Later this year Beasts of Balance ($100) is coming to big box and specialty stores in North America. Currently the game was only available in mall-based marbles: the brain store, but they’re currently going out of business.

This app-driven dexterity game has you stacking cool sculpted creatures on a sensor, powering them up on the app by placing energy elements, interacting with the app while certain pieces are placed, and evolving and changing the creatures: Toucan and Octopus have formed OCTOUCAN! It’s a crazy fun game that’s been available in the UK for a while now.

Also at the show were two add-on creatures, the Omnibeast and (the Yogscast) Lalnalion, currently available on Sensible Object’s Beasts of Balance website for £15/$20 each.

This article was updated to reflect the locations Beasts of Balance will be available in later this year.

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Lightseekers, a new entry in the toys-to-life category, makes use of Bluetooth communication to deliver two-way communication between action figures and computer app, no special portal required. Thus, the figures not only show up in the video game, but can also respond to in-game events with vibrations, lights, and sounds, can be modified with weapons and other physical attachments, and can even be used as live controllers.

The software for Lightseekers is being produced by PlayFusion, the toy line by TOMY. Besides the figures, that product line includes a collectible card game, playable either on its own or through augmented reality as enhancements to the video game.

Lightseekers will launch at Toys “R” Us online on April 17th and in-stores July 1st.

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Experiment 7 is develop, with license from Wizards of the Coast, a Dungeons & Dragons-themed virtual-reality Chess game. Dungeon Chess (for Samsung Gear VR and Oculus Rift) will feature animated game-play, a variety of environments (like the Yawning Portal tavern), and iconic D&D monsters as Chess pieces (e.g, dragons as kings, beholders as rooks, drow as pawns, and mind-flayers as bishops).

Remote multiplayer and AI opponents will be available.

Release of Dungeon Chess is planned for later this year.

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Police in New Delhi, India arrested a man for replacing cash in an ATM with fake 2,000 Rupee notes he got out of a board game that he had purchased for his nephew. The police were alerted by bank customers who were given currency guaranteed by the “Children’s Bank of India”.

Hasbro has applied for a U.S. trademark on the smell of Play-Doh.

Already banned by FIDE for misfeasance at the Bulgarian Chess Federation and improperly diverting money from Chess tournaments, Silvio Danailov and Vladimir Sakotic have allegedly used illegal means to take over the Serbian Chess Federation and have sent threatening and blackmailing emails to the president and board of the European Chess Union.

Teen siblings, Dorsa and Borna Derakhshan, have been banned by Iran Chess Federation from playing in domestic tournaments and representing the country at international events. Dorsa played at the recent Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Festival without wearing a hijab. Borna played a game against an Israeli.

A 23 year-old mother in Hong Kong was arrested by police for abandoning her baby (only 18 days old) unattended at her mother’s house so she could go play Mahjong. In consideration of the weeks she already spent in police custody and the support of her family, a magistrate sentenced the mother to just 12 months probation.

The Ningdu County Committee of the Communist Party of China has banned local officials from playing Mahjong. The goal of the order is to combat gambling, though it applies to any occasion, on-duty or off.

Between the two separate Mahjong games police raided in Davao City, Philippines, they arrested 11 people and confiscated gambling money totaling 320 Pesos (no more than $6.50).

A Denver-area high school principal was found guilty of 3rd degree assault for kicking his wife between the legs and punching her in the ribs. The incident occurred after he called her a “cheater” during a game of Backgammon. It’s unclear whether by cheating he was referring to the game or their marriage.

A man and woman were captured on video surveillance shoplifting $400 worth of Magic: The Gathering cards from a Walmart in Potsdam, New York. State police eventually caught the pair when they tried to sell the cards.

The makers of Secret Hitler, a Mafia-like game about the rise of fascism, sent a copy of the game to every member of the United States Senate, thinking maybe the education would do them good.

Sophisticated Games, which owns the rights to the original board game version of Ingenious (also known as Einfach Genial), registered a U.S. trademark for “Ingenious” and began demanding that the game’s designer, Reiner Knizia, pay a royalty for using that name on related game designs. Rather than acquiesce, Knizia has come up with a new name for games in that series—at least the ones for which he has the rights. So for example, there’s AXIO Hexagonal and AXIO Octagonal now available to play online. Under license from Sophisticated Games, though, Thames & Kosmos will be publishing the original in board game form as Ingenious later this year.

