Hasbro is partnering with Epic Games to produce Fortnite-based toys and games. Of course, there’s to be a Fortnite Monopoly (due this fall) but also other unspecified games.

Shinobi 7 announced acquisition of the Conan license for tabletop games. Two products are planned. The first, a miniatures game via Kickstarter project. The second, a direct-to-retail card game.

With a license from Sony Interactive, Steamforged Games is pursuing plans for a miniatures-heavy Horizon Zero Dawn board game via Kickstarter. Pledges already total more than $1 million, though Steamforged estimates delivery not until March 2020.

Things from the Flood is a just-launched Kickstarter RPG project that’s a sequel to Tales from the Loop and based on another of Simon Stålenhag’s art books. The new one from Free League Publishing is more grim and bleak than its predecessor.

Coming to Kickstarter on the 1st of October is The Hunger Games: Mockingjay from River Horse.

Then scheduled for November 13th is Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood of Venice from Triton Noir. The company promises a cooperative miniatures game focused on stealth mechanisms.

WizKids recently announced a licensing arrangement with WWE. The company will add WWE wrestling personalities to HeroClix and Dice Masters and create WWE board games.

Available now from WizKids is Star Trek Galactic Enterprises, a game in which you play as Ferengi.

Also available now at retail is Munchkin Starfinder. It’s the Munchkin grab-the-loot card game from Steve Jackson Games, based on the Starfinder sci-fi RPG from Paizo Publishing.

Next up for Munchkin is Munchkin Warhammer 40,000 based on the property from Games Workshop. I love the meta of this previewed card, Unpainted.

But Steve Jackson isn’t the only company with a new Warhammer 40,000 license. Devir has made a racing game, Gretchinz, out of the property. WizKids has adapted Warhammer 40K to Dice Masters in Battle for Ultramar. Ulisses did Wrath & Glory, a Warhammer 40,000 roleplaying game. And USAopoly has made Warhammer 40,000 Monopoly.

Based on Warhammer Age of Sigmar, PlayFusion recently launched Champions, a collectible card game with an online play option. A non-collectible card game, Warhammer Doomseeker is available from Ninja Division.

EN Publishing, under license from Rebellion, is launching a Judge Dredd and the Worlds of 2000AD roleplaying game on Kickstarter.

IDW will ship to retail this coming February Nickelodeon Splat Attack!, as well as an expansion, Reptar Rampage. The game represents a food fight between teams of characters from various Nickelodeon shows, including Spongebob Squarepants, Hey Arnold!, Rugrats, and Invader Zim.

IDW also signed on with Toei Animation for a series of Dragon Ball games. The first two are due in stores this holiday season. Dragon Ball Super: Heroic Battle has players flicking tokens at each other, while Dragon Ball Z: Over 9000 is supposed to provide a more strategic gameplay experience. In 2019 (after a planned Kickstarter campaign), IDW will release a Dragon Ball Z miniatures game.

Coming this fall from USAopoly is the Dragon Ball Z Power Up Board Game in 3D. Also scheduled to deliver soon is a new Disney Chess Set celebrating 90 years of Mickey Mouse. Available now is one celebrating 25 years of Tim Burton’s A Nightmare Before Christmas. The company’s latest Monopoly games include Five Nights at Freddy’s Monopoly, Ren & Stimpy Monopoly, and BoJack Horseman Monopoly.

Looney Labs recently released Mary Engelbreit Loonacy, a matching card game with the artwork of Mary Engelbreit.

Dog Might Games is now making officially licensed Vampire: The Masquerade dice trays, storyteller screens, and storage boxes, each with a choice of clan symbol. Orders ship with exclusive V5 loresheets tied to the new Geek & Sundry show, LA by Night.

Elderwood Academy is taking preorders for a Vampire: The Masquerade Spellbook gaming box made from walnut and leather. It also ships with LA by Night loresheets.

• Comments Off on Licensed to Play

Launching at retail next week is the Munchkin CCG from Steve Jackson Games. And to jump right away on your first question, no, it’s not just the Munchkin card game in new packaging. The CCG would be better described as Munchkin-inspired. The game features similar humor and artistic style and borrows many thematic elements. It’s still a parody of fantasy roleplaying. Levels and loot are part of the game. And traditional Munchkin-y things show up on various cards—ducks, chainsaws, and gazebos are just a few.

