With its newest release, Mayfair has preempted the inevitable cat-in-box pictures. Hot Tin Roof has players control groups of felines attempting to collect the greatest number of sardine cans.

There’s a route-building element to this game as players earn fish for bringing their cats together through the strategic placement of catwalks and shelters. Using another player’s catwalk or shelter, however, requires the payment of a sardine tribute.

Playable in under an hour, Hot Tin Roof is for 3-4 players and has a suggested retail price of $35.

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StoneBlade Entertainment

The creators of Ascension Chronicle Of The Godslayer have just put a new electronic CCG for the PC and iOS devices called SolForge. The game is a line-based battle CCG with Richard Garfield on the design team. It’s free-to-play, but you can purchase more cards and tournament vouchers as in-app purchases. I was able to fool around with it for a bit, and even try a draft tournament out. It’s very solid, with great art and gameplay. As you use cards they’re discarded, leveled up, and eventually brought back into your hand later. Combining this deck-building mechanic with traditional CCG play is a great combination.

Mantic Games

One of my favorite games at the show that I saw was DreadBall from Mantic Games. DreadBall is a sci-fi sports games where players are trying to get a 200mph, weapons-grade ball into one of three goals. There’s a bunch of teams available to purchase and play, and an in-depth set of rules that can scale up or down depending on how complex you want the game to be.

There’s a couple ways to get into the game. There’s the base set, or you can buy one of the rulebooks and a few teams to get started.

I’m by no means a sports fan, but I can’t deny how much fun I had demoing this one.

Mayfair Games

Mayfair had a few things to show, but most has been seen before. What new game I did get to see and demo was Mad City. It’s a light game where you’re drawing 9 random tiles from a bag and trying to group the colors of the city pieces together to score the largest chains before the minute sand-timer runs out. There’s also bonuses for large parks and the longest road. It almost feels like speed Carcassonne where you’re only scoring the farmers. A single round plays and scores in 2-3 minutes, which makes this a great filler game.

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The two new offerings from Mayfair Games are Mad City and Karnickel, both available before summer 2014.

Mad City is a speed tile-laying game where players try to match up different colored districts to form large contiguous blocks in just one minute. While frantically grabbing and arranging tiles, players can grab special tokens to bet that they have completed certain mini-goals, such as having the longest street in their city, the most parks, or more of one type of area. As fast-paced as the game is, Mad City comes with an expert mode where players complete certain levels of construction (like a four-block residential section) before unlocking additional point bonuses. Mad City retails for $35.

Karnickel is a quick light strategy roll and move game for players 6 and up. In Karnickel, the players use the colored results on dice to move bunnies out of, and often into, the path of an oncoming train as they scramble for the carrots growing on a railway track. But fear not for our furry friends! If the train passes through a rabbit’s space, the bunny just hops out of the way, scattering carrots as it flees for it’s adorable little bunny life. Karnickel retails for $20.

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