The board game (and board game-related!) news that caught our attention for the week ending July 25, 2019.
Gaming News
- Gen Con is next week! Check out the reasons why we’re excited about it, and be sure to stop by at our Gaming with GeekDad event on Saturday. I think because of that, this week’s gaming news cycle is a bit lighter than normal.
- For those unable to travel to Indianapolis, be sure to check in with your FLGS to see if they are participating in AEG’s Big Game Night. Jonathan wrote about it and provided more details earlier this week.
- Our own Sean Zimmerman had the chance to sit down with Wizards of the Coast’s Head of Story and Entertainment and Executive Producer of the new Magic: The Gathering Netflix series, Nic Kelman, while at SDCC last week to discuss lore and inclusion in Magic.
- Just One is the 2019 Spiel des Jahres winner, while GeekDad-approved Wingspan won the Kennerspiel des Jahres award (and is our featured image this week.) You can read more about the awards here on GeekDad.
- Looney Labs has announced Star Trek Chrono-Trek, a card game that allows players to take on the role of their favorite Trek character and bounce around in time, just like every episode of each of the series when the writers ran out of ideas.
- Looney Labs has also put up pages for Marvel Fluxx and Jumanji Fluxx with more details, including packaging art, for both games.
- Funko is expanding into the boardgame world with the release of Funkoverse. The game was unveiled at SDCC, but I’ve signed up for a demo at Gen Con, so more details will follow.
- Toys-R-Us is back… sort of. Reading through the marketing mumbo-jumbo of this story, it seems that the new owners are going to try to leverage the brand name to open smaller “interactive” stores that sound more like boutiques rather than “shoot, my kid needs a present for the birthday party they just told me about and need to be at in 30 minutes” stores that they used to be. No word as of yet on what, if any, board games the new stores will carry.
- Apparently, it’s been five years since I got my 10th anniversary edition of Ticket to Ride, as Days of Wonder has announced the release of a 15th anniversary edition of the classic gateway game. This version features “translucent” trains among other special features. I can’t find any pictures of anything other the box online, but hopefully I’ll be able to take a look at it next week at Gen Con and decide whether or not I’ll be adding it to my collection. (Spoiler: I probably will.)
- For more Gen Con news, I’d highly recommend following the official Gen Con Twitter account.
GeekDad Reviews
Here are the games we’ve reviewed this week:
- Jonathan Liu reviewed the finished version of Tiny Epic Mechs.
- Ricardo Rebelo reviewed the Everything Tabletop Games Book.
What We’re Playing
Finally, here’s what the GeekDads played this week:
- Greg Howley played D&D and Sentinels of the Multiverse.
- Michael Pistiolas played Bugs on Rugs, Villagers, Ticket to Ride, Battleship, Lord of the Rings: Journeys in Middle-earth, and Unlock.
- Jonathan Liu played Point Salad, Curios, Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle – Defence Against the Dark Arts, Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Mummy’s Mask, Board Game Cafe Frenzy, Condottiere, Die Hard, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, Kingdomino Duel, Techlandia, and Belratti.
- Angela Leach played Fetch Quest and Shadowrun: Crossfire.
- Robin Brooks played Villainous and Warhammer – Warcry.
- Will James played Kingdomino and Robotech: Ace Pilot.
