Board Game Madness 3/13

Wow, my biggest hiatus to date. Work and sick and life and all that, but let’s get to it already.

Fun:

• Contest: If anyone is interested in naming the Pandasaurus mascot, you can win a lifetime subscription to every game they publish (I’ve never heard of any of them)
• The annual Geek Madness poll has started! A la March Madness NCAA basketball, this is where all the games pit against one another to see who’s everyone’s favorite. Last year Agricola took out Power Grid and won the championship by just a few votes. Will this be the year Dominion takes the crown? Will Power Grid get one for the thumb? Will the war gamers put Twilight Struggle back on top? Or is there a dark horse out there like 7 Wonders? You get to vote!
• Pimp my game: Notre Dame gets a facelift as someone made all custom components (except the cards). Absolutely gorgeous. Look at the castle up close!
• Pimp my game too: Castle Ravenloft with 3D castings using dental plaster. The detail is exquisite.
• Pimp my game thrice: One night in Bangkok? Well, how about a route from Bangkok to Vietnam in this self-made Thailand map for Ticket to Ride?
• Must. Get. This. Shirt. If you look at the comments, he got it as a punishment for forgetting his anniversary. That’s priceless! (as is the card)
• Never too early to start the kids on gaming, although Citadels may be a push. What if she takes the Assassin role? What kind of example are you setting?
• More baby pics – I think they just called this kid a hag (Quarriors! joke)
• Long ago, in a galaxy far far away, the stormtrooper got bored. Unfortunately, she beat him.
• If I was into board gaming in college, this would have been my doodling too (although not nearly as good)

New Games:

• CO2: Taking you through the boom of Ozone Layer depletion, the 70s, this game begins to take a look at stopping the increase of pollution by utilizing different types of power plants, increasing knowledge about using clean and sustainable energy and even applies the Carbon Emissions Permits economy. Sounds very interesting, although I’m not sure if/when an English version will get published. Right now, it’s still under development, no release date.
• Race to Adventure: The Spirit of the Century Exploration Game: A quick game simulating a scavenger hunt taking you all around the world. A modular board simulates the race and lots of simultaneous actions. Apparently will play 8 and up. Release TBD from Evil Hat Productions.
• Saint Malo: The Alea box set (also including Puerto Rico) gets a new dice rolling game to the series. Here you are using dice to gain resources to get characters and buildings. You also have an eraseable white board where you draw a grid of your city to personalize your town. That part sounds really interesting. Oh, and watch out for the pirate attacks. They say this is a light game. Release April 2012.
• Milestones: More building cities. Interesting difference here is that you build together, but you have to develop your own trade networks. Fairly quick tile laying game due out in April 2012.
• Recent releases: Thunderstone Advance: Towers of Ruin, The Manhattan Project, Antartik, Rocket Jockey, White Water

iOS:

• Nightfall: April
• Summoner Wars: May
• Agricola: Summer
• Le Havre: April
• Through the Ages: May
• Eclipse: 2012
• Stronghold: 2012
• Haggis: In development
• Cities and Knights of Catan: Almost ready for beta
• Rivals of Catan (2 player card game): In beta
• Troyes: Fall 2012
• Alien Frontiers: In development, no date
• Ubongo Puzzle Adventure: Released

News:

• Z-Man Games has chosen to use a single distributor which will now mean their games may be harder to get, but in theory will be more reliable and possibly even cheaper
• Hasbro is cutting 170 jobs, mostly in the US. No word on what departments.
• Anyone want a job in the board game industry? Tasty Minstrel Games is hiring
• Purple Pawn completed their annual survey of the board game industry for 2011. Not much has changed since 2010 and the industry is still very strong. Unfortunately 7.5% of their respondents closed their doors last year.
• The Boston Globe takes on the board game industry and looks into two designers
• What financial lessons can you learn from playing Monopoly?

Recently Played:

• Oh my, 3 weeks of games… hmm… Blood Bowl, Quarriors!, Core Worlds (these have been stand-bys lately), Prolix, Pandemic, 25 Words or Less, Caylus, Elder Sign, Ticket to Ride, Space Alert, and probably a couple of others I can’t remember.

Credits: BGG, Dice Tower News, Purple Pawn

Happy Gaming!

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