Gameplay, however, is quite different. It is a CCG, so the essential idea is to attack your opponent and reduce their hero’s life points to zero. The way cards work together, too, is an important part of the game. In fact, each player chooses a hero of a specific class (elf thief or dwarf cleric, for example) and the cards of their deck are all supposed to either belong to that class or be neutral. The cards of each class type, of course, build on a common theme. Cleric cards allow the player to resist damage or heal. Thief cards lean toward the Mischief type (special actions or attacks that can be played out of normal order).

All that is fine and good. But what makes the Munchkin CCG outstanding is how brilliantly it pairs serious game with silly humor and take-that attitude. To attack your opponent, you send out one monster at a time with the money to pay for it. The card you put forward, however, goes face-down and need not even be a monster, or maybe you paid too little, or too much. Your opponent then has a choice to make, whether to defend, or runaway, or simply stand and take the hit—all while trying to read your bluff. “Cheating,” as it’s called (attacking without a monster or the money to pay for it), is part of the game, and part of the strategy in getting past an opponent’s defenses.

Bluffing and cheating also makes the Munchkin CCG much more than just playing your cards against your opponent’s deck. You’re really playing your opponent.

At launch, the Munchkin CCG will be available in two-deck Starter Sets (Cleric/Thief, Wizard/Bard, Ranger/Warrior) for $20 and 12-card boosters for $4.

• Comments Off on Second Look—Munchkin CCG

CMON announced this week a deal with Steve Jackson Games to produce board games based on the latter’s Munchkin property. The first title is planned for Fall 2018, inspired by CMON’s adventure game, Arcadia Quest.

Osprey is doing a card game based on characters from the 2000AD comics. The core mechanics for Judge Dredd: The Cursed Earth will be derived from the company’s The Lost Expedition. Additional elements will track radiation and psychic abilities. And the game will play in competitive, cooperative, and solo modes.

Following up on its recent release of The Thing: Infection at Outpost 31, pop culture company Mondo is planning two more movie-tied titles: Jurassic Park and Fight Club. In the Jurassic Park board game, one person plays InGen, creating dinosaurs and developing the park, one person plays the park visitors, sending individuals around to various attractions, one person plays the velociraptors, sneaking around to kill other players, and one person plays the T-Rex, a single figure stomping everything. The only thing revealed so far regarding Figh Club is that it’ll be a card game.

Cubicle 7’s Call of Cthulhu license from Chaosium will expire at the end of December. The company, however, plans to port Cthulhu Britannica, World War Cthulhu, and The Laundry to new RPG systems.

• Comments Off on Licensing Roundup—Munchkin, Judge Dredd, Jurassic Park, Fight Club, and Cthulhu

Steve Jackson Games’ latest Munchkin product, Munchkin Spell Skool, of course parodies Harry Potter—with Moldy Mort monster cards, various quality of magic wands among the treasure cards, and reference to playing “air hockey” while riding flying brooms. There’s more to it than that, though. For example, as children studying wizardry, players during the game have the opportunity to adopt classes based on their after-school activities: Chess Club, Forbidden Magic Club, Potion Club, and Sports Club.

And as usual, the idea is to kill the monsters, take their treasure, and clawing your way past your friends, be the first to rise to level 10.

Munchkin Spell Skool is playable on its own or combined with other Munchkin games. It comes with 112 cards and a custom die, and retails exclusively at Walgreens for $20.

• Comments Off on Munchkin Spell Skool

Phil Reed, CEO of Steve Jackson Games, published the company’s annual Report to the Stakeholders today. In it, the company revealed that they had a second year of decline from 2014’s high of $8.5 million to $6 million. The main reasons cited for the income slowdown were delays on planned releases of Car Wars Sixth Edition and the Munchkin Collectible Card Game. With the delay on Car Wars, Mr. Reed writes it was due to “an insistence on making the game exactly the way we want it. We would rather not ship the game than ship a game that doesn’t meet our standards.” They are also seeking to get the Munchkin CCG ready to print by the end of the year.

The company looks to have a difficult year ahead for it, with the Ogre Kickstarter campaign from 2012 still not completed. “We are still sinking time into the project,” he writes, even though “we’re seeing real progress; several outstanding pieces of the project are finally coming to a close. Whew.”

Issues with the GURPS line have been problematic for the company as well. Two hardcover books for the GURPS line, Discworld and Mars Attacks, were released but performed poorly at retail. “Today’s cluttered market, combined with our insistence on getting it right, made both books expensive experiments that tell us one thing: Do not produce more GURPS hardcovers until we have guaranteed that the sales are there.” Also tying up resources at the company is the Dungeon Fantasy GURPS introductory box set. Reed writes, “what would have been a profitable project is rapidly turning into a loss.”

