05 Nov
Posted by David Miller as Card Games, CCGs, Modern Board Games, RPGs
With My Little Pony: The Movie in theaters, it’s time for the licensed games in stores.
There are, of course, Hasbro’s My Little Pony: The Movie Monopoly Junior ($17), My Little Pony: The Movie Guess Who ($17), My Little Pony: The Movie Pie Face ($20), and My Little Pony: The Movie Candyland ($20), all available now, the first three exclusively at Toys “R” Us.
Releasing to retail November 24th is Seaquestria & Beyond, the ninth set for the My Little Pony CCG from EnterPlay. It adds new keywords, Traveler and Transform, new Mane characters, and elements from the movie, such as the Friendship Festival and The Storm King’s reign of terror. Single packs with 12 cards will be $3.49.
And then there’s The Official Movie Sourcebook ($20) due later this year for Tails of Equestria, the My Little Pony roleplaying game from River Horse. With this, players get new playable races (cats, parrots, hippogriffs, and lizardfolk), NPC stats from the movie, a new adventure, details for areas outside of Equestria, and rule options for factions, reputation, and vehicles.
18 Oct
Posted by Rob Kalajian as Card Games, CCGs, Classic Board Games, Electronic Games, Miniatures, Modern Board Games, Paper Money, RPGs, War Games
Today Hasbro announced HASCON, a massive event which will be held in Providence at the Rhode Island Convention Center and Dunkin Donuts Center from September 8-10, 2017. The convention will be three days packed with everything Hasbro has to offer from all their product lines, characters, and stories. There will be live interactive experiences, exclusive products, special guests, panels, and everything else you’d expect to find at a good convention. Being Hasbro, it’s a fully family-friendly event.
This is one party I’m going to make sure not miss!
For more information, and to get on the mailing list for first-notice ticket sales, visit http://hascon.hasbro.com.
The gang from My Little Pony play Dungeons & Dragons on this new t-shirt from Hasbro. Shirts run $25-29, with profits from the sale going to the Points of Light Foundation.
Join the adventuring party of Twilight Sparkle, Fluttershy, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, and of course Pinkie Pie, for the most pony-riffic celebration of friendship this side of the Forgotten Realms!
Friendship & Magic
It’s How We Roll
Privateer Press may have quit producing the Monsterpocalypse Battle Miniatures Game but it appears the game still has fans in Hollywood. Movie rights to the property saw a bidding war by several studios. Warner Bros. came out on top.
Hasbro is working on an integrated universe for its various properties, including G.I. Joe, M.A.S.K., ROM, Micronauts, and Action Man. Specifically excluded on the movie side will be Transformers. No mention yet about the various board game titles, Dungeons & Dragons, or Magic: The Gathering, though I suspect it’s safe to assume the two WOTC properties will remain separate. In comic books, IDW will have a five-part crossover series, Revolution, which will include Transformers.
Liev Schreiber has signed on to the My Little Pony movie. Not as one of the ponies, but still, I’m not sure my mind can reconcile Ray Donovan with Friendship is Magic.
Beyond the Gates, a indie horror film premiering at the Los Angeles Film Festival, is centered on a VCR board game that serves as a hellish portal trapping souls.
The Dark Horse is a biopic about Maori Chess champion and youth Chess coach, Genesis Potini. A review in the Boston Globe calls it a “Winning Portrait”, while at the same time finding the two main story lines formulaic: genius is driven to madness and the underprivileged defeat the privileged at their own game.
Current World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen is the subject of the documentary Magnus, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in April and will hit home-country screens in Norway this September.
Opening this fall in Japan is Satoshi no Seishun (“Satoshi’s Youth”), a biopic about Satoshi Murayama, a 9-dan Shogi player who died 18 years ago at the young age of 29.
Managing to Win: The Story of Strat-O-Matic Baseball starts shipping today on DVD. Available only direct from the company, the film tells the story of the game’s development by Hal Richman and the early struggles of the company.
A couple of weeks later and I would have assumed this announcement a prank. But no, UK publisher Riverhorse, under license from Hasbro, is planning a My Little Pony roleplaying game, Tails of Equestria. The game is scheduled for release sometime this year.
New from USAopoly is My Little Pony Rainbow Dash Yahtzee. It plays the same as the original, though the dice have cutie marks and the cup is Rainbow Dash on a cloud.
The 5th, and largest, set for the My Little Pony CCG is set to come out on August 28th. Titled Equestrian Odysseys, it adds dual-color cards, single-color problems, six new keywords, and new Super and Royal rares.
There will also be two new Theme Decks. One will have the first card released of Octavia, while the other will contain an orange Derpy (called Muffin Mare in the game, but we know better.)
“Maybe the magic of friendship can help you. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some chaos to wreak.”
The 4th set of MLP CCG cards has a villain focus, if you couldn’t have guessed that from the title. Fan-favorite Discord headlines this set of over 200 new cards. Each booster pack contains 12 cards, and there’s a new theme deck of the set. A villainous theme deck. It contains:
This new set will hit shelves on May 8th.
23 Feb
Posted by David Miller as Card Games, CCGs, Electronic Games, Miniatures, Modern Board Games
Besides the Marvel, Jurassic World, and Magic: The Gathering games we’ve covered in separate articles, Hasbro’s Toy Fair reveals included news of Monopoly, Scrabble, The Game of Life, Minions, Star Wars, Disney Princess, My Little Pony, and preschool games.
For Monopoly’s birthday, Hasbro has already released a Monopoly 80th Anniversary Edition with wood houses, as well as licensed Coach to produce a high-end, New York-themed edition in leather. Through March 4th in partnership with BuzzFeed, the company is collecting votes to select cities for the next Monopoly Here & Now U.S. and World editions.
Scrabble will see two new versions in 2015, Scrabble Junior (spring, $15) and Scrabble Twist (fall, $20). The former has a two-sided board. On one side, children ages 2-4 match letter tiles to words that are already filled in. The latter is a handheld electronic game where the goal is to quickly find the word among five mixed-up letters, and then press the buttons in the right order.
A new version of The Game of Life just out replaces some of the careers with video game designer, singer, and secret agent, among others. The Game of Life Junior (spring, $15) is about collecting stars while having adventures, like at the beach or zoo.
In May, ahead of the upcoming Despicable Me Minions movie, Hasbro is launching the Minions Challenge Card Game. It’ll be sold in $3 blind bags containing one Minion figure and five battle cards.
Deploy your battle cards against your opponent and keep playing until your Minion reaches the top of this score card to win!
Sounds vaguely War-like.
For Star Wars there was only one game, Loopin’ Chewie (fall, $25), but it’s one that’s generating a fair amount of excitement. Though we already wrote about it, at Toy Fair we got some pictures.
A Disney Princess Candyland isn’t new but an update this year (fall, $15) adds Princess Frog.
In the fall, Hasbro will release My Little Pony Poppin’ Pinkie Pie ($20), an inverse hot-potato type game. Players attach balloons to a birthday cake and when Pinkie Pie pops out, that player is the winner.
For the preschool crowd, Mashin’ Max (March, $10) has kids moving pawns around the board to collect berries. Max in the middle, though, spins around and smashes his fist down to capture the players’ pawns.