For the second month in a row, a car crashed in to a game shop. This time, the incident occurred at the Spielbound board game cafe in Omaha.

Portal Games has had its PayPal accounts frozen pending delivery of First Martians. The bulk of funds in those accounts were for preorders of the game. However, Portal assures customers that the move by PayPal will not interfere with delivery.

First in Parliament, then on Facebook, the Chief Minister of Gibraltar criticized the Leader of the Opposition for skipping a session of Parliament to officiate at a dog show in Brussels. Another MP responded by pointing out that a Government Minister had also missed a session to take part in a Backgammon tournament.

The immediate past president of the Northern Region Chess League in Malawi asserts irregularities in the latest election of officers. He claims that the president of the Chess Association of Malawi, who presided over the balloting, refused to let all local Chess players vote (as required by the organization’s constitution) and instead only accepted the votes of players who had participated in the last tournament.

The resignation of the president of the Japan Shogi Association wasn’t enough for members upset that the group’s leadership had banned a prominent player on suspicion of cheating but without evidence. A no-confidence vote has resulted in the ouster of three more board members.

As with Bridge and Chess, supporters are trying to get Sport England to declare Scrabble a sport.

A New York City police officer visiting the Virtual Crime Information Center for some training recognized the man on a wanted poster as a regular at the Chess tables in Washington Square Park. And so police went to the park and arrested him.

Two of four men in an SUV, who robbed and shot up a Dominoes game taking place in the parking lot of a Houston convenience store, were captured by police following a second incident later the same night.

An argument broke out between two people playing Dominoes in Dolores Park, San Francisco. One slashed the other’s arm with a pocket knife and escaped on-foot.

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For the next few weeks, the prizes that come with Chick-fil-A kid’s meals are mini games from Educational Insights. To get the full-sized versions of those games at 20% off direct from Educational Insights, use coupon code “GAMEPLAY”.

Spartan Games has packaged up some bundle deals in Halo Ground Command (Covenant and USNC) and Halo Fleet Battles (Covenant and USNC).

The Mum Diaries (UK) is giving away the Multiplication and Writing Letters games from Cartamundi’s Fundels series.

Over at Bundle of Holding, the latest offering is for the Classic Battletech RPG (originally published as MechWarrior third edition).

Buy one HexBug Battle Ground, get one 35% off.

EverythingBoardGames is giving away one copy Quodd Heroes from Wonderment Games and three copies of Truck Off: The Food Truck Frenzy from Adams Apple Games.

Animal-themed products are on-sale in Eagle-Gryphon Games’ Safari Sale.

Find 77 games in Fat Brain Toys “Biggest Sale of the Year“.

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White Wolf’s World of Darkness returns to digital with Vampire: Prelude (iOS, Android) and Mage: Refuge (iOS, Android) interactive fiction apps.

Support for Clank! has been added to the Renegade Game Studios Companion App (iOS, Android), providing “mini-quests” and a solo game mode.

GMT Games is working with HexWar Games on digital versions of Commands & Colors: Ancients and Commands & Colors: Napoleonics. Ancients will launch first in this summer, followed by Napoleonics in the fall or winter. At launch, the games will support PC and Mac. A couple of months later, there’ll be support for iPad. Android support will come eventually, probably.

The previous implementation of Dominion online is no longer. It has been replaced by one from Shuffle iT. Accounts, though, were transferred, supposedly with usernames and passwords intact.

Victory Point Games’ Hunt: The Unknown Quarry recently launched on Steam. It’s a “deductive combat game” for 3-6. One plays a monster trying to escape. The others are hunters. A whole group can play with just one purchased license.

Online accounts for Fantasy Flight Games, Days of Wonder, and Asmodee have been merged. If you had an account, you should have received an email.

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Beirut, Lebanon has two escape room locations, Exit Beirut and Escape the Room Lebanon, each with two individual rooms to escape. Also recently opened in Beirut is the game, pop-culture, and comic shop, Multiverse.

On Kickstarter, Keiran Franklin is raising money for a game cafe in Brighton City Centre, UK. At 8BitBoards, customers will be able to play both board games and retro console games.

