Game News

Zoch Introduces a Line of Zozzle

Boardgame News - Thu, 03/11/2010 - 3:30am

German publisher Zoch is introducing a new game line for kids from Elena Fyrogeni called “Zozzle,” apparently a portmanteau of “Zoch” and “puzzle.” (2-4 players, ages 6+, 15-20 minutes, €5)

In terms of game play, a Zozzle combines memory and puzzles. The game includes 45 tiles, with five copies of nine different tiles. On a turn, a player turns over two tiles; if they match and the player doesn’t already have that tile in her grid, she adds it to her grid. The first player to complete the 3x3 puzzle wins. Four pictures are available in the opening line: horses, dolphins, a dog of some sort, and the official German gaming animal, the polar bear. Rules available on the Zoch website, although they’re not much longer than what I wrote above.

Categories: Game News

English/Dutch Rules Posted for Horst Rokitte’s Attandarra

Boardgame News - Thu, 03/11/2010 - 2:30am

Designer Horst Rokitte self-published the game Attandarra in 2009 and has been selling copies through his website Spiele-Idee.de. (2-4 players, ages 12+, 60-75 minutes, €25)

In Attendarra, the original name of the German town Attendorn, players each try to build up their own city (from a personal set of city tiles) over five rounds by spending gold for four types of building materials: clay, wood, stone and glass. Players take actions in turn each round until they run out of gold, with the possible actions being to buy building materials and build something, place a meadow or fire reservoir on the personal city board, or acquire citizens or coins for their completed buildings. To build something, you need to use at least two types of building material, and once you start using a more valuable type of material, such as stone, you can’t backtrack to use clay or wood. Players score points based on the quality of their buildings and the quantity of citizens and coins in their city. A variant game adds city gate and city history tiles.

Rokitte has now released English and Dutch rules on his website, in addition to the already present German rules (PDFs all), so if you were previously curious about the game but wary of language issues, you can now check it out.

Categories: Game News

Z-Man Games to Release Cwali’s Factory Fun

Boardgame News - 0 sec ago

Zev Shlasinger at Z-Man Games has passed on word that he will release Corné van Moorsel’s Factory Fun, originally self-published by van Moorsel through Cwali in 2006. Shlasinger announced no other details at this time, such as whether the Z-Man version will differ in any way from Cwali’s – such as including the small expansion van Moorsel released in 2010 – or what the game will cost.

For those who haven’t played the game, a brief description: Each player starts with an empty factory, then acquires machine tiles by competing against other players for them. Each machine has one or more inputs and one or more outputs; all of the inputs must connect to a supply of the right color or a properly-colored output from another machine, while all the outputs must feed into inputs (without forming loops) or dump the colored ooze into holding bins. You can add tubes as needed to connect machines, but tubes cost points, so build smartly and keep the ooze under control.

As for a release date, Shlasinger said that he doesn’t have a hard date yet, but ideally he’ll have Factory Fun out in Q4 2010. This game has been added to Gone Cardboard.

Categories: Game News

AEG / Dust Studio to Release Dust Tactics

Purple Pawn - 2 hours 12 min ago

Dust Tactics is a 30mm miniatures game set in a pretty interesting universe.  Alderac Entertainment Group and Dust Studio have come up with a scifi, WWII setting with mechs and other technologies.

The starter box will come with 30 minis, 4 mechs, and 2 heroes.  Split that in half and you’ve got your American and German forces.  Future releases include Soviets, Japanese, and even South Americans and Australians.

The minis are all base-coated out of the box, so you can tell armies apart without painting. The minis are pre-assembled, and apparently the base coat is perfect to paint on out-of-the-box, if you’re so inclined.

The setting sounds really interesting, and as you can see here, the minis look like they’ll be pretty awesome. I hope the rules will hold my interest, because I can see this as a minis came I might really be able to get into.

Categories: Game News

GameHeads Takes You Among Vultures

Boardgame News - 2 hours 21 min ago

German publisher GameHeads will release Michael Nietzer’s Unter Geiern – Among Vultures – in May 2010. (2-6 players, ages 10+, 30 minutes) In the game, players are vultures on the search for food in the desert. Since you are a vulture, naturally anything dead or decaying will do – the problem is that once you spot something, everyone else will swoop down for a peck, too. Claim thirty prey points before any of your ravenous rivals, and you’ll be the king carrion chomper.

