The gaming community has rallied round and helped Artipia Games after their Essen loss, while bunnies and necromancers can come to your table.
Artipia Games launch theft-balancing Kickstarter
Artipia Games were robbed of a large sum of money at Essen, and small companies can’t easily absorb such activity. To counter this, Artipia Games have produced a set of five promo cards for their leading games (such as Fields of Green) and are using Kickstarter to sell them to recoup the money that was stolen.
These promos will never be reprinted, are for the sole purpose of inviting fans to help and are all theft themed (the Fields of Green card has cops and dumped property.) At time of writing the Kickstarter has raised twice as much as the target, so Artipia Games should be okay.
Patchwork meets Roll and Write
For us, Patchwork is the ultimate polyominoes game (sorry, not sorry), and now Uwe Rosenberg is meeting the trend for Roll and Writes with Patchwork Doodle. This time the pieces are all on cards, and when one gets selected everyone has to fill that shape in on their grid. Everyone? Yes, the great news is that it’s not just two player: the official maximum is now eight, although we reckon many more could all go at once.
There’s a few other tweaks, like special powers, and you’ll be able to get your hands on it in the first quarter of 2019.
Kanagawa: Air Expansion
Given the title of Kanagawa’s new addition – ‘Air Expansion’ – we’re expecting at least earth, fire and water to be coming later. That’s only slightly facetious, but the Air Expansion introduces a number of new ways to play which can be added into a very modular system.
The Air part comes from the theme, with kites (not seen one of those in a while), parasols (a game this beautiful would not say umbrellas) and paper lanterns all added as elements that can affect your score. Given the stage we’re at in year, saying it’s out in 2019 might not be considered helpful.
Actual Necromancy
Jonathan Gilmour co-created Dinosaur Island and then joined Pandasaurus Games, so it makes sense his new game is from that publisher. It’s called Dead Man’s Cabal and invented with Daniel Newman, and either one or both of them likes skulls. Not a weird Games Workshop reference, but the fact Cabal sees you all as necromancers trying to bring your dead squad back to life, via skulls, runes, corpses and all manner of skulduggery. The twist is you have to pick an action for you, and an action for the whole group, so you definitely don’t want everyone dragging people back at once.
There’s a June 2019 release date. A heavy metal soundtrack is, of course, optional.
Bunny Kingdom takes to the Skies
Bunny Kingdom is a great game that’s just about worth the mockery when you suggest it, and we’re pleased it’s been enough of a hit for an expansion. Cloud Kingdom moves the action to the sky and seems to come with extra everything: cards, board, even enough for a fifth player. The charming theme remains strong.
IDW Sign Men in Black and Ghostbusters
IDW Games have obtained not just licences for Men in Black and Ghostbusters, but they’re allowed to mash them together. The first result is Men In Black/Ghostbusters: Ecto-terrestrial Invasion (full marks for that name) which bills itself as;
“A miniatures games that pairs the world's foremost protection teams to take down a threat like they've never faced. The Ghostbusters team includes Peter Venkman, Egon Spangler, Ray Stanz, and Winston Zeddmore, and the MIB team includes Agent J, Agent K, Agent L, and Zed. The game features fast dice-rolling and take-that card play as well as detailed miniatures from Ninja Division.”
More games with this pair are also coming in 2019.
Piece of Cake Comes Home
Bezier’s New York Slice was originally a game called Piece o’Cake, and now Japan’s New Games Order are taking both of these and producing a Piece o’Cake designed for their home market. As the name hints you’ll be dealing with slices of creamy dessert goodness and we imagine it’ll be available on import for the interested / hungry.
Monster Fight Club Launches
Gale Force 9 founder John Kovaleski has launched a new company called ‘Monster Fight Club’. This has the practical aim of producing board games and ways of pimping them, and the founding includes a top flight resin production facility.