Game Kingdom Games & Hobbies in Bullhead City, Arizona does sell some board games but is primarily a public play space for tabletop and video games.

Milwaukee-area retailer, Board Game Barrister, is opening its fourth location March 1st in the Mayfair mall. It’ll be a relatively small location for the chain but will still have play space.

Opening soon in Rochester, Minnesota with 1,900 square feet of retail and play space is D6 Games.

BlackWater Roasters and Gaming Cafe opened on the east side of Cleveland last week. It serves pastries, sandwiches, fresh roasted coffee, and of course, board games.

After running pop-up shops, convention booths, and special events, B&E Games recently opened a retail location in San Jose, California.

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Back in November I had posted about the release of Asmodee’s Mysterium in the digital realm. I’ve had some time to play the game, and I’m more than impressed!

Let me start off by saying that I had never played Mysterium until recently, so I wasn’t familiar with how great of a game it already way. Asmodee Digital made sure that even complete novices can jump right into the game with a story mode that introduces the elements of play a bit at a time. That, combined with an excellent interface, really makes playing Mysterium a pleasure. Another note here is that I’m playing the PC version through Steam. I haven’t tried the iOS or Android versions of the game.

For those who aren’t familiar with Mysterium is has players taking the role of psychics trying to figure out the person, place, and weapon used to kill the ghost player, who also player controlled. The ghost player can give hints through abstract artwork and the other players have to make their best guesses. Once all the psychics have guessed correctly (each has a different set of “correct” answers) then all the players try to figure out which combination is the correct one with a final round and paintings. It’s a clever game that feels like a mixture of Clue and Dixit.

The digital version of Mysterium let’s you play on either side, though the Story mode dictates what side you play on as it progresses. As with many other table-to-digital games, there’s the usual multiplayer options available to play locally or online, and leader boards to compare yourself to other players.

The Steam version of the game is $9.99 and I highly recommend it. I’ve become a bit addicted to the game, which is part of the reason my review of it is going up later than it should have. If you’d rather carry around the game in your pocket you can snag the iOS and Android versions for $6.99. As of this time you can also grab the Potions expansion for the mobile versions, but not the Steam version.

A Steam copy of Mysterium was provided free for review by Asmodee Digital

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Surprising the market, who’s lower expectations for the company were based at least partially on weaker performance by Mattel, Hasbro on Monday reported a 13 percent net revenue growth in 2016. That put the company’s total year revenue over $5 billion for the first time. Following the news, Hasbro’s stock hit a new high and closed up 14 percent.

The company’s performance in the games category was strong. Led by sales of Pie Face and Magic: The Gathering, revenue grew 9 percent year-on-year.

Hasbro’s strongest growth was in its partner brands category, which was up 28 percent on the success of Disney Princess, Disney Frozen, Dreamworks’ Trolls, and Yo-Kai Watch.

On the subject of the company’s largest individual game brand, CEO Brian Goldner reported that 2016 was the 8th straight year of growth for Magic: The Gathering. He also suggested that consumers would start seeing some results from the Magic Digital Next initiative before the end of the year.

Magic Digital Next, which has been an investment for a number of years, and will continue to be a bit of an investment this year because of course late this year you’ll start to see some of the evidence of what the team has been working on as they begin to put that platform out to the market.

Hasbro also revealed an interesting change in its approach to financial reporting:

Beginning with the first quarter, we will no longer report revenue along the boys, games, girls, and preschool categories. Instead, we will provide a revenue breakdown of franchise brands, partner brands, Hasbro Gaming, and emerging brands. We believe this is a more relevant and appropriate view of our business.

Later Monday afternoon, Hasbro announced the appointment of John Frascotti as President of the company—he was previously President of Hasbro Brands. Brian Goldner remains with the company and will serve as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer.

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Play Fair, which began as an open-to-consumers auxiliary event at New York Toy Fair 2016, is moving to a fall show and will take place this year on the weekend of November 4th and 5th. It will remain, though, at the Javits Center in Manhattan.

At the inaugural event last year, 20,000 people attended Play Fair. Among the exhibitors already signed on for this year’s Play Fair are LEGO, ALEX Brands, K’Nex, Snazaroo, SCS Direct, VTech, Mattel, Hasbro, and Safari.

Play Fair is hosted by the Toy Industry Association and LeftField Media.

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