Cranio Creations
Very sad news here: Steam Park will not make it until October, or even this year. Due to delays in development and production the new release date is now March 2013. While the delay is sad, I’m glad they are delaying the game rather than rush it out the door in October less awesome than it should be.
FryxGames
Space Station was the first release by FryxGames last year, and it will have a second edition available in Essen this year. The game is not as science fiction as most games with space in the title, players compete to build the best space station. To do that, you need to manage your money, available crew and build the right modules to gain the advantages associated with them. I hadn’t heard about the first edition, but I’m intrigued for the second one now.
Cryptozoic
Here’s a detailed preview at the DC Comics Deck-Building Game for everyone that couldn’t try it at Gen Con – I’m guessing that’s still the majority of our readers, so I don’t have to be too jealous. It’s a deck-building game, anyone who played one before will not find huge surprises here, but the art is good, superheroes are a fun theme and Cryptozoic has proven that they make solid deck-building games. I guess whether this game will be great or merely nice will depend on the cards involved: “+2 Power” and “Draw 2 Cards” are not new ideas, but a villain card that might destroy a hero in exchange for power – that’s Sinestro, by the way – forces you to make interesting decisions, so I like it. The Facebook album has more examples, and they look quite promising.
Schmidt Spiele
Schmidt Spiele seem to have declared 2012 the Royal year, after announcing Dog Royal last week they follow up with Kakerlakenpoker Royal. Unlike Dog, this one is available all over the world. Kakerlakenpoker – Cockroach Poker – doesn’t have much to do with Poker, it’s a simple bluff game about bugs. Kakerlakenpoker Royal adds new “mean” rules, whatever that may mean in the end, and royal cockroaches.
Fantasy Flight Games
Even when FFG is not the only company preparing to publish a new game – this one is coming from Kosmos, IELLO, Devir and Zwezda as well – they are the ones with the mouth-watering teaser posts, so Michael Menzel’s Legends of Andor goes under their headline. Legends of Andor is a cooperative fantasy game, the players are the mighty heroes stopping the monster hordes from advancing on the castle. But while the heroes are questing, the story advances from the Legend Cards that are revealed at important moments of the game. Narrative is a big part of Legends of Andor and it doesn’t come with only one Legend Deck, there are multiple scenarios that combine to tell an overarching story.
You know what’s better than a ridiculously violent fantasy American Football parody game? Even more violence for aforementioned game, and that’s what Blood Bowl Team Manager – Sudden Death promises to deliver. Three more teams are a good start, especially when they include zombies, vampires and dark elves, and I’m sure we’ll hear more about the other new features very soon.
Amigo
Meins! – that’s Mine! in English, the expression of possession, not the explosive device – is a light but not-too-light card game by Alexander Pfister and Andreas Pelikan. Everyone’s competing for rare exhibits for their private collection – like the missing page of the Mayan calendar – that they acquire with means ranging from legally paying for them all the way to theft, also represented by cards. To make things interesting exhibits are not only worth points in themselves but each player also competes with his two neighbours about majorities in one category of artifacts. Light but not-too-light seems to be an apt description of Meins!, I hope I’ll be able to try it in Essen.
Days of Wonder
Has anyone checked on Camelot lately? After we saved it in Shadows over Camelot, I mean, has anyone gone back to check? Because, apparently, darkness is brewing again. In Shadows over Camelot: The Card Game we are indeed going back. This time take the roles of the sons and daughters of the Knights of the Round Table and investigate rumours of a new evil arising. The basics have stayed the same: it’s still a cooperative game, it still has a traitor, and it still takes up to seven players. But it now has a solo mode and can be played in 20 minutes – I’m very curious to try this in Essen.
REBEL.pl
Adam Kaluza needed a change of air it seems, it was too thin up on K2. So now he’s going into the exact opposite direction: underground. The Cave is a game of cave exploration, no big surprise after the title, but a new setting for a boardgame. The cave in question is slowly explored during the game, with new tiles extending the tunnels when you get to them. You’ll have to navigate around obstacles like underground lakes and steep descents that you can only pass with the right equipment.
Slavika is a game about heroes and monsters and what happens when they meet. The Slavic lands have been besieged by monsters ever since the prince died and his daughter was too young to wield the power of the amulet that protected them. Now she’s almost ready, and a different kind of conflict has started brewing. The noble houses – controlled, of course, by the players – compete for the princess’s favor, trying to kill more monsters than anyone else in the remaining monster time. Monsters that, incidentally, they themselves sent in order to prove themselves. Monsters and heroes come with special abilities, but in the end the points for defeating a monster go to the strongest team of heroes in the area.
This week’s banner image was taken from the Wikipedia entry on Bahla Fort, a fortress at Bahla Oasis in Oman. It was declared a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage site in 1987 and was inaccessible to the public for a long time while extensive restoration work was going on – you can see some of the scaffolding in the photo. The photo was originally uploaded to Wikipedia by user Mac9 and is now with a CC-BY-SA license.