After a much too short weekend at the Braderie in Lille, France, we’re back in the Meeple Cave with the news for you. For those who, like me last Friday, don’t have a clue what Braderie is: it’s one of the biggest street markets ever, with equal parts flea market, outdoor clothes shopping and electronics labelled in Chinese. For the occasion Lille is stuffed with a few million people – or about ten times as many as I feel comfortable with – and you can probably find everything there if you know where to look. Although my hunt for old board games was completely without success it was great fun, a big thanks to our friends for inviting us.
Steve Jackson Games
There has been a bit of confusion about Munchkin Conan – I’ll admit, I was confused as well. So here’s the solution: the 15 card booster pack titled Munchkin Conan the Babarian is already available. The full 168 card game Munchkin Conan is in development and will be released next summer.
Days of Wonder
Earlier this year, Days of Wonder held a Ticket to Ride expansion map contest. From the 612 entries, they had some trouble selecting only one winner and so there are two volumes of the Ticket to Ride Map Collection. Volume 1 is all about Asia with a team play map by Alan R. Moon himself on the one side and the contest winner François Valentyne’s map Legendary Asia. In Volume 2 you’ll find the reprinted two or three player Switzerland map and Ian Vincent’s winning India map.Congratulations François and Vincent!
Edge Entertainment
If your French is up to speed – which mine even after a weekend in France unfortunately isn’t – you can finally have Conan: Le Jeu de Cartes. If you don’t speak any French, you’ll have to wait for a translation that I hope will come eventually, but until then you can at least enjoy the illustrations.
Fantasy Flight Games
Together with a new preview post this week also saw the release of Corey Konieczka’s cooperative video game adaptation Gears of War.
The Runewars expansion Banners of War is all about adding options and the development cards from this week’s preview deliver on that count: not only do they allow you to upgrade your units in various race-specific ways, they can also build one of your strongholds into a nigh-impenetrable capital of your faction.
APE Games
The boardgame to go with the world-famous online comic Order of the Stick (by Kevin Brusky and the artist himself Rich Burlew) just received an upgrade with the new Deluxe edition and the Shortening expansion, possibly the only expansion in the world to make a game shorter. Order of the Stick (the game) is a dungeon crawl game that brings everything you love about the comic to the table – and if you don’t love the comic yet, you really should give it a try. If you’re into RPGs (especially Dungeons and Dragons) it’s hilarious.
eggerspiele / Pegasus Spiele
Michael Rieneck’s newest creation for eggertspiele is going to be published by Pegasus Spiele. With Santiago de Cuba the author of Cuba and El Presidente doesn’t move far from his previous successes, thematically speaking. The way to play, on the other hand, has developed since Cuba: you’re still exerting your influence on various buildings and officials, but now buildings have changing inhabitants and you do the whole thing for profit. And here I thought that was illegal in socialism…
Ludonaute
The rules for Shitenno (Cedric Lefebvre) are now available. I’m looking forward to trying this one, from reading the rules the mechanics seem interesting and the game about samurai competing for the Shogun’s favour should move quickly and keep everyone involved.
Kickstarter
This week we have not one but two Kickstarter recommendations – but don’t worry, they’re both from the same guys. Clever Mojo Games are not new to Kickstarter, their project from last year – Alien Frontiers – was funded to almost 300% and, more importantly, widely considered brilliant. The first project is Factions, the expansion to Alien Frontiers. I’m unfortunately not an owner of the original game, but if you are the expansion seems to be a must. Project number two is Sunrise City, a game combining role selection and tile-laying to a juicy new experience.
Meeples
I just can’t resist pointing out these awesome meeples: Zombie, Monster and Princess Meeple (in oversized 19mm) are now available at MeepleSource.
The photo for this week was taken by Eli Duke and shared as CC-BY-SA. That Emperor Penguin has obviously been trying to explain the Tichu scoring rules to his companion – at least it’s exactly the same gesture that everyone used on me back when I was learning to play. Thanks for the photo, Eli!