Stonemaier Games is ten years old! Ten years since Viticulture was fully kickstarted and so began a modern-day juggernaut. Last year we wrote about the top five games for their 9th anniversary but now Jamey Stegmaier has revealed some upcoming surprises.
Firstly, a brand-new game called Smitten has been announced. Designed specifically for the 10th anniversary, Smitten is a 1-2 player cooperative game with just 18 cards and a very small rulebook. Literally small enough to be included in a blog post, it describes that the active player will take a card from their hand and place it adjacent to a card in either of the two grids, if they choose to. The only placement rule is that the artwork must match up. Then the active player would trigger the ability on the card, with their playmate will then do. If a card cannot be played, or the card ability cannot be fulfilled, the game is over. The players win if they fulfil both grids. There will be a solo mode with three difficulty levels and will be available later this month.
The second bit of news is that Between Two Cities is getting an Essential Edition, much in the vein that Viticulture did. The new edition of Between Two Cities combines components from the original game and the Capitals expansion into a new, bigger box for a light/medium experience, replacing the scoreboard with a scorepad and some of the artwork but featuring no new gameplay elements. If you already have Between Two Cities and the Capitals expansion, you have everything for this game already.
Finally, three new promo packs have been announced for Rolling Realms, making the roll and write game much more replayable! Smitten will join the roster of Stonemaier games available to play in but now two other games have entered the world. It may surprise you to know that they are not Stonemaier publications. The immensely popular Honey Buzz and A Feast for Odin will also be available to explore so check those out when they hit the internet later this month.