Expect a Sonic the Hedgehog board game on Kickstarter soon. The game was announced by Shinobi 7, previously a joint venture with Ninja Division Publishing but recently acquired in its entirety by Seven Seas Entertainment. Sonic the Hedgehog: Battle Racers, based on the SEGA video game series, will allow players to choose between Sonic, Knuckles, Amy, Tails, and Dr. Eggman, each represented with 40 mm painted figures.

Up on Kickstarter now is Highlander: The Board Game from River Horse. This one naturally comes with a 32 mm figure for each immortal and has players dueling to the last.

All Things Equal, publisher of Loaded Questions, has acquired a license from NBC Universal to produce The Big Lebowski board games. At least two are planned, with details expected around New York Toy Fair.

Billing it as the first in a series of X-Files games (even though the company previously published one in 2015), IDW recently announced Everything is Connected: The X-Files Conspiracy Theory. As a story-telling party game, Everything is Connected has players inventing theories to explain case evidence and then attempting to convince the others of their theory’s plausibility. It’ll also include an alternative game mode, based on the episode “From Outer Space”, in which the players take turns trying to weave together in to a sensible narrative the invented eyewitness testimony provided by the other players. Everything is Connected is supposed to ship in March.

Pegasus Spiele has announced plans for a series of four new games based on Games Workshop’s classic title, Talisman. The first, due later this year, will be a children’s game. Following that, are planned an expandable card game, a roleplaying game, and a dice game.

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What a beautiful game! From the box art to the playing boards, even the the cards and tokens, Rayguns and Rocketships from IDW Games is fantastically illustrated with a retro sci-fi style. Four factions are included in the game: the Astro-Rangers, the Star-Pirates, the Zard, and the Blaarg. Each has its own set of crew, captain, and rocketship miniatures with a unique look. That Blaarg flying saucer with its tail-fins!

The basic outline of gameplay also has a lot going for it. Players get to maneuver the rocketships around obstacles in space, shooting rayguns at each other and launching crew through the ether on boarding actions. In addition to a star map for the ships and flying crew (with individual rocket-packs), the game has separate rocketship map boards where the players can move their crew to perform specialized actions—for example, placing a crew member on an engine space gives the ship an extra move on the space map. And to accomplish all this, the players program a selection of command cards at the start of each round, then hope enemy ships stay within range of their mounted raygun ports.

Unfortunately, the game’s fantastic theme and graphic presentation aren’t enough to overcome a lousy rulebook, even for this die-hard science fiction fan. It’s shortcomings include poor organization, inconsistent terminology, and vague instructions. Completing a game took guesswork, including about the victory conditions for a scenario.

I may keep the figures to display on my shelf but I won’t be playing Rayguns and Rocketships again.

A complimentary copy of Rayguns and Rocketships was provided by IDW Games for review.

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Well now, there’s a lot of stuff on Kickstarter this past week. Let’s have a little looksee, shall we?

John Wick’s 7th Sea Kickstarter campaign launched this morning and it funded within minutes. The Restoration Era roleplaying game returns to the land of Théah, a world that looks an awful lot like our Europe of 1668, but different. It’s The Princess Bride, Pirates of the Caribbean, and The Three Musketeers wrapped up into a roleplaying game of derring-do. $20 gets you the PDF of the main game, but $40 gets you PDFs of all stretch goal books plus the first edition books. (Full disclosure: I’m doing layout on the quickstart adventure for the campaign.)

The storyline of the Sentinels of the Multiverse game comes to an end in OblivAeon, and Greater Than Games has returned to Kickstarter with a huge game-ending campaign! You can get a copy of the last expansion for just $39 plus shipping, or you can add on $15 to get all the variant hero cards (with all new artwork ) you didn’t get from earlier Kickstarters, pre-orders, or convention appearances. Or up your pledge again to get shiny foil versions of every hero card! Or even more to get the collectors case to store every single expansion in one mighty mega-box!

