The board game (and board game-related!) news that caught our attention for the week ending March 16, 2018.
- The Game Manufacturers Association (GAMA) Trade Show took place in Reno this week, so a lot of publishers have been showing off previews of upcoming games to retailers and distributors.
- Renegade Game Studios announced a partnership with Garphill Games to publish a new trilogy of games, starting with Architects of the West Kingdom by Shem Phillips (designer of the North Sea trilogy) and first-time designer S. J. MacDonald. Like the North Sea trilogy, these games will also feature art by The Mico. It’s expected in October 2018 from Renegade; New Zealand–based Garphill Games also launched a Kickstarter campaign this week for Architects.
- And, if that weren’t enough, Renegade also announced a partnership with Frosted Games to publish Uwe Rosenberg’s Reykholt, a game set in Iceland where you grow vegetables in greenhouses and attract tourists to your farm.
- This week’s image is from Charterstone (read our review).
- Cryptozoic announced Pantone: The Game, a party game in which you try to recognize pop culture figures that the artist player creates using swatch cards. Color us intrigued.
- Pandasaurus’ Dinosaur Island was a success on Kickstarter last year and then sold out almost immediately. Well, whether you missed it the first time around or are just hungry for more, they launched a new Kickstarter this week that includes options for the base game, the Totally Liquid expansion, and the Duelosaur Island two-player spin-off. It hit over 2000% funding within 2 days, so these dinos are definitely here to stay.
- We welcomed a few new tabletop reviewers to our staff! Thanks to everyone who applied—it was a tough decision, but we’ve brought on a few writers, and we have a few more on a waitlist that we will consider in a few months once we’ve got Team Agricola up to speed. Watch for reviews from these new names!
- Asmodee Digital has added another title to its library: Nomad Games’ Fighting Fantasy Legends, a hybrid of card-based RPG and interactive fiction. It’s available now on Steam, iOS, and Google Play.
- If you’re a fan of Scythe (and particularly Jakub Różalski’s amazing art and the world he created), check out the Iron Harvest Kickstarter page. It’s not a digital version of Scythe (that’s here) but instead a real-time strategy video game that takes things in a different direction.
At GeekDad, we write a lot about tabletop games. Here’s what we’ve written about this past week:
- Robin Brooks gave us a first look at the Harry Potter: Miniatures Adventure Game.
- Jonathan Liu shared a few more Kickstarter campaigns: Good Dog, Bad Zombie is a cooperative game about a dog-eat-zombie world, and Terminus Breach TD is a classic tower defense game brought to your tabletop.
- Newly minted GeekDad contributor Logan Giannini posted his first two reviews, about Uwe Rosenberg’s puzzle-like Indian Summer and the lovely area-control Inis.
- We also welcomed new GeekDad contributor Sara Blackburn with her review of Vye, a visually striking area-control card game.
- Michael Harrison and the Dice Section crew talk about Roll for the Galaxy in their latest podcast episode.
- And we join Simon Yule’s party once again for another session of D&D: Curse of Strahd.
Finally, here’s what some of the GeekDad Crew has been playing this week:
- Jonathan Liu: City Square Off, ARGH, Fire in the Library (upcoming Kickstarter), Clank! The Mummy’s Curse, Darkness, Kami-Sama, Songbirds, Terminus Breach TD, Wizardz Bluff (upcoming Kickstarter), Motif (prototype).
- Logan Giannini: River Dragons, Spyfall, Ancestree, Azul.
- Sara Blackburn: Ticket to Ride, Patchwork, Forbidden Island.
- Robin Brooks: Warhammer Underworlds: Shadespire, Go Nuts for Donuts.
- Michael Harrison: Arkham Horror: The Card Game, Ex Libris, Roll for the Galaxy (listen to the Dice Section review), Roll Through the Ages
- Gerry Tolbert: Dragonwood, Chronicles of Crime, Legendary: Champions
- Kristi Weyland: Whistle Stop, The Primary, The Grimm Forest, Azul, Fantastic Factories
