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 It has been replaced by one from Shuffle iT.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.

• Comments Off on Boards to Bytes

New editions of Dominion and Dominion: Intrigue are being produced by Rio Grande Games and should be on retail shelves within a few weeks. The second editions will replace six card groups and add one new (replacing the blanks) in each set. Additionally, there will be new box cover art, new card art for the base Treasure and Victory cards, clarified card text, and revised rule books.

Base cards are being dropped from Intrigue, meaning it’ll no longer work standalone. Suggested retail price, though, will also drop for Intrigue, from $45 to $40.

For those who want to stick with their first edition sets but want access to the new cards, Rio Grande is producing Update Packs with the new Kingdom, Treasure, and Victory cards for $15 each.

• Comments Off on Dominion 2nd Edition

A new expansion for Rio Grande Games’ Dominion is due in May. Dominion: Empires, with 300 cards and 96 metal tokens, will revisit the Events mechanism from previous sets but also feature Landmarks for a new way to score. The suggested retail price will be $45.

• Comments Off on Dominion+10

Digital versions of Ticket to Ride have undergone a major upgrade. Most importantly, all now support cross-platform multiplayer mode, so even us Android players can pick up live games with you iPad people. Also supported now are vertically-oriented maps. The first, of India, provides bonus points for looped routes. Digital Ticket to Ride is available on Android, iOS, and Steam.

Dominion, the original deck-building card game, has finally hit mobile. Both iOS and Android versions are free-to-play with the base set of cards. Expansion card sets are available as in-app purchases ($90 for everything). Beware though, even single-player mode requires a live internet connection.

Cogwind’s Revenge is an iPad app version of True Dungeon, complete with puzzles, combat, and even token-collecting.

Linkee, the trivia-ish party game of identifying commonalities, now has an Apple TV version. Instead of hitting a buzzer, the first to figure out a link is supposed to grab the remote and shake it over their head.

Defiant Development is in the process of releasing four separate new scenarios (three are out so far, one more will be before the end of the year) for the Steam version of its deck-building, action RPG, Hand of Fate.

Dragon+, Wizards of the Coast’s Dungeons & Dragons mobile-app-magazine, is now also available via the web, so it can be read via desktop browser.

A Macau Challenge Pack has been added to digital Splendor. The twist with this one is that it requires players to capture specific cards.

Magic: The Gathering Puzzle Quest is now a thing and available for both Android and iOS (free-to-play but with in-app purchases). In the game, it’s match-3 puzzle play that produces mana.

• Comments Off on Boards to Bytes

This Sunday, families will be gathering to celebrate Easter. If you dread family time, maybe you just need a good game to entertain the horde. We’ve got a list of non-classic board games we think will win you over with Uncle Fred, but won’t make cousin Cindy feel left out.

Ticket to Ride is easy to learn and doesn’t take up too much of your time. Players race against each other to be the first to travel the world in only seven days via railway. It is suitable for ages eight and up, takes between 30 and 60 minutes, and supports up to five players. The light-hearted theme of world travel keeps competition friendly.

Loaded Questions is the perfect game for people you think you know well. One person asks a question like, “What is your favorite super hero?” while the rest of the players write down their answer. The person asking the question then has to guess who belongs to each answer in order to advance on the board.

Zooloretto is fun for family get-togethers. It is a zoo-themed simulation game where players try to generate more visitors by collecting as many animals as possible. Play cardboard tiles within your zoo’s peramiter. Don’t overstock with too much of the same or your visitors will be bored. It plays well with between two and five players and takes about 45 minutes.

Dominion’s base game is perfect for players of all ages. If you build up the game with the expansions, it may get too complicated for those with a short attention span. So, stick to the basics. In this tactical card game, players buy up land and use special cards to earn the most victory points to win the game. It works well with two to four players and takes about 30 minutes to get through one game.

Pandemic is great for a family setting because it is cooperative. Players work together to stop four deadly diseases from spreading across the globe. By selecting different types of characters, the team can spread out the work, the Scientist researches a cure while the Operation Specialist builds research stations. The game is suited for two to four players and takes about an hour to get through.

• Comments Off on Five Great Family-Friendly Games to Play on Easter Sunday

Rio Grande Games announced Dominion: Adventures, the ninth expansion for the Dominion card game. The game’s designer, Donald X. Vaccarino, suggests that Adventures is the first of a series of “occasional expansions” for the game line. In a 2012 interview with Andrea Ligabue of OpinionatedGamers.com, Mr. Vaccarino stated that he saw Dark Ages and Guilds as the last of the regular expansions to Dominion, citing several factors including a desire to develop other games and caution at over-complicating the basic game. “…[E]xpansions get more complex over time,” the designer says. “Many people would prefer them not to be more complex. At the same time a spin-off – a standalone game that has the same core premise but adds some components and rules – can have new simple cards that involve the new stuff. ”

Adventures will have 400 cards, making it the largest expansion to Dominion. In addition to the 30 kingdom cards, the expansion adds event cards, tokens that modify cards, and “Reserve cards that can be saved for the right moment”. The title is scheduled for a 2015 release with a MSRP of $44.95.