GameHeads has started posting details of Unter Geiern on its website, with one section available now detailing what the various cards are and how to set up the array of desert cards based on the number of players. More chapters to follow in the weeks ahead…

Categories: Game News

Warlands rules available as PDF download

Tabletop Gaming News - 2 hours 23 min ago

Aberrant have made their Warlands Rules Handbook available as a PDF from Wargames Vault. From their website: In the future the only way to get gasoline is with a gun. No one can seem to remember exactly how it started or indeed how it ended. But it did… Now decades after the last war, mankind fights for survival [...]

Categories: Game News

Smart Max release Fu Manchu

Tabletop Gaming News - 2 hours 57 min ago

Smart Max have added a new figure, Fu Manchu, to their Smog range of alternative adventure miniatures. From their announcement: Fu Manchu is nothing less than one of the four leaders of the Dragon who seat at the Council of the Virtuous Ones. Sent to London to undermine the Realm, corrupt its elites and gather as much [...]

Categories: Game News

Focus & Fury episode 29 posted

Tabletop Gaming News - 3 hours 3 min ago

Episode 29 of the Focus and Fury, Warmachine and Hordes, podcast has been posted. This episode contains a “top secret” interview subject. From their announcement: Focus & Fury episode 29 – The Khador Book and a Super Secret Interview has been released. It covers 00:00 News 07:08 Announcements 16:00 First Look at the Khador Book 50:22 Super Secret Interview Guest 54:50 TB

Categories: Game News

Plasmablast Games interview

Tabletop Gaming News - 3 hours 5 min ago

Tom at MiniatureReview.com has posted an interview with Marios Damoulianos of Plasmablast Games.

Categories: Game News

Tor preview Britanan Trooper green

Tabletop Gaming News - 3 hours 8 min ago

Tor Gaming have updated their R&D site with photos of the Britanan Trooper green. From their announcement: We have posted images of the finished sculpts for the Britanan Trooper on our blog. Sculpted by Kevin Kosse, We hope you will agree that these are damn smart little buggers. Hopefully, barring no issues, we hope to have them available [...]

Categories: Game News

Spartan preview Shroud Mage submarine

Tabletop Gaming News - 3 hours 10 min ago

Spartan Games have updated their Coming Soon page and Workbench Rules Page with a photo and rules for the Shroud Mage Ripper Class Submarine.

Categories: Game News

New Ex illis Tactica article posted

Tabletop Gaming News - 3 hours 13 min ago

Bastion have posted a new Ex illis Tactica article (PDF link) looking at the Knight Baneret and the Factions system. From their announcement: The baneret (spelled with a single “n” as was custom in 1309) is a military rank between the simple knight and the baron. The name refers to the privileges this knight earned allowing him [...]

Categories: Game News

Announcing ElodieMae.com

Tabletop Gaming News - 3 hours 17 min ago

ElodieMae.com have sent along news of their new online store and products. This is the company that produced the base for Studio McVey’s Sharro figure. From their announcement:? Hello, I’d like to announce ElodieMae online which produces highly detailed resin accessories for 28-32mm miniatures. At the moment we have a small range of 30mm resin bases and resin [...]

Categories: Game News

Guts N Gears Khador Force Book episode

Tabletop Gaming News - 3 hours 19 min ago

The Guts N Gears team have posted a new episode looking at the recently released Forces of Warmachine: Khador book. From their announcement:? Guts N Gears. Khador. Privateer Press Doug Seacat (Lead Writer) and Privateer Press David Carl join us and talk about Khador. Khador Force/Faction book. “Bigger, Better & Stronger… Roll with the good times.” Show notes: Andres & [...]

Categories: Game News

Kris Burm, Niek Neuwahl to Guest Star at Swiss Designers Meeting

Boardgame News - 3 hours 21 min ago

The sixth Swiss game designers’ meeting takes place May 1-2, 2010 at Le Musée Suisse du Jeu – the Swiss Museum of Games. Designers Niek Neuwahl and Kris Burm will be the guests for this year’s event, so as co-organizer Sébastien Pauchon writes, “part of the disussions will be about abstract games, as you can guess.”

All game designers, whether Swiss or not, are welcome to attend the event and have their prototypes critiqued by a peer group of designers. For the cost of the event and schedule of activities, along with application details, visit this information page.

