The board game (and board game-related!) news that caught our attention for the week ending June 29, 2018.
- Gen Con is nearing a second consecutive sellout. If you want to attend the best four days in gaming, get your badge soon! What’s that, you say? Already have your badge? Well, make sure you get a ticket to play games with GeekDad, Saturday at noon. Our tickets are almost sold out too!
- Thanks to Jonathan Liu, who covered for me last week while I was out. He also provided this week’s image, miniatures from My Little Scythe that are just begging to be painted.
- Iello announced 8-Bit Box, a new series that is supposed to capture the enjoyment of early arcade gaming. Pixoid, the first game in the core game trilogy, pays homage to Pac-Man. There’s not much more information now (except that the player components look like SNES controllers), so I guess we’ll eagerly await additional details, prior to the game’s launch, later in 2018.
- ThinkFun is releasing Shadows in the Forest this week—but only at Amazon and specialty stores. Look for the flashlight-tag style strategy game at Target, beginning in August.
- The new X-Wing previews Lando’s Falcon this week, complete with escape pod, which becomes a second vehicle during play. Pretty cool!
- If you’re into RPGs but hate the confines of classes, check out Shatter6, an open RPG, available at DriveThruRPG. Rather than constricting players with record-keeping and rulebooks, Shatter6 turns RPGs on their head with simple mechanics and a focus on storytelling.
- Z-Man announced Mesozooic, a tile-laying, prehistoric zoo game that’s perfect for the elementary school set.
- Terraforming Mars has been one of the breakout hits of the last year and Stronghold isn’t messing around with making sure players have plenty of content to play with. There are already two expansions out and a third, Prelude, scheduled for later this summer. Add to that list one more. Colonies will again move the habitat development beyond the red planet and on to outer planets and moons. Look for it in October.
- Lord of the Rings: The Living Card has announced early access (beginning in August) on Steam. Players who pre-order can score some bonuses to help them on their epic quest.
At GeekDad, we write a lot about tabletop games. Here’s what we’ve written about this past week:
- Jonathan Liu went dice-drafting beneath the waves with Wreck Raiders, a game seeking funding on Kickstarter.
- Over at GeekMom, Sophie Brown cautiously entered Isla Nublar to check out Jurassic Park: Danger. Then she took a significantly less dangerous excursion into the party game Name 5.
- Simon Yule keeps venturing into the darkness, this week with the 59th session of D&D’s Curse of Strahd.
Finally, here’s what some of the GeekDad Crew has been playing this week:
- Michael Harrison: Roll Player (with Monsters and Minions expansion), Roll Through the Ages: The Bronze Age, Viticulture: Essential Edition
- Sara Blackburn: Hive, Qwirkle
- Sophie Brown: Machi Koro, Codenames Duet, #BadPlots, Sushi Go
- Jonathan Liu: Scythe: The Rise of Fenris, PACG: The Mummy’s Mask, Evolution: Climate, The Ninth World, Startropolis, Thornwatch, Hippos Love Sushi, Vast: The Mysterious Manor, Wreck Raiders
- Robin Brooks: Warhammer Underworlds: Shadespire
- Simon Yule: Pandemic Legacy 2, Boss Monster, D&D Curse of Strahd
- Dave Banks: Rolling Japan, In Vino Morte, Hive, Tatsu, The Game, Zombie Dice, Bunny Kingdom, Junk Orbit, Dragon Castle, Sheriff of Nottingham