IDW Games has launched the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shadows of the Past board game and if they send a review copy to us, we’re probably going to fight each other to see who gets to play it first. It’s a story-driven adventure for players to fight their way through some of the comic book’s keystone moments. Stretch goals include hero packs based on April O’Neil, Casey Jones, and splinter; TMNT sculpts based on the original look of the turtles; and mousers! All this for $90 (or $150 for the earlier versions of the turtles).

Jeff Siadek of Gorilla Games has a Kickstarter campaign for Battlestations: Second Edition. This update to the classic game that’s a little bit of a roleplaying game and a little bit of a board game has your crew on a modular space ship taking on one of hundreds of missions — official and fan-made. Zoom out to the star map where your ship encounters other ships, zoom in to what’s going on board your ship — or the enemy ship. It’s a crazy fun ride. Think Star Trek meets Space Hulk. Get the game in PDF format for $20, get a physical game with miniatures and all sorts of goodness for $90.

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I’ve been waiting for my copy of Chew: Cases of the FDA to come to my local comic book shop for half-a-year. It finally arrived last week and I was able to play the game with two friends this past weekend. It is a crime-solving card game based on the popular comic book by the same name. Players find clues, partners, and other characters through a series of investigations that lead to tracking down the culprit.

The goal of the game is to create a path from your Case card to your Culprit card by connecting them through a series of clues that match by color. Clues are earned after playing investigation cards.

Each player is dealt one Case and one Culprit, plus five investigation cards and three “Chogs” to start. A Chog is half-chicken, half-frog and is used as payment to play investigation cards.

On your turn, you start by picking up investigation cards and Chogs. Investigation cards help you do things like, take an extra Clue card or double your Chog supply. There are Partner cards, which give you various bonuses. Bad Guy and Pain-in-the-@$$ cards are used against your opponents.

After playing investigation cards, players choose a Connection from four available Clue cards laid out in the center of the table. Your Clue cards must match each other on one side. So, if your Case card has a red right side, the Clue card you put next to it must have a red left side. The only exception is a wild card board, which allows you to use any color. Clue cards have a point value, which is used to determine your score.

The game ends when a player creates a path with at least 20 Clue card points that also matches from the Case to the Culprit card. One game takes about 30 minutes to play.

The game is designed to be very simple. Investigation cards have specific actions on them that are easy to understand.

My friends and I really enjoyed this game for its simplicity and humorous content. One friend has never read the comic and commented on how he thought the flavor text was very funny and the artwork was appealing. He is planning on buying the Chew comic in order to find out more about the unusual story.

This game is great for casual gamers looking for a light, fun experience. Even heavy gamers can enjoy this title as an in-between snack. While the game is fun and easy to understand, it isn’t exactly family-friendly, depending on the age of your children. There are a few swear words and cartoonish violent imagery. Plus, it might be difficult to explain to a five-year-old why the game’s protagonist has to eat human flesh in order to solve a crime.

You can pick up Chew: Cases of the FDA from your local board game shop (or even comic book shop) for about $30.

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Kevin Wilson will be designing a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles boardgame for IDW Games, based on the comic book series. TMNT co-creator Kevin Eastman will be providing artwork for a special limited-edition format of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shadows of the Past. The game will be a scenario-driven campaign style game, similar to Kevin Wilson’s earlier work Descent: Journeys In The Dark. Players take the roles of one of the titular turtles, or Shredder. Expansions are planned based off of IDW’s TMNT micro-series, longer comic book story events, and characters from the IDW comics.

Nate Murray, the project manager for IDW Games, said the game will be available for preorder in October, with the game to debut in early 2016.

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Hot on the heels of IDW’s imminent launch of Chew: The Card Game, the company is working on the summer release of Trap!, a deductive dice-rolling card game from the creator of Killer Bunnies.

Details are scant, but the game comes in two sets, the Nimble Ninjas pack and the Zany Zombies pack. Decks are stand-alone, but can also be combined with each other.

