Headlining FoxMind’s new crop of games is Manhattan ($40 retail, available now), a 1994 Spiel des Jahres winner that the company is bringing back to the North American market. The new version is brightly colored with translucent building pieces but plays exactly the same as the original. That is, a hand of cards gives players options for where they can place their buildings. Control of the nine spaces in each of the six cities goes to the player who’s stacked the most building levels there. And points are awarded for controlling the tallest building in each city, the most spaces in each city, and every individual space.

Even older but now with a new board, bigger marbles, and a better box insert is Abalone ($33, now). In this game players use lines of their own marbles to push their opponent’s marbles off the board. Two marbles can push one; three marbles can push two or one.

EyeDentify ($15, June) is a quick-play, spotting game. As each card is turned over, players want to be the first to find something in the displayed picture that matches the shape or color on the back on the next card.

In The Potion ($10, July), players start with two each of three ingredient tokens. Then the dice are rolled for a potion recipe and each player secretly holds out one of the tokens. If when the tokens are revealed the number matches the recipe exactly, then those players can put their tokens in the bottle. The first player able to discard down to one ingredient token is the winner.

Quirkies ($15, June) is a kind-of pattern matching game with cute monster cards. There are nine monsters in a 3 x 3 grid. On each of their turns players must put down a card on a matching monster and if that placement creates three-in-a-row of the same background color or symbol, they score a point. The first to five points is the winner.

Finally, following on last year’s baseball game, FoxMind is releasing this year Sports Dice Football ($12) with similarly simple dice-based gameplay.

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Fox Mind’s latest release, Match Madness ($30), is a challenge puzzle played in real-time head-to-head. That is, each player has a set of five two-piece blocks covered with various symbols (sort of like three-dimensional dominoes). A challenge card is flipped and the first player to arrange their blocks in a matching pattern wins the point.

 

 

Fox Mind, known mostly in the past for these types of abstract titles, is moving this year to incorporate in to its lineup games with more thematic content.

Flipolo (imminent, $20) is another kind of fast-play race. Every player gets a board of animal faces and a set of double-sided tiles with the same animal faces mixed-and-matched on either side. The goal is to be the first to cover one’s board with matching animals. The challenge is to use the right side of the right tile on the right space, without needing the opposite side of the tile in a different space.

Sports Dice Baseball (May, $12) is a light dice game for two players. When a meeple comes up to bat, both players roll a set of dice. For each, the most common roll (single, double, etc.) governs. If the roll of the one at-bat is better, the hit is a success. If the roll of the player fielding is better, then the batter is out. Ties can be broken by the player currently holding the power chip, if they hand the chip over to their opponent.

Museum Heist (summer, $30) secretly assigns players individual art-thief characters. Then they take turns moving character tokens around the museum map-board (any, not just their own). The goal is to be the first to arrive at an art token and steal it without being discovered.

The concept for Head of Mousehold (summer, $20) is based on the saying, “The second mouse gets the cheese.” That is, after determining a new speed ranking each round for the various colored mice, players lay mouse cards (alternating face-down and face-up) on the cheese-baited mouse traps. At the end of a round, when everyone has placed their three mouse cards, the one who played the second-fastest mouse on each trap gets to claim the cheese.

Slide Blast (summer, $30) is a tile-laying path game along the lines of Tsuro or Psyche Paths. Starting from a central hub, players add hexagonal tiles to build out an elaborate water-slide. They rack up points for every segment that their token slides, as well as bonus points for slides they assist other players.

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Kulami, an excellent game put out my FoxMind, is now available on mobile devices running both iOS and Android. The app, put out by Woodengames, is free with an $1.79 in-app purchase to unlock harder AI opponents and remove ads.

The game supports both single player and online play and while not the most beautiful app in the world, serves it’s purpose admirably.

I’m already a huge fan of Kulami, and it’s great that I can now take it along with me wherever I go for some quick pick-up games.

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Debuting this year at Toy Fair, Stinker is a new, family party game by FoxMind.

In Stinker, players randomly drawn letters and use them to answer goofy questions. Spelling isn’t too much of an issue, as long as the judge understands what you’re trying to say, and that it makes “scents.” If not, it may be declared a “stinker!” Speed and wit will be your weapons of choice as you try to outfox your opponents.

Stinker will retail for $24.99, and will accomodate 3-6 players aged 8+.

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Smart Cookies from Fox Mind is a challenge puzzle with nine cookie pieces in three shapes and three colors. The goal is to figure out how the nine pieces fit on a 3×3 grid while adhering to various clues in each challenge.

The single-player game comes with 64 challenges of graduated difficulty. Clues are such things as, “No square piece in a center row or column,” or, “The red triangle must be in one of the corner spaces” (except that the clues are pictures, not words).

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After reviewing String Railway I was very interested to see what else Foxmind had to offer this year. From what I saw, I’m not disappointed!

Kulami: An abstract strategy game where you’re trying to capture tiles by having the most of your colored marble on them. Placement rules are simple. You can only place on the axis of the last placed ball, and you cannot place directly adjacent to the last placed ball. Very elegant and thought provoking. 2 players, ages 10+.

Six: The goal is to create one of the winning shapes with your color hexes. Once all your tiles have been played you can start to move them around to try and complete either a line, triangle, or hexagon. 2-4 players, ages 9+.

Democradiculous: A party game where names are written on a board, then questions are asked about who would be best in what situation. Players make their choices and points are scored when people choose the same answer. 2+ players, ages 10+.

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