The board game (and board game-related!) news that caught our attention for the week ending February 2, 2018.
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- Going to Gen Con? The housing registration opens next Sunday, February 11. Cross your fingers and hope for an early time when schedules are emailed out next Saturday!
- The first expansion to Great Western Trail was announced this week. Rails to the North, as you may guess, deals with shipping cattle from Kansas City to points east (and north) and promises more difficult challenges and tough, strategic decisions. Can’t wait!
- This week’s image is a cute panda from the oversized Takenoko.
- Asmodee Digital is partnering with Playdek to publish Ascension, Summoner Wars, Twilight Struggle, and Agricola on various platforms. There’s no word on any changes to any of these games.
- Do you like Uno? It’s one of those games that has a strong connection for me because I played it a lot when I was younger. The game became available, free to play, on Facebook Messenger this week and will be available again on iOS and Android this spring.
- BoardGameGeek’s Eric Martin has a unique review of The Game: Face-to-Face. I really, really like that game series and let’s just say that today (specifically, today) I intimately identify with the first clause of the second sentence.
- One of our favorite publishers, Gamewright, announced new releases for 2018, ahead of this month’s Toy Fair. Among the titles are Trash Pandas, a press-your-luck dice game of raiding refuse receptacles; Long Cow, a cow-themed card game that comes in a milk carton; Zoinx, an all or nothing dice game; and a half dozen others.
- Eggertspiele (owned by Plan B Games) announced Coimbra, a card drafting and set collection game set in Portugal in the 15th century, during the Age of Discovery. Fund expeditions, earn prestige, and promote universities in this 60-90 minute game for 2-4, ages 14 and up.
- Asmodee released details on the next three games in their popular Unlock! series. A Noside Story sees the return of Professor Noside and Tombstone Express tasks you with protecting a train in the old west. In The Adventures of Oz, you’ll solve challenges with Dorothy Gale at your side.
- One of the best dexterity games, Catacombs, gets another expansion. Catacombs Conquest will be in stores in March and will feature mobile obstacles and team play.
- In this week’s Star Wars Legion news, Fantasy Flight has released a preview of Empire forces and–great General Grievious’s ghost!–a stunning pre-order bonus!
- If terrestrial cults are more your thing, FFG also has a preview of the Masks of Nyarlathotep expansion for Eldritch Horror.
- I think I have this right. Previously, Portal Games announced an expansion to Robinson Crusoe, called The Lost City of Z. It was supposed to have a Cthulhu theme to it, but that was later dropped. This week, Portal announced the expansion would be out Q4 this year, but now will be called Mystery Tales and have a new horror/sanity mechanic. That’s a lot of change, but it will be a good finished product, right? Right?
- Games on the way next week include Peloton, the expansion to Flamme Rouge, The Legend of Korra: Pro-Bending Arena (read our review), and a couple of Munchkin boxes: Clowns and Magical Mess.
At GeekDad, we write a lot about tabletop games. Here’s what we’ve written about this past week:
- Jonathan Liu wrote about Seize the Bean, a Kickstarter game with covfefe!
- Robin Brooks wrote about Citadel Combat Cards from Games Workshop–and he included a video playthrough.
- Over at GeekMom, Sophie Brown told us about Robits, a family-friendly robot-building card game.
- Simon Yule took us on a tour of his 41st (!) session of Curse of Strahd.
- Sean Hallenbeck checked out Carcassonne for Steam.
- Anton Olsen gave us a frightening look at the Kickstarter for Planet Apocalypse.
- I dug into the rock, paper, scissors game, The Dingo Ate the Baby. I also took a quick look at the fast-playing hidden movement game, Dark Is the Night.
Finally, here’s what some of the GeekDad Crew has been playing this week:
- Jonathan Liu: Seize the Bean, 5-Minute Dungeon, Catacombs & Castles, Innovation, Truck Off
- Robin Brooks: Warhammer Underworlds: Shadespire, Outfoxed, Go Nuts for Donuts, Magic Maze, Sakura (Coming soon from Osprey)
- Michael Harrison: The Bloody Inn, Carcassonne, Roll for the Galaxy, Splendor
- Dave Banks: Dark is the Night, Witches of the Revolution, Rising Sun (so much Rising Sun)
