Crafty Games is taking its spin on the d20 system back to the origins of the game (and a very crowded field) with Fantasy Craft—y’know, medieval monsters, magic, and stuff. Available now in PDF and very soon in print, the game should put a bit more emphasis on non-combat actions and has a skill-based magic system.

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Working its way through the retail distribution chain now is Middle-earth Quest from Fantasy Flight Games. Middle-earth Quest is an adventure board game based on Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy. One player acts as Sauron, while the others adopt the roles of various characters who are not members of the fellowship of the ring but are working on their own quests to fight the Dark Lord.

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The Iron Man Battling Card Game is the only non-electronic Iron Man licensed game, as of yet. No Iron Man Monopoly or Iron Man Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots, go figure. Rather stunning, for such a popular movie franchise.

And lest you think that someone went through the trouble to actually design an Iron Man game, the game is simply a carbon copy (save three cards) of the Transformers Battling Card Game, which is itself a carbon copy of Star Wars: Episode 1 – Clash of the Lightsabers.

Although released by Hasbro, they were designed by one of the two designers at Hasbro who are respected in the board gaming community, Craig Van Ness, and who also designed numerous Heroscape expansions, Risk 2210, Roller Coaster Tycoon, Sorry Sliders, and Star Wars: The Queen’s Gambit, all considered quite decent for mass market games.

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Animal Herders is an animal-themed CCG, by Eric and Melody Martin, planned to be released August or September.

The cards depict various animals with strength counts or food. Although it appears to be kid-friendly, you use your cute little animals to attack your opponents’ animals, killing them, and your opponent, too. I’m not exactly sure why, but I assume there’s a reason.

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Wuxia Pian is a planned downloadable CCG  from sggc PaMaRo Games. Wuxia Pian means “film of martial chivalry”, encompassing recent films like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Hero, as well as old-school style martial arts films.

The game is not intended to be commercial, and is being designed with the assistance of CardForge, a web site that assists you in designing your own CCG. CardForge has over 80 projects in development, many of them fan-designed CCG adaptations of existing games and licenses.

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