Dark City Games, which began as a father-and-son venture to revive the MicroQuest line of roleplaying modules from Metagaming, is now launching a new series of adventures designed for Savage Worlds. Dark City adventures include battle maps and paper tokens, and can be run solo, just like the classic games they imitate.  The first in the new series is Crown of Kings, which takes players under the mountain to retrieve an ancient relic with which to rule the world.

OK, I admit the plot doesn’t sound like much. But if they can recreate those late 70s little modules that came in in fold-over plastic bags, I’ll be very excited. Those were very basic games but provided hours of simple fun.

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Black Sheep, the latest in Fantasy Flight’s line of toys and games for the family, is now available at retailers. At ages eight and up, players use cards to corral cows, horses, chickens, and pigs while avoiding the trouble-making black sheep. Besides being cute, the game sounds like good training for future gamers. It’s designed by Reiner Knizia and includes 36 animal miniatures. Actually kids, you might want to make sure your parents don’t permanently borrow those for a different game about farming.

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Gods of the Shroud, the latest supplement from One Bad Egg, details a complete pantheon of 13 deities for D&D 4e. Avoiding use of the gods’ true names to prevent mortals usurping their power, this PDF publication includes also 16 new ways to channel divinity on individual power cards, 9 creatures of faith, and magic items for every tier.

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Kadon Enterprises specializes in abstract games and puzzles that are unique, mathematically interesting, solidly built, gorgeous to look at, and expensive. As to the latter, can’t have everything, can you?

Some of their latest games include:

La Ora Stelo

Tulips

Doris

Dazzle

Intartia

Pearl Fisher

(play PF online)

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Tremorworks is running a special sale on certain products, and 75% of the profits from the sale of these products will go to Child’s Play, a charity that donates toys and games to children’s hospitals.

Choose from a large selection of their products, some autographed.

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Everyone and their friend is telling us that the economic climate this year means that families will be spending less on vacations and outside entertainment and more on board games and family time.

And, aside from the retailers, of course, lots of media sources are coming out with top ten board game lists this year.

MSN entered the fray with a list that includes The Settlers of Catan. Way to go MSN.

And England’s Daily Record put out a list that includes Buckaroo and Subbuteo. I didn’t know either of those; they must have been more popular in England.

Canada.com includes on its list Mad Gab and Payday. Payday? Come on. Really?

The Examiner adds a list of games for special needs children.

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Jishaku is another game with magnetic pieces, this time hematite stone pieces that you have to place on the board without causing any connections. When you do, you get the stones. Last one to play wins.

The video promo has a lot of gratuitous shots of bikini babes, for some reason:

For a similar but seemingly more complex game using the same principle of placing magnets, you may want to try Polarity.

(source, site)

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Finland is the stomping ground of some of my board game buddies, and the Helsinki Times just wrote a nifty article about one of Helsinki’s main board game stores, Lautapelit.

The source is as good an article as any for promoting new games, including Carcassonne, Modern Art, and so on, although the accompanying pictures is a chess board.

(source)

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Google has put up millions of photos from the archives of Life Magazine, and it’s a treasure trove of photographic history, including games.

Lobby: a capital game

The piano board game

Ouija players

Blackjack at the Las Vegas Club in 1942

While the women play bridge at home

Japanese Americans playing Go at a relocation camp

Troubled children in Sweden in 1949

Bridge on commuter club cars in 1948

Bette Davis playing Scrabble with her husband

Ray Charles plays Chess

Kasparov plays chess against Deep Blue

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Scrabble sales are high in the UK, and it’s now the number one selling game.

Mattel would like to attribute this to their anniversary marketing efforts and the downsizing in the economy which is forcing people to look for lower cost entertainment (source). Both of which have had an effect, true.

But other sources point out that they also owe much of their new sales to the Facebook application Scrabulous, which Mattel succeeded in shutting down a short time ago. (e.g. source)

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