• 3 Comments

There’s a gamer in your life, but you don’t know what to surprise them with as a gift. There are deck-builders, dice fests, worker-placement games, area-control games, and all sorts of different types of games (and so many!) — it’s tough to just pick that perfect game for your perfect gamer. Instead of giving a gift for them, why not give them something for their game collection?

Replacement Money and Score Counters

There’s something about the tactile experience of props in games, from the foam guns in Ca$h ‘N Gun$ to the paper money in Monopoly. Purple Pawn suggests upgrading your game collections money and scoring counters with one of these three suggestions:

Bird Bucks from Smart Play Games. For less than $7, you can replace money and score counters with a thicker thematic card deck. Featuring fifty cards numbered 0-9 with a sharply designed monetary look, these cards can be used as score keepers and as a clever tool for budding game designers.

A Poker Chip Set. Gamers who dislike paper money in their board games can use a standard set of poker chips as a replacement. When looking for a poker chip set, look for chips that are about 11.5 grams or higher for the weight and feel. Plus, they make a satisfying CLUNK when tossed onto a game table. Added bonus: poker chip sets can also be used for playing poker! Amazing!

Campaign Coins. A fantastic set of coins and counters available in many different styles and metals, these coins are absolutely luxurious to hold and use. You can create a specific collection of coins or just go for the King’s Ransom, a custom set intended for use with board games. Wonderfully designed, these coins are a delight to look at and play with. (Shopping for Christmas? Get your order in now to have a set arrive in time!)

Organizational Supplies

There are games with well-designed inserts and then there are the majority of games. Here are three items that Purple Pawn suggests to use to help manage their game collection (once they throw away that useless insert):

Hugo’s Amazing Tape. Games with cards often have the same problem: keeping them together. Enter Hugo’s Amazing Tape. This product is a transparent static wrap that sticks to itself, not your game components. It’s great for securing game boxes and keeping cards in organized stacks. Although Hugo’s Amazing Tape works well on most games, make sure to point your gamer over to this geeklist on BoardGameGeek for a list of games “safely tested” with the stuff. Looking for more colors? Try static bondage tape.

H-Shape or X-Shape Rubber Bands. To keep that overstuffed game box shut, a collection of crossing rubber bands might do the trick. Unlike regular rubber bands, these are split almost down the center, allowing one rubber band to wrap around all four sides of a game box.

Plano Stowaway Boxes. Primarily used as tackle boxes or for crafts, these transparent storage boxes can be configured to hold many differently-sized game components. For games that require multiple types of tokens (we’re talking about you, Fantasy Flight Games), Plano boxes are a great asset for organizing and storing. The boxes come in different sizes and basic configurations; most have adjustable dividers.

Other Items

And a miscellany of items that are just plain helpful (or tasty).

Edible Dice. Searching for a gift for a role-player? Gamers love dice — and Dice Candies makes them out of chocolate. A complete set of Ghirardelli, Van Lerr Callebaut, or TCHO organic chocolate polyhedrals (one each of d4, d6, d8, d10, d12, and d20) will run you less than $10 — that’s less than some sets of non-edible dice!

Sports/Duffel Bags. Game night at a friend’s house? Heading to a convention? Your gamer will want to have something to safely and securely carry their games over. Look for a squarish-shaped duffel bag that is at least twelve inches wide — square board game boxes like Dominion are just under 12″x12″x3″. End pockets are great for holding smaller games. Note that when buying online, dimensions listed are usually the exterior size. The item linked above should carry three Dominion-sized boxes in the main compartment with room for a smaller game box.

Game Tables. With a round gaming table that’s easy to put away for storage (and to be used for other things), all players can have the game board at an equal distance, which helps with seeing those small board elements and reaching the board no matter where you sit. Have a few thousand dollars in your gift-giving budget? Consider The Portal by Geek Chic for something a bit more elegant and customizable.

Dice Trays. When rolling a handful of dice, it’s helpful to keep them all together instead of chasing them off the table or — for the gamer who wants to keep their game pristine — scuffing the board. Dice trays come in various shapes and styles, but for our tastes, you want to look for a large (but not too large) rolling surface and high walls.

• 2 Comments

For the final expansion to Dominion, Rio Grande offers one of the smaller boxes, including 13 Kingdom cards themed around medieval professions.

Dominion Guilds also features cards with two new mechanics. Some provide Coins, metal treasure tokens that can be saved and spent across multiple rounds. Others allow a player to “overpay” when purchasing, with the excess treasure providing a variety of benefits. For example, when purchasing the Stonemason, a player gains two Action cards that cost the amount overpaid. Each extra coin overpaid for the Doctor allows the player to look at a card from the draw deck, trash it, discard it, or put it back. Though these benefits apply only at the time of purchase, it’s an interesting way, I think, of keeping less expensive cards relevant throughout the game.

• Comments Off on Dominion Guilds