Board Games
Some pretty big stuff went down this week in this hobby of ours. The most noteworthy is probably the fact that many people got their copies of Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition early--and, as we've learned from the music industry time and time again, when one person gets an advance copy of something, everyone gets an advance copy of something. VelvetDiceBag does not promote piracy, however (unless it's of the Freeport or Stormwrack or 7th Sea varieties) --if you did indulge yourself and downloaded a copy and enjoyed it, we urge you to buy the real thing when it comes out. Pretty please?
On the Chaosium and Cthulhu side of things, I previously reported the first unlimited edition of the gorgeous Call of Cthulhu dice. Also of note is Chaosium's agreement with Sixtystone Press to create Call of Cthulhu supplements (a good move, considering they're focusing on their BRP-system line lately) , and the folks at Yog-Sothoth.com just released the new Yog Radio podcast, featuring an interview with S.T. Joshi. That made me really, really excited--my final English paper in Grade 12 was on the works of Lovecraft, and as anyone who's done academic research of Lovecraft will tell you, basically everything, every academic treatise and biography of Lovecraft, was written by S.T. Joshi and it's all excellent. Do yourself a favour, check out the interview, and read some of the ample works of Joshi online.
At Magicthegathering.com, it was Evil Twin week. There are a bunch of excellent articles up, my favourites being How to Sneak Overpowered Cards Past Development and The Evil That Designers Do.
Not much from White Wolf except for two (admittedly intriguing) previews of the new freehold-focused Changeling book, Lords of Summer, and a revelatory look-ahead at Hunter: the Vigil, a game that looks quite good but whose cover is marred by a sunglasses-at-night-wearing douche smack in the middle of it.
The Escapist had a really cool article about the nature of the roleplaying game as a modern phenomenon, called Dungeons & Dragons Owns the Future.
The new Palladium press release has details on T-Shirts, a new Rifts anthology, and their release plans for the summer. Mayfair games announced its plans for GenCon. (I'm not even going and I'm still excited!) A new RPG company debuted, Myth Merchant Press. The much-awaited documentary, The Gamers: Dorkness Rising, found a distributor in Anthem Pictures.
That's it for now! Hopefully next week we'll be back to a more regular posting schedule. Thanks for your patience!
Steve Jackson games has just announced the September release for their new Munchkin card game, Munchkin Booty. That's right--Pirates! Rumour has it that horrible accents (British, Spanish, Dutch or French) are a significant part of the game, a fact that by itself will probably warrant a buy from me. It will certainly go well with my copy of Munchkin Cthulhu.
So you've got the news about the Munchkin behind (sorry)... on the Munchkin front, there is some more good news, because the Munchkin board game, Munchkin Quest, is currently at printers, and it's a tile-growing dungeon-crawling good time for all.
And speaking of Munchkin Cthulhu, Steve Jackson Games has just released their first plush toy, the adorable-yet-horrifying Chibithulhu, a toy that even contains a special rule that'll help out in the aforementioned card game. If you can get over the eyelashes. Oh god, the eyelashes.
Mayfair Games has just announced something interesting: a new expansion for Settlers of Catan, called Catan: Traders and Barbarians.
It's not just a simple expansion--it's a set of 4 variants and 5 challenging scenarios that can apparently be linked together. Also: the expansion allows you to play with only two players, which should be good news to all of you who have just one friend. Or, perhaps, for you folk whose idea of a romantic evening includes a rousing game of Catan but aren't into a three-or-more-somes and thus have had to be satisfied with other, lesser games. This will no longer be problem!
For this week's game of the week, we have a special treat, just for Easter: BUNNIES. That is, Killer Bunnies, who are due to launch next month their next adventure, Killer Bunnies and the Journey to Jupiter. I love the bunnies games so much that I'm going to give this one my unbridled recommendation sight unseen. Playroom Entertainment does a fantastic job with this franchise in gaming, and I can't help but be pleased at the news of the new installment.
Journey to Jupiter is NOT mixable with Quest for the Magic Carrot (as Kinder Bunnies was), it is a standalone game with similar mechanics. Just like Quest, however, Journey to Jupiter promises to be the gift that keeps on giving... as there will indeed be expansion sets to further drain your wallet. For more information on the game feel free to take a look at the website located here.
Happy Birthday Avalon Hill! The old girl has seen a lot of changes since 1958, but from Tactics to RuneQuest, the name of the game has always been putting out the best (and often most complexly nuanced) board games on the market. Likely responsible for the greatest conquests of more armchair generals the world over than any other gaming company, AH's march of releases reads like the titles of a Time Life series on WW2: Midway, Achtung Spitfire!, Afrika Korps, The Battle of the Bulge, Blitzkrieg, and, of course, Axis and Allies. To celebrate, aside re-releasing the time honored "lie to your friends and take their stuff" classics Diplomacy and Acquire, Avalon Hill has announced its most expensive version of Axis and Allies ever!
The AXIS & ALLIES ANNIVERSARY EDITION will feature the debut of Italy as the third Axis nation, the introduction of the cruiser unit to the naval lineup, and the largest Axis & Allies board to-date measuring 24x46 inches. With over 600 pieces, players will be able to recreate and decide the outcome of WWII like never before. The Axis & Allies Anniversary Edition is designed and developed by Larry Harris, the original designer of Axis & Allies, and will release on October 23, 2008 with an MSRP of $100.
That's right, just seven months left to practice your Musolinni nod and save every nickel and dime. While the week-long history-lesson board game has never been my bag, I can't wait to hear the fantastic noise this box is gonna make when you knock it off the table. Aside from that, though, wake me when they add Nazi UFOs, Tesla Troopers, and Zombie Hitler to the game.
Hit the jump to read the complete details of the quintessential A&A, Acquire, Diplomacy, and a half dozen other not-so-birthday-themed Axis & Allies Miniatures releases slated for later this year.