From the company’s description:

“In Trap! you’re trying to ensnare the biggest sets of creatures over the course of five rounds.”

Each game includes:

• 6 character cards
• 7 action cars’12 Trap! cards
• 1 exclusive link and lock card
• 1 trap! canvas bag
• 1 six-sided die
• 1 rulebook

Trap! supports two to four players ages 10 and up. Gameplay takes about 30 minutes. The new CCG is set to ship this July and packs will cost $5.99 each.

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The city building die rolling game Machi Koro from IDW and Pandasaurus is set to receive it’s second expansion this coming June. Now, in addition to trying to keep the citizens of your burgeoning town happy, you must ensure that the wealthy one-percent stays put. The Millionaire’s Row expansion will turn middle class citizens into moneymakers.

The expansion adds 80 new cards, plus a new strategic mechanic, to the base game to create an entirely new experience for players. The 12 new establishment cards makes it even easier to customize your town by swapping out establishments in the marketplace, growing your business and generating happy residents.

The newly added Vacation mechanic affects players’ ability to keep the work machine running smoothly, adding more need for strategy across the board.

It can also be combined with the Harbor expansion to make your town a bustling metropolis of happy, well-adjusted city folk.

Machi Koro: Millionaire’s Row expansion comes out this June and will be available at your local board game store for $14. The base game is required to play this expansion.

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IDW Games is at it again. This time, the company is adapting the Powers graphic novel series, created by Brian Michael Bendis and Michael Avon Oeming, into a new line of tabletop games.

The line will include card games, board games, and dice games. Each one is set to focus on different events and characters from the comics. The first launch, Powers: The Card Game, will put players to task to track down and capture a player-controlled super villain within a certain number of rounds. Throughout the game, players must figure out who the villain is, and then find them before the night is over.

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen the Powers franchise leave the funny pages. It was recently adapted into a successful PlayStation-exclusive television show. I guess the indie comic is finally getting some recognition outside of the fanboy world.

Powers: The Card Game is on the horizon. We can expect to see it on store shelves in early 2016.

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We are not talking about the godfather of all tabletop games, here. We are talking about board games that are based on the actual movie, “The Godfather,” directed by Francis Ford Coppola and starring Marlon Brando.

IDW Games recently announced an agreement with Paramount to release a line of The Godfather tabletop games. The types will include card games, dice, games, and big box strategy games for gamers of all different interests.

“The Godfather is more than a movie, it’s an icon,” says IDW’s Director of Business Development, Jerry Bennington. “We plan to give players as many options as possible when it comes to gaming in this rich environment. From quick dice fun to intense big box strategy this will be a line of games truly worthy of the name The Godfather.”

The first to launch will be a card game, due out this summer. Games will be designed to range in length and complexity and will cover different aspects of The Godfather trilogy timeline.

The Godfather Card Game will be available in August of 2015. Pricing is not available at this time, but you can follow IDW Games on Twitter and Facebook to keep up with the news.

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The out-of-print epic Viking themed strategy board game Fire & Axe: A Viking Saga is being reborn in the form of a rerelease by IDW Games and Pandasaurus Games. Fans of the title can preorder a copy today from their local board game store and have it on their tabletops by May.

Fire & Axe: A Viking Saga has been out of print for a few years now. You can still find copies on eBay for as high as $200, but not very many (Amazon has it for $500). The new edition will feature updated artwork and more than 90 different sculpted miniatures

As a member of a crew of pillaging Vikings, players embark on a journey to invade, trade, and conquer the land all across Europe. Players take turns loading ships and set out to do business or battle. The mission system allows players the opportunity to follow quests available on mission cards. Successfully completing missions provides victory points for the player. The player with the most VPs at the end wins.

The game is designed for three to five players, however four players, at minimum, are highly recommended. It is playable in about 90 minutes start to finish.

The game can be preorder from your local board game store for around $55 (there is no official price yet). Preorders come with three exclusive Viking miniatures.

Visit Pandasaurus Games for more information.

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