Meople News: Silence in Penguin Casino

Iello

King of Tokyo is a game that keeps going, mostly thanks to its great theme of monsters destroying Tokyo. In a new Monster Pack King of Tokyo and its twin game King of New York welcome a new challenger: Cybertooth! In best Saturday morning cartoon tradition the giant, humanoid robot can transform into a giant tiger robot. You get twice the destruction for the same prize!

Stonemaier Games

You’ll get another chance to lead humanity from the stone age all the way into space, this time with Jamey Stegmaier’s elegant design. The designer of great games like Scythe and Viticulture (with Alan Stone), has set his eyes on the civilization building genre. One to five players compete in exploration, exploitation, and scientific advancement in this two hour game. On Jamey’s design diary you can find details about different aspects of the game already, including an explanation where the name Tapestry comes from. Be careful, though, after reading the diary you’ll probably want to spend money.

Kosmos

Catan fans – like me – get a new reason to keep playing after all this time. It’s not an all new expansion, but it’s close. Die Legende der Eroberer (translated: Legend of the Conquerors) is a collection of three scenarios for Catan: Cities & Knights. Together they tell a story of Catan falling to invaders – unless you stop their advance. We don’t know much about what that means mechanically, but the box text talks about cannons and cavalry supporting your knights, so it’s going to be interesting and new for sure.

Eagle-Gryphon Games

Another Martin Wallace classic is making a comeback. Eagle-Gryphon Games will produce a deluxe edition of Struggle of Empires. The 17th century epic strategy game lets up to seven players take control of one of the European colonial powers. Through three wars with changing alliances each wants their empire to emerge as the wealthiest and most powerful. Changing alliances sounds like a Diplomacy style game full of backstabbing and betrayal, but the alliances only change between the wars, so you can trust your allies while a conflict is on. The Eagle-Gryphon edition of Struggle of Empires will not only have deluxe components, there’ll also be more clear rules and many rules variants to play the game exactly as you want.

Alderac

The Smash Up World Tour continues! Since we have five inhabited continents on this planet Culture Shock will be first Smash Up expansion with five new factions based on myths and fairy tales from their respective cultures. We get Russia, West Africa, Germany, Polynesia, and the Inca. As a German I’m especially happy that our deck will be based on fairy tales and not go with the common “all Germany is Bavaria” stereotype.

Also, this year’s Smash Up promo faction – as Gen Con attendees already know – are Penguins!

It’s time to create the world – again! Ecos: First Continent lets you do just that, but your opponents and you may have very different ideas how the world is supposed to look. It all starts with energy. One player draws an energy token from the bag, then all players may place one energy of that type on one of their open cards to pay a part of its price. When a card’s price is fully paid it takes effect and lets you place a landscape tile, or an animal, or can have any number of other effects. Some cards can only be used once, some more than once. You’ll have to take care to get cards to your hand and from there to the table or you may end up unable to act.

Square Enix

I’m still getting used to the idea that Square Enix make boardgames now. There’s not enough information about Chocobo Party Up! to know what to think about the game, either. You control a group of Chocobos, the adorable riding birds from Final Fantasy, and have to bring your pals to your nest. That’s literally all I can find about the gameplay, but the age recommendation of 10+ suggests there is more going on than simple rolling and moving. Worth mentioning, at least for every fan of the FInal Fantasy series, is that the art in Chocobo Party Up! is the work of Toshiyuki Itahana, one of the main character designers for Final Fantasy IX and other Square Enix games.

Rightgames

The food chain strikes back! When you played Evolution: The Origin of Species you may have gotten used to food being a thing that is either there or not, and if it’s not that’s going to be a problem. Well, no more. The food has had enough! With the new expansion Herbs and Mushrooms what your species eat will have a big effect on them. If you know anything about mushrooms you’ll guess that the effect is not always a positive one – unless you wanted your fierce predator to suddenly turn pacifist. Herbs and Mushrooms will easily be the most chaotic Evolution expansion.

Fowers Games

Burgle Bros has rightfully received a lot of accolades after its successful 2015 Kickstarter. The cooperative stealth game is incredibly tense until the last round, and it takes a lot of finesse to rob the three floor office building and get out without being caught. That was an office building. In Burgle Bros 2: The Casino Capers you’re after a casino in broad daylight. The basics from Burgle Bros stay the same, but there are new challenges in taking on Vegas. I’m not only talking about new rooms and new equipment. The casino’s bouncers put a time limit on your heist, surprise tokens may turn out to be helpful or mean traps, and the game now ends with a surprise finale after you crack the safe. I’m super hyped for this game. It’s going to be as Ocean’s Eleven as you can get at your living room table.

Renegade Game Studios

In space no one can hear you scream. Are you kidding me? In Clank! In! Space! everything can hear you breath! The new expansion is not going to make that any better for you. Your enemies will have augmented cyber-ears. Cyber Station 11 is a cybernetic enhancement research station, and the half mechanical Commander Preon will not be the only baddy to watch out for.

The photo of the week, taken by Tetsuhiro Terada, shows Seiganto-Ji, a pagoda in the Kii mountain range. Thanks a lot for sharing, Tetsuhiro! (Seiganto-ji, Sanju-no-to (Three-storied Pagoda) -1 (June 2014, Tetsuhiro Terada, CC-BY, resized and cropped)

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