After last week’s almost non-existent news items, I went out and looked for more news sources to add to my nefarious, highly intelligent gaming news collection device (a.k.a. Google Reader), and who would have thought it: more news sources leads to more news:
If my French is not too rusty, then Hazgaard Editions will release a new variant of Timeline in May. Timeline is a kind of trivia game where you try to place events in the right spot on a time line, similar to German Anno Domini and American Chronology. Where the old set of cards was about Inventions, the new one is Discoveries.
Looney Labs, meanwhile, announced Pirate Fluxx for February. If you haven’t heard of Fluxx before, check out our review, finished just this week. And Pirate Fluxx promises to be even more unpredictable with the addition of Surprise cards that you play when it’s not your turn.
Catan games are starting to be confusing due to their sheer number: Mayfair Games will release The Struggle for Catan in May, a Catan card game. I can’t figure out if this is an original release or a translation of a German Catan game. Card game points towards Die Fürsten von Catan, but that is only for two players where Struggle supports up to four. Can anyone enlighten me?
We talked about Cargo Noir by Days of Wonder before, but now the rules are online, so wonder no more if you will like this game and go find out.
Fantasy Flight explains more details from Mansion of Madness: this weeks lesson is how to fight monsters and how not to fight them when they are hungry.
dv Giochi will release a slightly changed edition of The Castle of the Devil in their Wolf Party Collection of games. This version will support four to eight players, but it’s still about members of two secret societies riding the carriage to the devil’s castle, not knowing who of the other travellers is on their side.
Martin Wallace’s Treefrog Games unveiled this year’s planned Essen release – and this one has me giddy like a little girl that just discovered a pony-shaped package under the christmas tree: Ankh-Morpork. A Treefrog Games game – even one that is supposedly their lightest game so far – set in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld. I can hardly contain myself. If Sizinha didn’t tell me it’s bad typographic style, I can assure you I would increase the font size for this item.
And sometimes, even in the happy world of games, news is not good news. This week, fate dealt a most tragic blow to Tom Vasel of the famous board game podcast The Dice Tower and his family. His son Jack passed away with only two months, after fighting off an E.coli infection for longer than anyone thought possible. Our heartfelt condolences go to the Vasel family, no one should ever have to go through what you have been through. While nothing we do can change this tragedy, we do have the chance to help the Vasels with hospital bills and suchlike that plague them in this trying time by participating in these auctions hosted on BoardGameGeek.
This week’s header photo was taken by Otávio Nogueira who kindly shared it as Creative Commons. It shows the ridiculously beautiful colonial town of Paraty in Brazil, as seen from the ocean. See the original here.