Pandasaurus Games / IDW Games
Pandasaurus Games and comic book publisher IDW have partner up to launch IDW Games, a new IDW division to create boardgames based on the companies comic book series. The first games are going to roll out next spring: 30 Days of Night, based on the comic book that the popular vampire movie came from as well, and Kill Shakespeare, a series that I didn’t know before before I read about the game. I may have to find it, though, it’s a bizarre Shakespeare play mashup that sounds like a lot of fun. We don’t know anything about the game mechanics yet, but the games will be designed by “the same game designers that brought us the critically acclaimed fan-favorite, Yedo”, referring to Thomas Vande Ginste and Wolf Plancke.
Mage Company
12 Realms has come a long way since we posted the Kickstarter preview last year. It now looks pretty amazing with boards that did not come out of my crappy little ink printer and fully painted miniatures.
Czech Games Edition
Raising pets is not always an easy job, as any pet owner can tell you. Raising pets to sell dungeon lords, like you do in Dungeon Petz, is much more difficult still. And risky, because these pets are not exactly cuddly kittens. So maybe it’s time to get some help, even if it comes from the shadier parts of town. Dungeon Petz: Dark Alleys will introduce a new game board with extra locations to make your life as a dungeon pet breeder a little easier. Or harder, since your competitors get the same help. Find some details in this preview at BoardGameGeek.
With the preview photos of Tash-Kalar so far, you could get the impression that the whole point of the game is to summon big creatures and bash your opponents’ heads in. But that’s not all there is to it, of course. You want to bash their heads in in a specific way, in a specific place to complete quests and gain points!
Fantasy Flight Games
The previous BattleLore second edition preview showed how to build the battlefield. But that’s just the background to the action, so this time there’s a closer look at how to muster your army. You pick your units only after you and your opponent revealed their scenario card, giving you the chance to pick just the right units for this battle. Because you know what they say, right? Don’t bring a horse to a naval fight, or something like that.
Ystari Games
Have you been wondering what Reiner Knizia and Sebastian Bleasdale can cook up together? Wonder no more, the rules for Prosperity are now available. The game seems to be a bit lighter than it could have been from those two designers, you’re basically trying to collect tiles with the right symbols to score points, but it’s probably not quite so straightforward while you’re playing.
Lookout Games
“Lighter than expected” is not a complaint I’m likely to make about Robert Auerochs’s Bremerhaven, the rules to which are also online now. Quite on the contrary, this game has a lot of options, but you have to win an auction to be allowed to use most of them. You’re trying to fulfil shipping contracts by getting ships into your port, but you also have many different ways to upgrade your shipping business and remain competitive.
White Goblin Games
It’s a good time to post game rules, apparently, because here are the ones for Mark Chaplin’s asymmetric two-player card game Invaders. It seems a bit more complex than Chaplin’s Revolver games, definitely not just a new theme for the same rules. Mark just really likes the asymmetric play style. While the rules are missing many pictures, at least for me, they do contain something very interesting to make up for that: an announcement for a coming four player expansion!
For this week’s featured photo we have the Cathedral of Salzburg, Austria, part of the Salzburg historic center World Heritage Site. The photo was taken by Nigel Swales and shared as CC-BY-SA. Thanks, Nigel!