Categories: Game News

Horus Heresy combat preview

Tabletop Gaming News - 4 hours 15 min ago

Fantasy Flight Games have posted a new preview of the Horus Heresy boardgame looking at some more details of the combat system.

Categories: Game News

Sneak Peak at Ystari Games’ New Industry

Boardgame News - 4 hours 21 min ago

Cyril Demaegd of Ystari Games has passed along images from the company’s new version of Michael Schacht’s Industry to show off the new look. Note that both the cover and gameboard are still works in progress. As for U.S. distribution of the game, Demaegd says that nothing has been finalized as of yet but the game will be released outside of Europe.

Categories: Game News

Z-Man Games Reveals Road Kill Rally, Teases Earth Reborn

Boardgame News - 5 hours 21 min ago

Z-Man Games has posted a game page for Daniel George’s Road Kill Rally with pics of the components and a release date of June 2010. (3-6 players, ages 12+, 60-120 minutes, $60) Here’s a brief description from the publisher:

2035 – The Road-Kill Rally becomes a worldwide phenomenon, attracting contestants from throughout the world. Ratings exceed three billion for the Rally Cup Finals, making it the most watched spectacle in human history.

As a driver in the Road-Kill Rally, you are racing against opponents eager to destroy you with guns, rockets and flame throwers. But the big points come from scoring pedestrians: running them over or blasting them out of the road. After all, you have three billion viewers to satisfy.

Think of this as Car Wars meets Death Race 2000.

The page includes a rules link (PDF) for those who want more details. This game has been updated on Gone Cardboard.

Z-Man Games has also unveiled the logo for a future release, Earth Reborn, that apparently features a world littered with metal, bullets, blood and eyeballs. No other info at the moment.

Categories: Game News

Die Minen von Zavandor – Coming from Lookout Games

Boardgame News - 5 hours 51 min ago

Lookout Games has announced a new title for release in June 2010 – although the game might slip a month later or arrive in May at the Spielwahnsinn ("Game Madness") event in Herne, Germany. The new game is Die Minen von Zavandor from designer Alexander Pfister with graphics by Lookout regular Klemens Franz. (2-4 players, ages 10+, 45-90 minutes, ~€35)

Die Minen von Zavandor is set in Lookout’s fantasy world of Zavandor, but otherwise has no direct connection to Lookout’s The Scepter of Zavandor. In this game, which has a bidding mechanism at its heart, players are dwarves who try to equip their mines with buildings and people that will prove useful during the game, in addition to earning them points at game’s end. In his blog, Pfister describes (in German) Minen as being less complicated than Scepter. He also says that the bidding mechanism doesn’t feel like a classic auction: “The minimum purchase price of the buildings / artifacts is 3 gems – but with a starting income of 2-3 gems, the question is usually not how much you should offer, but whether you should even make an offer.” Bidding is handled simultaneously, he says, so the game has little waiting time and plays smoothly.

Update, March 10, 2010: Lookout Games’ Hanno Girke has said that negotiations for an English edition of the game are still underway. In his words, “There are several options – you can safely assume that there will be some kind of EN edition, but it’s just not quite sure what logo you can find on the box.”

Categories: Game News

Z-Man Games to Release The Speicherstadt in English

Boardgame News - 6 hours 21 min ago

Z-Man Games has announced that it will release the Stefan Feld title Die Speicherstadt in English under the name – wait for it – The Speicherstadt. (2-5 players, ages 8+, 45 minutes) As Z-Man’s Zev Shlasinger writes on his sneak peak page, “cause Warehouse just ain’t exciting.”

In case you missed this March 2010 item about eggertspiele’s release of the game, here’s a brief description of game play:

Players have three workers that they allocate to the available cards each round, with one more card on display than the number of players. Once all the workers have been placed, cards are sold from left to right; the player owning the first worker in line has the first option of buying the card at a cost of one coin per worker in that line. If the player passes, he removes his worker, thus dropping the price for the next worker in line. After each round, each player receives one coin, with those who bought no cards receiving two coins.

Ship cards contain three randomly drawn goods. The other cards available include clients who want particular goods, firemen, buildings that provide storage or a way to convert goods to money immediately, and cards worth only victory points. Four fire cards are mixed into the deck, which has sets of cards arranged in particular layers. When a fire is drawn, the player with the most firemen earns VPs while the one with the fewest loses points. The game ends with the fourth fire, then players tally their VPs.

This game has been added to Gone Cardboard.

Categories: Game News