But it isn’t all doom and gloom: Munchkin continues to do well with reprints, Guest Artist Editions, and expanding into Walgreens. In the top twenty products sold by dollar volume, all but three were Munchkin related. The company released five new games which appear to have done well at retail, and Zombie Dice had to go back to reprint due to “unexpected demand during the fourth quarter” of 2016. “A game from 2010 that keeps outselling our forecast is good and bad, but we’ll take this situation over the opposite problem any day.”

• Comments Off on Steve Jackson Games Releases Report to the Stakeholders for 2016

Another sneak peek at the upcoming Munchkin CCG was provided by Steve Jackson Games at Toy Fair, just for readers of Purple Pawn.

The Munchkin CCG is a two-player game with both battling and bluffing elements. Due by the end of the year, it pokes fun at both RPGs and CCGs. There’ll be two-deck starter boxes and randomized boosters in some sort of rarity scheme. Boosters, though, will only be available at hobby retail.

• Comments Off on Munchkin CCG Card Previews

At Gen Con, Steve Jackson Games gave me permission to share with you this exclusive first peek at some art for the upcoming Munchkin CCG [click it to get the full size].

The company will launch a public playtest for the game at BoardGameGeek Con in November.

I was told, though, that the game features a bluffing element unique among CCGs. When a player sends a monster to attack an opponent, they place the monster card face-down with some amount of gold on top. Ostensibly, more gold means a tougher monster. And since the opponent would have to commit more hirelings or more loot to defend against such a monster, more gold encourages them (regardless of what type of monster, if any, is on the card) to run away instead.

• Comments Off on Exclusive Peek at Munchkin CCG

Barnes & Noble will be running a Tabletop Gaming Meet Up event at all 640 stores on Saturday, April 30th, starting at 4 pm. This follows last month’s weekly “game gatherings” that were held at 57 of the chain’s stores. “Barnes & Noble is already a place to meet up, socialize and spend quality time together. Our Tabletop Gaming Meet Up is designed to do all that and more,” said Kathleen Campisano, Vice President, Toys & Games at Barnes & Noble.

The event will feature five games available to play at 4 pm: Machi Koro, Munchkin, Qwirkle, Superfight, and Ticket to Ride. Prizes to participants will be awarded, including promotional cards for Machi Koro and Superfight, and a Qwirkle brainteaser book. Additional prize support varies by store.

• Comments Off on Barnes & Noble Hosts Game Day in All Stores Nationwide

EDIT 4/13/16 – 9:23am – It has come to my attention (see comments section below) that these AREN’T just blank cards. They’re cards with rules, and with a blank space for an illustration. SJG does still have completely blank cards for sale if you’re looking for some.

“Let’s charge people $20 for them to make their own Munchkin game!”

I can’t imagine the thought process for Munchkin: Sketch Edition going any other way. This is a deck of blank Munchkin cards for you to draw, write your own stuff, and play…and it costs $20.

Really, though? I can’t say my kids wouldn’t eat this up in a second, as they already use any bit of paper and cardboard to try and make their own cards. I can also imagine this would be really attractive to those who frequent conventions. Why not have someone famous make you a Munchkin card?

OK…maybe I do need a set before I hit Connecticon this year. It’s a shame this won’t be out before I hit PAX East next weekend.

Leave it to me to convince myself this might actually be a good product before finishing this article.

• 3 Comments

Nearly at the end of 2015, Steve Jackson Games has issued its Report to the Stakeholders for 2014. The report, a tradition for privately held SJG, provides a behind-the-scenes peak in to the company’s performance and plans.

Most notable for 2014, though by no means a surprise, is the importance of Munchkin games. Among SJG’s top-20 products ranked by sales, only two were not Munchkin: Zombie Dice at number 3 and Zombie Dice Deluxe at number 18. Even among the next 20 ranked were only four not-Munchkin.

On the subject of sales, the company reported total gross income for 2014 of $8.5 million. This was, technically, the first time annual income declined for SJG since 2005—it was down down $300,000 compared to 2013. However, 2013 was also the year of the Ogre Kickstarter project, which alone brought in $1 million. Excluding that one-time event, the company’s income in 2014 was up $500,000.

Despite the overwhelming importance of Munchkin to Steve Jackson Games, it’s clear from the report that the company remains committed to a diverse product line. It republished (in 2014) 20 year-old Knightmare Chess, now has a full-time staff member dedicated to reviving Car Wars, and continues to explore options for GURPS despite a very difficult market.

• Comments Off on Mostly Munchkin