What's better than playing some of your favorite board games? Well, watching someone else play them of course! And what's the best way to watch anyone do anything? Why, on the silver screen. That's the thought
between Hasbro and Universal Pictures' arrangement to turn some of the toy behemoth's best-known (or, in Stretch Armstrong's case, nearly forgotten) properties into movies. Yeah, thanks for that Transformers.
Hasbro Inc. (HAS) and Universal Pictures formed a six-year strategic partnership to produce at least four motion pictures based on brands such as Monopoly, Candy Land, Ouija, Battleship, Magic, the Gathering and Stretch Armstrong.
Hasbro, a Pawtucket, R.I., producer of entertainment products, said the first movie will be released in 2010 or 2011, and Universal Pictures, a division of Universal Studios, will release at least one film a year thereafter.
So while Monopoly and Candyland both sound like Rowan Atkinson joints, and Ouija can only promise to pale in comparison to 1986's table-top terror Witchboard, Magic the Gathering!? Monsters, swords, magic! Throw in a few actual characters and they might be on to something here. Think Peter Jackson might do this if we all promise to trade him our mint condition Black Lotuses?
Avalon Hill celebrates their golden anniversary this year... and they're celebrating by re-releasing some of their coolest and most enduring games. This week's Game of the Week was always one of my favorite board games... Diplomacy.
I don't know that you can really say much about this game... it's a legendary game for a reason. Perhaps the intrigue and deal making aspect are what draw me to it, since I'm an rpg guy. But the fact remains, this re-release is a chance to get into the game of international intrigue that has been going on for ... well, ages! Avalon Hill has scheduled the re-release for mid-March. For those who have never played the game, here's a tidbit from their website:
At the turn of the 20th century, the seven Great European Powers engage in an intricate struggle for supremacy. Military forces invade and withdraw, shifting borders and altering empires with subtle maneuvers and daring gambits.
Form alliances and unhatch your traitorous plots as you negotiate and outwit—in a delicate balance of cooperation and competition—to gain dominance of the continent! In Diplomacy, your success hinges not on the luck of the dice, but your cunning and cleverness.
Rio Grande Games, maker of such quality board games as Carcassone and Puerto Rico (the highest rated game at BoardGameGeek out of over 4000!) , has just reported that the fourth quarter of 2007 had their best sales to date—the flipside of this excellent news, however, is that many of their titles have gone out of print, but they've announced the schedule for all the reprints they're going to do in 2008 along with what new titles we can expect. Mr. Lich might be pleased to see that Aquaretto will be released in March.
For a full schedule of reprints and new releases from Rio Grande Games in 2008, (almost 50 of them!) make the jump!
Okay, it's here... slightly delayed by a bad internet experience, but hopefully back up and strong. This week's Game of the Week is from Titanic Games which has just released their next game. I rather liked the idea of Stonehenge, but Key Largo, already a hit game in Europe, seems to be more of a "hunt for the treasure" sort of game. It must be all the Disney pirate movies... but pirates are in. Hmmph. I'm in the ninja camp myself, but for those who like pirates - Go get thee some booty!
Here's what their website has to say about the game:
As the new century dawns, players ply the thriving trade of finding treasures in shipwrecks around the island. Before a hurricane hits, players need to search the many shipwrecks and sell the lost treasures to the island denizens for as much cash as possible.
[via Titanic Games]
Mayfair Games has just announced a lovely new addition to their website—a directory of the FAQs for almost all their games! Here, in one place, you can find the frequently asked questions about Alchemist, Anno 1503, Catan 4th Edition, Domaine, Dos Rios, Entdecker, Hey! That's My Fish! (last week's Game of the Week, natch), La Strada, Leonardo Da Vinci, Mesopotamia, Nautilus, Oceania, Pillars of the Earth (Games Magazine's 2007 Game of the Year), Quo Vadis?, Road to the White House, Tigris & Euphrates, Bang, Elixir, Express, Modern Art, Theophrastus, Dino Dice, 18xx, Empire Builder Series and Silverton. Whew!
And though this isn't new, on the same site one can find variants, scenarios and optional rules for Settlers of Catan—cool ones, too, like the "Indian" variant, the Robin Hood variant, and scenarios such as "The Desert Raiders," "The Jungle," The Wonders of Catan," "The Volcano" and "The Lost Tribes of Catan," the last of which requires two regular Catan boards and one Seafarers of Catan board! Epic.
Finally! A chance to crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of the women! Fantasy Flight Games announces that they'll be bringing Italian publisher Nexus Editrice's deluxo-sized strategy board game Age of Conan stateside later this year. Debuted at last October's Essen Spiel German game festival, the game sounds right up the alley of FFG's usual fare: a gorgeous box filled with a huge-sized board and rattling like a giant maraca with literally hundreds, if not thousands, of plastic pieces. Created by the same team that did War of the Ring, Age of Conan lays siege to the states early this summer.
[via icv2.com]
So, sometimes games are a little silly. Certainly that's the case with this little gem from Mayfair Games. You gotta love a simple fifteen minute game that's easy to play but deceptively strategic, and this game certainly fits the bill. Hey! That's My Fish! sends your penguins on a quest to collect fish.
As a kid I always hated games like hungry hungry hippos... They always seemed to be entirely luck. The best games rely on both luck and skill, and this one fits the bill well. Silly premise, but fairly cool game play. The board, like many modern games, is not static, but it's still fairly simple, a random layout of hex pieces. It's not a deep thought game - and I imagine it's probably easy to get a little sick of it if you play it too often, but it makes a nice filler game while you're waiting for one of those massive 3 hour games to start.
And girls who like girls who like breastplates!
Game of the Week
Are you the werewolf?
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