Gaming

Re-Roll: This Week’s Tabletop Game News for the Week Ending February 28, 2020

Here is the board game (and board game-related!) news that caught our attention for the week ending February 28, 2020.

Gaming News

Gen Con badge registration is live! Make sure you grab your badges now and keep your eyes on this space for details on our annual Gaming with GeekDad event. Hopefully, everyone got the hotel room they wanted. Event registration begins May 17.
Last week, Asmodee announced a new policy regarding missing or damaged components in their games. You can read the whole policy online, but the gist of it is that if your Asmodee game is missing something, you are now supposed to take the game to the store from which you purchased it and, as long as the store will accept it as a return or exchange, you’ll get a brand new copy of the game. The store, in turn, will return your damaged/incomplete game to Asmodee and be issued a new copy. Predictably, the policy has generated a lot of pushback online, but one of the more measured responses was posted recently by Stonemaier’s CEO Jamie Stegmaier.
Later this summer, Ravensburger will continue bringing classic Disney properties to the tabletop with the release of Hocus Pocus: The Game and the Disney Jungle Cruise Adventure Game. We don’t have much in the way of details on either yet, but we’re definitely hoping to have to chance to do full reviews of both as their releases get closer. And given Ravensburger’s recent history of both the movie- and Disney-related games, I’m pretty optimistic about both of these titles.
Like many of us, my introduction to modern board gaming was through Settlers of Catan. The game had a famous 3D version released for its 10th anniversary, and news from New York’s Toy Fair is that a new edition of that 3D version will be returning to stores sometime soon, 15 years after its initial release. Dicebreaker reports that the new version is plastic, so hopefully, it’ll be considerably cheaper than the $300 it retailed for originally.
Blue Orange is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year with an ambitious schedule to release 20 games. Their initial preview of the games includes a good mix of party and more serious games and titles for all ages.
The Op has announced Harry Potter: House Cup Competition, their latest line from Potterverse. The strategy game will have players take on the role of one of the houses at Hogwarts competing against each other to win the coveted House Cup.
The Op has also announced Telestrations: Upside Down, a new spin on the classic party game, and Hues and Clues, a game a lot of my former design students would probably love, about guessing specific colors from clues given by your partner.

GeekDad Reviews

Jonathan Liu reviewed Tumble Town and Hunker: Fierce Friendship, Frosty Fortitude.
Paul Benson reviewed Bees: The Secret Kingdom.

What We’re Playing

Finally, here’s what the GeekDads played this week:

Jonathan Liu played Adventure Land, Unlocking Insanity, Clank! In! Space! Cyber Station 11, Dungeon Academy, Dungeon Drop, Root: The Underworld Expansion, Santa Monica, Toy Story: Obstacles & Adventures, and Skulls of Sedlec.
Paul Benson played Bees: The Secret Kingdom, Flick of Faith, Cryptid, and Abomination: Heir to Frankenstein.
Greg Howley played Quiddler, Dominion, Point Salad, Punderdome, and Sentinels of the Multiverse.
Michael Pistiolas played Santorini (our featured game this week), Legacy of Dragonholt, Space Base, Space Explorer, and Firefly Fluxx.
Robin Brooks played Cactus Town, Escape the Dark Castle, and Warhammer Underworlds: Beastgrave.

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This post was last modified on February 27, 2020 3:29 pm

Rob Huddleston

Rob, GeekDad's Gaming Editor, is a technical writer for Google (provided by HCL). He is alo college professor teaching design, programming and 3D printing, watches a ridiculous number of movies, plays as many board games as he can, and loves history, from the medieval period to the technological age. He's also the Umpire-in-Chief for his local Little League, and is a Little League Certified Tournament Umpire. His kids are a 20 year old college junior and a 16 year old high school senior. (Although there's a good chance that they're older now and this just hasn't been updated.)