the art is by Canadian illustrator Mathieu Beaulieu, whose name sounds like a syrup waterfall. Yummy!

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