Pegasus Spiele
For all things Mondo the homepage for the successful tile-laying game launched this weekend. Besides a lot of information, there is also some downloadable content included – I wonder if that might become a new trend boardgames can pick up from computer games.
Fantasy Flight Games
First of all, Ventura by Alberto Menoncin and Silvio Negri-Clementi, Rune Age by Corey Konieczka are now on sale and the revised of Red November by Bruno Faidutti and Jef Gontier are now on sale.
The Rune Wars expansion Banners of War (Andrew Meredith) reveals more new options to add to the base game. This week, it’s all about cities. The Free Cities merely replace the cities from the base game with new cities with higher income, new quests and even one of the all-important Dragon Runes. The Lost City is even more valuable. Once it is uncovered it offers a decent income as well, and if it is removed from the game it can be rediscovered and go right back to what it was before.
Rules for The Dragon, the Talisman expansion, are available for download. Be sure to wear your asbestos armor.
And since it is a good year for revised editions, Fantasy Flight Games is bringing back Wiz-War, the 1983 game of wizards fighting for treasures. The rules were revised by Kevin Wilson working with the original designer Tom Jolly, so chances are the original feeling of the game will still be there, just with a faster pace. Players still get to used many, many different spells to overthrow each other, from classic fireballs to alchemical formulae and playing with gravity.
Alderac Entertainment
After the expansion/stand-alone Nightfall: Martial Law, the first real expansion to Nightfall is coming. Nightfall: Blood Country (David Gregg) requires either of the two stand-alone games to play and takes the supernatural violence out of the cities and into the countryside with new cards, new game mechanics and – just an educated guess here – shotgun-wielding country boys in pick-up trucks.
MESAboardgames
MESAboardgames’ Gil d’Orey announced two more games for this year’s Essen faire, both designed by himself and both with an evironment theme.
Água: The Water Cycle is an unusual game where players take control of the world water cycle. They move water around between clouds, lakes, rivers and the sea and try to supply the world population with drinkable water.
When looking for more traditional gameplay, you might find LIXO? more attractive: although themed with garbage and recycling, LIXO? is a classic auctioning and bluffing card game.
Fireside Games
No good game goes unexpanded, and this old wisdom holds true for Castle Panic with the newly announced The Wizard’s Tower. Your castle is under siege yet again, and the forces of evil have brought reinforcements: imps, a necromancer and even a dragon are out to tear down your walls. But you are not defenseless against these new threats. As long as the wizard’s tower stands, you have his vast arcane power at your disposal. Like I always say: everything is better with wizards.
If you were curious about Bloodsuckers but too lazy to read the newly released instruction video is just what you’ve been waiting for. Now you have no excuse not to know about it.
Kickstarter
Katalyka is a boardgame project by artist Molly Friedrich with only three days left to go and still in need of some money. I couldn’t get a hold of Molly on Kickstarter for more details on how to play, but lets look at the positives here: Katalyka is a science fiction build-your-civilisation game without the usual “and burn everyone else” . It’s gigantic. It’s absolutely gorgeous. The description has a bit of a mystic vibe to it, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Lets see if we can’t get this funded still.
Jon Ovington has found Nemo. Or maybe Marlin. He looks more like Marlin. Anyway, this is a clownfish, and the photo was licensed as CC-BY-SA.