Simple but highly appropriate for its straightforward educational purpose, Chemical Spill is a card game meant for high school students. Players draft a hand of element cards then assemble them in to molecules, along the way learning about covalent bonds, Lewis dot structures, and electron sub-shell configurations.

Based on Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Victory Point Games’ Nemo’s War is a solitaire adventure board game where the player, as Captain Nemo, pilots the Nautilus about the oceans’ depths. Exploration, scientific discovery, war, and anti-imperialism are the priorities from which the player may choose, and against which actions such as refitting the submarine, inciting local uprisings, and attacking surface ships are judged for victory points.

Empires: Galactic Rebellion from Eagle-Gryphon Games treats players to an epic-scale game set in conflict among the stars. A follow-up to Glen Drover’s Age of Empires, Galactic Rebellion incorporates development on economic, political, military, and technological fronts, as well as worker placement, in to gameplay. As a new feature, those workers are differentiated between rebels, scientists, troopers, smugglers, and diplomats, each of which is represented by a different miniature figure.

Calling it a “skill-building game”, Lone Shark’s The Ninth World is an adventure card game based on the Numenera RPG. Each player’s hand of cards represents their current set of skills. As better skills are developed, new cards replace old ones. Players then use the cards in bidding against each other to explore, collect relics, complete quests, and further improve their skills.

In CitiesUP, building is just the first step. Every structure, whether residential, commercial, or industrial, must be supplied with water and electricity. In return for that support, players are able to collect taxes for victory points. Field cards represent special events, including some natural disasters. And building out the city is market with vertical wooden cubes, so you get the image of a growing downtown as game progresses.

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This afternoon, Martin Wallace publicly posted two letters sent to Eagle Gryphon Games announcing an official termination of agreement regarding Brass. Wallace previously stated that he had given notice to the company to terminate their contract in December of 2014, “as long as the sales [of Brass] are below a certain point, which was the case [at that time].”

The new termination of contract notification, dated August 13, 2015, specifically cites that EGG’s lack of sending “statements of the number of units sold, net sales, and royalties owed” and failure to provide the ten sample units of the White Goblin version of Brass is what caused the contract’s termination. Because of this, the intellectual property law firm Wallace hired states that all rights to Brass have been reverted to Martin Wallace. “Deposits to bank accounts and recent public postings on BoardGameGeek.com do not substitute for formal statements to [Wallace],” Jeffrey Myers of Peacock Myers, P.C., wrote.

Wallace writes that the financial cost of a lawsuit is too much for Treefrog Games, Wallace’s publishing company, to incure. Although EGG has Brass available, he calls it “essentially stolen property”.

Treefrog has started work on a new version of Brass, which should be launched on Kickstarter later this year, with an expected delivery of early 2016.

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Ralph Anderson of Eagle-Gryphon Games, announced that a Kickstarter campaign for Martin Wallace’s Brass and Brass: Deluxe is planned for July 16th. However, Martin Wallace of Treefrog Games posts that Eagle-Gryphon doesn’t have the rights to the game. According to Mr. Wallace, after 2013, “either party can give six months notice of termination [of the contract for Eagle-Gryphon to publish Brass] as long as sales are below a certain amount”. In December of 2014, Wallace says he gave notice to the company. “Even if I had not terminated the contract they are still bound to consult me about artwork,” he states.

Wallace states that a different company was interested in purchasing the rights to Brass, but Eagle-Gryphon’s upcoming Kickstarter and claim that they have the rights to publish Brass put that deal in jeopardy.

Rick Soued, CEO of Eagle-Gryphon Games says that he is “very sorry to see that Martin has reverted to his unfortunate habit of publicly writing misinformation about matters that should be handled privately”, pointing people to FREDWallaceLawsuitInfo.com which contains information about a 2009 lawsuit between the two regarding the rights of Age of Steam. (The website was created by Mr. Soued.) Mr. Soued continued, “Martin’s accusations are entirely without factual basis. Eagle Games has an entirely valid and up-to-date contract with Martin for Brass.”

The planned Kickstarter campaign’s deluxe edition will contain metal coins and a two-player map. Mr. Anderson said Eagle-Gryphon contacted the creator of the original two-player map for permission, who “declined any credt and was happy for us to use it.”

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