Board Game News 14: Online Playtesting Tools, Free Thunderstone Expansions and more…

Kings Cribbage

Paul, from King’s Cribbage Uk is looking to introduce a lesser well known game in the UK, but a massive hit in Canada and the USA, to all of us at the MSO, the Mind Sports Olympiad. Last year the game was there only as a demo, but this year it is participating with full tournament credentials. Well done Paul! Anyway, that’s enough chatter from me, here’s Paul..

Love your board games? Well there is an exciting opportunity this year where the gaming community can meet up LIVE and play for a ‘World Championship Title’ and a World ranking.

Gold – Silver - Bronze medals, are all just waiting to be won at this prestigious event and venue.

The Mind Sport Olympiad XV1 – 18-26 August 2012 http://www.boardability.com/about_us.php

This will be an awesome experience where you can put your skills to the test, represent your Country, meet and play many other game enthusiasts. The event is open to EVERYONE. You can compete or play just for fun, include/play any of the numerous games on the agenda.

The MSO website provides a full listing of all the games, timetables, the history behind the event, previous medal winners and rankings, and how you can register and enter on line.

As your Kings Cribbage Connection at the event we of course will be there to extend a warm welcome to any that come and play our game, we will also be giving away our own special prizes for our winners and runners up.

Sign up soon to grab a piece of the action! We look forward to meeting you.

Paul & Corrina

Kings Cribbage Connection UK

www.kingscribbageuk.com

 

Gryphon and Eagle Games

New Kickstarter Project Launching in March!

In the northwest corner of Nunavut, Canada, a formerly inaccessible bay off of the Arctic Ocean has become reachable through a secret inlet. Untouched by the hands of time and fed by both the ocean and warm fresh water springs, Ridback Bay is teeming with sea life. A remote, timeless bayside village is now being inundated by entrepreneurs awaiting the influx of the world's greatest fisherman to harvest this plentiful bounty. The docks and warehouses are being revitalized and now it is time to begin the real adventure. Go build your fleet and become the master of the seas!

In Fleet players acquire licenses, launch boats, and fish the great briny blue. The player who best manages his resources and acquires the most Victory Points via fish, licenses, and boats, will build the strongest Fleet and lead his crew to victory!


Coming to Kickstarter March 1st!

Zong Shi, Pizza Theory, and Caveman Curling Arriving March 10th

The Kickstarter projects for Zong Shi, Caveman Curling, and Pizza Theory have ended, and all three games were successfully funded!  If you missed your chance to back these games you can still pre-order the games on Eaglegames.net.

Check out www.thedicetower.com's Tom Vasel's review of Caveman Curling below!

Caveman Curling - with Tom and Melody Vasel

Caveman Curling - with Tom and Melody Vasel

Solitaire for Two Coming Soon!

If you know how to play "Solitaire" with a deck of cards, then you already know how to play Solitaire for Two!  We've taken the game you know and added 2 new Suits, 3 Jokers, a Scoring System, and made it possible to play with 2, 3, and 4 players. As a result, a great game got even better!
In addition to Six-Suit Solitaire and Solitaire for Two the 81 high-quality tiles contained in the game can be used in place of a "normal" deck of 52 cards. This allows you to play many of your favorite card games with tiles rather than those 52 "protean pieces of pasteboard" (Sid Sackson, game designer, A Gamut of Games).

Look for Solitaire for Two on Kickstarter next month!

The Return of Sid Sackson

Three Sid Sackson Card Games Planned for 2012

Gryphon Games is re-releasing three classic Sid Sackson card games in 2012: Sleuth, Venture, and Monad.
Keep an eye out for these great titles to launch throughout the year.  In the meantime check out their BoardGameGeek.com pages to learn more (Sleuth, Venture, & Monad)

Pastiche and Reverse Charades Get Multiple Nods on The Dice Tower's  Top Ten games of 2011 Lists!

Pastiche and Reverse Charades made numerous appearances on the newest list posted by The Dice Tower. 

If you spend any time reading game reviews then you know who Tom Vasel is.  His website, www.thedicetower.com, is one of the most influential board game review sites on the web.  The site recently released a number of lists of the best games of 2011 in numerous categories.  Most notable is Tom Vasel's pick of Pastiche as Best Family Game of 2011.

Also, Meng from fathergeek.com and  www.thedicetower.com has picked Pastiche as having the best art of any game released in 2011!

In the "Best Party Game" list Reverse Charades and Reverse Charades Junior took four out of the seven spots, as well as getting Cyrus from FatherGeek.com's pick as best family game!

Click here to see the lists.

