The Prisoner was a popular TV show, and a card/board game based on the show and published by UK sggc Card-Board Games. You go around the board trying to find the items you need to escape.

Card-Board Games aims to reduce the cost of their game production by creation games whose boards are created by the cards as you play. I.e. tile laying games, using cards.

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Brand New Games is a startup game publisher. Soon to be followed by two more, the company’s first game is Nay-Jay. It’s a fast-paced game of simultaneous card play, similar to other speed card games, but where players can build the central piles up or down, as well as change a pile’s color with a wild-card. Cycliste will be a strategic card game about bicycle racing and Bones of Ascension will be a fantasy-battle-themed strategic dice game.

Brand New Games was formed by a group of friends in Mapleton, Utah but its president, lead designer, and energetic spokeswoman is Naomi Tripi. In her own words:

I wanted to become a game publisher not only because I love games personally, but I love creating things. To have something in your head that is just a thought, an idea that you have is one thing, to actually see your idea take physical form and become an object that anyone can see and interact with is thrilling for me. So far, game publishing has worked out better than I had ever imagined.

On how it feels to present one’s design to the public at-large, Naomi says:

I get nervous sometimes, I hope people will enjoy the games, but I know that not everyone can like every game. Most of the time I’m just excited to share a new way to have fun with other people who share my appreciation for games. The first time I taught Bones of Ascension to a play-testing group my hands were shaking because I was so nervous, but after the first few minutes of game-play the nervousness was replaced by a kind of euphoria. It is just so rewarding to see people enjoying something that you created.

So far, accepting the public’s reaction to my games has been really easy because the feedback has been so positive. The harshest things anyone has said about Nay-Jay are “this game won’t appeal to serious gamers” and “It’s just like Nertz”. But this game isn’t targeting serious gamers, and I fully acknowledge Nay-Jay’s similarities to Nertz and Speed. It is a different game, but yes it is similar, so I took no offense to those comments.

Brand New Games is attacking the market with gusto. The company runs frequent in-store demos, crowned a 2010 Nay-Jay World Champion at the recent SaltCON in Salt Lake City, and is planning various additional events for Origins, Gen Con, and local shopping malls.

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Girlfriends’ Intuition by sggc Savvy Ideas is a party … uh … activity for girls. You can select among the questions to use before playing the game, so it can be played for all ages.

Essentially, you ask your friends questions (“What do you like your boyfriend to wear to bed?”), guess what they will say, and they answer. $30 plus shipping. According to the ad copy, the game is: ultimate, hilarious, best, sooooo fun, awesome, truly fabulous, uproarious, stunning, giggly, exciting, riotous, totally uplifting, reviving, energizing, strengthening, and perfect.

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You might recall Jumanji, a movie about a magical board game where strange and terrifying things happen based on what happens in the game. Or Zathura, a movie about a magical board game where strange and terrifying things happen based on what happens in the game (by the same author).

Now we have The Black Waters of Echo’s Pond, a movie about a magical board game where strange and terrifying things happen based on what happens in the game.

Actually, this theme goes back a long way, certainly at least to The Seventh Seal, where the moves on the Chess board echoed those of the characters. Only in this case, the magic was in the use of foreshadowing and metaphor. Or check out the novel Interstellar Pig.

Any excuse to use the phrase “This isn’t a game, anymore.”

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Marcelo Figueroa discusses his ideas on how to start a game company.

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Included in the $91,000 package given out to those who attended the Academy Awards were three board games from Buffalo Games: Likewise, The T-Shirt Game, and Truth Be Told. (source) Also included was the game-like Pig Board from Snout-a-Pig.

This is not the first time that board games have been given out with the Oscar swag.

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TAKS refers to the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills, a standardized test to evaluate student skills in the basics.

TAKS Kids is a game from sggc JAN/CHA, designed by Janice Stahl. Make your way around the colored board, avoiding the TAKS monster. It’s patented (based on what, I’m not exactly sure).

(source)

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A great forum post over at The Arcaeum chronicles a 2 year project to create the ultimate D&D room.

Other than the insane amount of work that went into the look of the room, the DM has control over everything including the lights, a fog machine, strobe light, and stereo system.

The room isn’t the only thing that’s impressive. Checkout the collection!  The weapons! There’s even a few board games in there.

Truly the work of a dedicated fan.

(found via Boing Boing)

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Mary Couzin is the brains and muscle behind the fastest-growing and perhaps most important game convention in the United States, the Chicago Toy and Game Fair, aka CHI-TAG. There are long-established trade fairs for toys and games, such as the ones in New York or Dallas, as well as player conventions for hobby games, such as Gen-Con and Origins. What there wasn’t, until Mary came along, is an American game fair – classics, mainstream, and hobby – for families, such as the one held yearly in Essen.

Mary started out as a game designer. Through the course of marketing her own games, she met other lone designers who were reinventing the wheel in terms of finding suppliers, dealing with contracts, and trying to market their games, and whose power as individuals was rather weak. She formed Discover Games in 1997 as a cooperative project to collect the wisdom of these designers and to market the group’s games as a group. Rio Grande Games and R&R Games are sample companies that got their start through Discover Games.

Mary drew her inspiration for CHI-TAG from Essen, which she attended in 2000. She spent a few years trying to build up support in the gaming community. Early support came from Rio Grande Games, R&R Games, and Out of the Box Publishing (a Chicago-based company), who formed the core of her first event in 2003.

The 2009 fair had 11,000 visitors, support from major game industry players such as Hasbro, celebrity guests such as Daryl Hannah (pimping her line of board games), and important people you’ve never heard of, such as Reuben Klamer, the inventor of Hasbro’s edition of The Game of Life. The fair also had sit downs with the publishers, toy and game awards, and a whole lot of family-friendly entertainment.

In person, Mary is amazingly sweet and charming. Yet beneath that sweetness and charm lies the determination to forge a national convention out of nothing that now has major entertainment players (yeah, bigger than Hasbro or Mattel) coming to her to find out how they can participate.

She has also founded initiatives for games in education.

Mary Couzin and Yehuda Berlinger

Mary Couzin and Yehuda Berlinger

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Today I wanted to alert you to a cool new web project of illustrator and concept artist, Nicholas Cloister. RPG Creatures is his attempt to introduce a compendium of fantasy monsters that promotes discussion and participation. To that end, he’s posting his bestiary blog-style and would really love your comments. I’d say it’s definitely worth a visit, as he has some amazing illustrations, plus some pretty descriptive background information.

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