Designing Fallout: Wasteland Warfare, and Wearing Dungeons & Dragons
BoardGameGeek Blog
by W Eric Martin
2h ago
by W. Eric Martin • In mid-April 2024, CNN ran an article aimed at mainstream gamers by Saira Mueller that explains some of the process of getting a board game onto retail shelves, using CATAN, Wyrmspan, and A Gentle Dream as examples along the way. Interesting trivia from the article: CATAN: New Energies, which hits the U.S. retail market on May 24, 2024, "was in development around ten years ago before getting shelved. During the pandemic, [Klaus and Benjamin Teuber] revisited the idea and have been working on it since." Hmm, how many other CATAN prototypes might still make it into print d ..read more
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Explore the Origins of Machu Picchu, Discover a Xenolanguage, and Become Part of Academia
BoardGameGeek Blog
by W Eric Martin
19h ago
by W. Eric Martin • Alison Collins' game design Wiñay Kawsay won third place in the 2021 Zenobia Awards, and it will come to market in November 2024 courtesy of U.S. publisher WizKids under the title Publish or Perish: Wiñay Kawsay. Here's an overview of this 2-4 player game: Machu Picchu has captivated the imagination of the world and academia alike. There's been plenty of theories about what its purpose could have been. Was it a lost city? Perhaps a citadel? Or maybe something else entirely? That is for you to decide! In Publish or Perish: Wiñay Kawsay — roughly pronounced win-nyay cow-s ..read more
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Designer Diary: España 1936
BoardGameGeek Blog
by acatalan
1d ago
by Antonio Catalán Thoughts on Design España 1936, a strategic game simulating the Spanish Civil War from 1936 to 1939, was designed for Devir in a distant 2006, almost eighteen years ago. Trying to write a diary of its design, particularly chronologically, is a bit difficult after so much time. What I can do is reflect on the reason for its dynamics and mechanisms and explore the depth of what the game is attempting to simulate and represent. The Spanish Civil War was a complex conflict, mainly because of how it developed. It began with a failed coup d'état by the military leadership of th ..read more
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Visit Chicago to Raise the City, Sell Liquor, and Take to the Streets
BoardGameGeek Blog
by W Eric Martin
2d ago
by W. Eric Martin • A quadrilogy of games set in the United States' "Second City" are coming out in 2024 and 2025, all taking place in different eras of Chicago's past. The game set closest to the present day is Chicago '68, the debut design from Yoni Goldstein, which The Dietz Foundation plans to crowdfund in the middle of 2024. Placeholder cover Chicago '68 is labeled as a 1-4 player game, with publisher Jim Dietz saying it would typically be played as a two-player duel: Chicago '68 pits revolutionary spectacle against civil order at the Democratic National Convention riots of 1968. Player ..read more
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Become a Dragon in Flame & Fang...or Fight One in The Flames of Fafnir
BoardGameGeek Blog
by W Eric Martin
3d ago
by W. Eric Martin • The Magic: The Gathering card "Form of the Dragon" was an oddball when it debuted in 2003, but the designer's intent was that you, the player, would effectively become a dragon, breathing fire each turn and untouchable in combat unless flying creatures came after you. Twenty years later, Peter Gousis, Michael D. Kelley, and Escape Velocity Games are trying to do something similar in Flame & Fang, a co-operative game for up to four players in which you grow wings and fight for survival: In a world where dragons were thought to be extinct, somehow a clutch of eggs survi ..read more
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Build Water Tanks to Support Yourself in Resafa, Then Join the League of Six Once Again
BoardGameGeek Blog
by W Eric Martin
4d ago
by W. Eric Martin • Czech publisher Delicious Games has announced its SPIEL Essen 24 release: Resafa, a 1-4 player game from designer Vladimír Suchý, who co-owns the company with his wife Kateřina. Non-final cover Here's an overview of the game: The game Resafa takes place during the 3rd century AD in the area of today's Middle East. Resafa now lies in ruins in modern-day Syria, but at this time it was a fortified desert outpost that flourished as a stop along important caravan routes. In the game, players represent merchants who travel on business trips and buy and sell goods in the variou ..read more
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Designer Diary: Maps of Misterra, or Only Believe What You Map
BoardGameGeek Blog
by gobarkas
4d ago
by Timothée Decroix This designer diary was co-written by the three authors — Mathieu Bossu, Thomas Cariate, and Timothée Decroix — and translated from French by Nathan Morse. Originally published in French on TricTrac. Only Believe What You See Map... Writing a designer diary is a singular exercise. It's not that easy to recall how events unfolded and to present simply the questions and decisions that led to the published game. However, we will try to take you on a journey with us through the creative process for our game Maps of Misterra, which was released in January 2024 by Sit Down! an ..read more
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Explore Kyoto as a Kitten, Fit Cats into Packs, and Evolve as a Species in Nature
BoardGameGeek Blog
by W Eric Martin
5d ago
by W. Eric Martin Most of the comments I've read about the 2023 train game Arabella ask why a kitten is on the cover when the gameplay focuses on track-building and share-holding. The publisher explains that the kitten is intended to represent how easy the game is to learn, but any cat lover who picks up this title is in for a surprise since the gameplay does not involve kaiju cats demolishing railroads. Let me instead recommend that fans of felines check out one of the games listed below instead, each of which features cats in their gameplay, starting with Kyoto no Neko, a 2-4 player desig ..read more
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Take Your Place as a Knight of the Round Table, and Confront the Outer Gods in Imperial Rome
BoardGameGeek Blog
by W Eric Martin
6d ago
by W. Eric Martin • The cartoon short "Steamboat Willie" entered the public domain in 2024, along with Tigger, The Passion of Joan of Arc, and Lady Chatterley's Lover by D. H. Lawrence. I'm not sure whether designers will rush to create games out of this material — especially the first item given that Disney still owns everything else related to Mickey Mouse — but over time the public domain pool will only continue to grow, a pool that game designers and publishers will return to repeatedly for a chance to put their own spin on a story or group of characters known around the world, as with th ..read more
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Link Round-up: Ticket to Ride on SNL, and Awards in Japan, in the U.S., and on BGG
BoardGameGeek Blog
by W Eric Martin
1w ago
by W. Eric Martin • Jules Messaud's Akropolis won the 2023 Japan Boardgame Prize issued by Yumoa, a non-profit organization founded in 2003 that annually honors games that are "considered to have contributed the most to the spread of board games". The other titles nominated for the award were Phil Walker-Harding's Super Mega Lucky Box and Challengers! from designers Johannes Krenner and Markus Slawitscheck. This latter title, which won the 2023 Kennerspiel des Jahres in Germany, won the voting section of the 2023 Japan Boardgame Prize, receiving more than twice as many points as second-pla ..read more
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