Alf Seegert's Fantastiqa

Although we don't have any art ready to show just yet, we wanted to tell you how excited we are about Alf Seegert's new game Fantastiqa.  It's a perfect combination of board game and deck builder set in a  fantastic fantasy world!  Look for more on Fantastiqa soon!

 

AEG

The guys over at AEG (wonderful people that they are!) would like you to know about their Thunderstone Advance pre-release events.

Are you ready to Level Up?

In case you have not heard Thunderstone Advance is nearly here and to get a head start we are offering retailers the opportunity to host a LEVEL UP Pre-Release.

Game stores around the world are hosting pre-release LEVEL UP events from March 2 through March 8.

Participating LEVEL UP retailers will receive Thunderstone Advance for sale before anyone else, and receive a special Avatar mini-expansion. Avatars will be FREE to customers who purchase the game during LEVEL UP Week. After that, they will be on sale for $9.99 (MSRP). So, check with your local retailer to see if they are participating, and if they are not, encourage them to do so by putting their order in now with their distributor.

Contact customerservice@alderac.com for more information or if you have questions

 

Global Game Space

Curtis Lacy from Global Game Space is developing an online tool to enable Playtesters to bypass the barriers of time and space. 

The open source boardgaming project Global GameSpace has posted a new UI demo video.

 

This one's focused on dice, and the features they need to have when simulated online. Check out this video and more here.

Global GameSpace is a project aiming to create a fully-functional, online table-gaming platform.  Development is expected to start in earnest this summer, but for now Curtis is posting videos explaining the expected interface and capabilities as he hashes out the design.  Upon completion, the final product is intended to be released as a free product, which could be used for prototyping and playtesting, or as the framework for new online games.

If you have any ideas or feedback I’m sure Curtis would love to hear from you!

 

Conventions

And  a reminder of two board game events happening this coming week.

Gemma Cole would like London based gamers to know about their month game nights at the Ritzy.

Strategy games, skill games, family games, party games.

If you love games, this is the place to be.

And if you're not so sure, that's because you've never been to an event like this before! Yeah, Monopoly's OK, but there's a whole new generation of games out there that are so much more exciting, more challenging, and downright more fun -- and we can't wait to show them to you.

Bring your own or ask for a recommendation from the many games on offer.

Pander to your playful side; go on, I dare you...

It’s called BOARD GAMES AND BEYOND.

It’s the second Monday of every month, from 6.30pm @Upstairs at the Ritzy.

Hosted by Charlie Fish

Website:and Facebook

And Chris Geggus would like all Cheshire based gamers to know about his convention Swan Con at the Swan Hotel in Knutsford 9th – 11th March.

Organised by The Weekend Gaming Group (WGG). Has been running at The Swan in Knutsford for over 18 years. Open to all (small fee charged to cover cost of room). Gaming from Friday lunchtime until Sunday afternoon (all night if you're desperate). Multi-player Euros generally with some wargames and other games as desired. No game refused. Numbers are c. 20 - 30 during the weekend - some stay at the hotel, whilst others will drop in whenever. Contact: Chris Geggus (Ahiksking) on geggus@sky.com

 

Out This Week

And finally Paul, close us out with this week’s new releases from Board Game Guru

Fantasy Flight’s third expansion for Cosmic Encounter , ‘Cosmic Alliance,’ is here and includes twenty races, and the ability to play in teams. The ever green base game is also back in stock.

Martin Wallace revisits the American civil war with ‘Test of Fire : Bull Run 1861’, in an entry level complexity war game.

‘Rocket Jockey’ and ‘White Water’, both from Mayfair, are games I know nothing about other than the description on the publisher’s website. These have both slipped under the radar.

‘Kaispecher ‘is an expansion for Stefan Feld’s Speichersradt.

'Friedrich Anniversary edition' was released at Essen 2011 to celebrate the 300th year of the Prussian Kings birthday. The new edition has only minor changes from the 2004 (now out of print) edition with new art work and changes to the map and cards.

Village’, from Eggertspiele and in stock now, is an interesting and novel worker placement game in that as well as placing your villagers as efficiently as possible you have to manage their departure from life just as efficiently – because they need to die in an honourable occupation to score at the end game, with a paupers grave scoring no points.

‘Santa Cruz’ is Hans Im Glucks 2012  Nuremburg medium weight euro and its continues the illustrious line of Stone Age, Finca, Titania and Pantheon. Early reports are positive so I have had the rules translated and the German edition will be arriving on Thursday, and it is available for pre-order now.

‘Thunderstone Advance’ is the new core set for the successful Thunderstone series. It will be in store on Tuesday 6th March.

Happy gaming

Paul

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