In the first-time promotion of Magic: The Gathering at its Toy Fair showroom, Hasbro had on display Archenemy Nicol Bolas ($60), a boxed set for a format not seen in several years. Archenemy games have three playing against one, though to even the odds, the one player starts with 40 life instead of 20 and is bolstered by a supplementary deck of scheme cards (they turn over one per round).

Archenemy Nicol Bolas will be released June 16th with four 60-card decks, 20 all new scheme cards, and a special double-wheeled life counter for the archenemy (counts 00-99).

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Coming this fall for Beyblade Burst is the Avatar Attack Battle Set ($50). It’s a new battle arena with so-called avatars unique to each bey—accessory devices like blades or hammers attached to the arena, which players can use to influence (interfere with) a match mid-game.

In terms of the beys themselves, this fall will also see the launch of Rip Fire Packs ($15) with beys that light up when spinning.

Launchers too will see innovation in the fall. Instead of pull-through rip-cords, Master Kits ($20) will include spring-loaded retracting string launchers (and a bey).

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Action games were the highlight of Hasbro’s Toy Fair showroom this year. Though we’ve already covered Toilet Trouble, Fantastic Gymnastics, and Speak Out Kids vs Parents, I still feel the need to include this picture of fellow pawn, Thomas, being sprayed in the face by a life-sized toilet prop (just for journalistic accuracy, of course).

Following up on Pie Face and Pie Face Showdown, Hasbro plans for this fall Pie Face Sky High ($25). It still delivers whip cream to the face but this time does it with a device similar to those carnival sledgehammer strength-testers.

Egged On ($20) looks like a carton of eggs. The eggs themselves are flexible rubber and split in two with a pretty good seal. Fill some with water or other suitable substance and then play by smashing them against your head. Egged On will be available in Target stores in March and everywhere else in May.

Simon Optix is a wearable version of the pattern-matching Simon game. The person wearing it is supposed to wave their hands in front of the visor following the flash of colors.

Bop It! Maker (fall, $20) is another pattern-matching challenge. Unlike previous entries in the series, though, this one is user-programmable. That is, the user creates their own waves, shakes, and other moves—as well as records a name for each—which the device randomizes.

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Playroom Entertainment seems to be working its way out of some recent challenges. Production and distribution is getting back on track and several games should be heading out to retail over the next few months.

Joining an already successful line of geeky trivia games will be Geek Out! The Big Bang Theory (May, $20) with questions based mainly on the show. The Geek Out! games challenge players to see how many answers they can provide for each question.

Costume Party Assassins is a murder-mystery deduction game with meeples in disguise. Players roll dice to move those meeple characters around the board but the rules of movement are relative to a player’s own secret character.

Snorta (June, $20) is a reprint of a former Out of the Box party game that has players making animal noises and trying to remember who made which one.

New in Playroom’s series of Bright Idea Games for kids is the cooperative Bird Day Party (May, $10). In this one, the idea is to find a bird card whose back side matches either the color, or gift, or both of the next turned-over invitation card. If it doesn’t match at all, that bird leaves the party. As the field of bird cards narrows, though, it does become somewhat easier to remember the features of each, which is good, as the goal is to get through the invitations before all the birds duck out.

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Professor Puzzle of the UK, known mostly for wood and metal brain teasers, also has a line of giant garden games. Several should be available in the United States next month.

Giant Chess ($50 retail) features a weatherproof mat and light plastic pieces with a 5½ inch king.

The Jenga-like Toppling Tower game ($50) starts out at 2 feet tall and is made of light beechwood, so it shouldn’t hurt when it does topple.

Also made of beechwood are the Giant Dominoes—set of 28 double-sixes for $30.

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At Toy Fair, Iello was talking about expanding its line of children’s games this year.

The Legend of the Wendigo, available now at $20, centers around a native-American monster fable. In this version of the fable, the monster takes over the bodies of kids at summer camp. One player replaces a new camper tile each round with a special version that shows the wendigo on the back-side. If the other players can’t guess which camper has been replaced, the monster player gets to posses another, keeping past victims as they go.

Also available now is The Mysterious Forest ($30). This one has memory and resource-collection elements and is based on The Wormworld Saga comic series. It’s also a cooperative game. At the beginning, players get a quick look at a set of cards with the resources they need to collect. Then the cards are turned face down and the players roll dice and pick tokens representing the resources they need. Finally, the cards, which represent an unfolding story, are turned back over one-at-a-time. If they have the right tokens, they complete the saga and win. Fortunately, they also start out with a few special Loki helper tokens to fill in the gaps.

For adults and older children, Iello had on display Pyramids (March, $20), a game of constructing monuments in ancient Egypt. Each round, players choose from among a pool of god tiles that give them the ability to add stone cards to their pyramids and obelisks. At the end, pyramids score points for stones strung together and in various colors. Obelisks score points for height, glyphs, and a range of colors.

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Winning Moves’ lead was giant pigs, or to put it another way, a Pass the Pigs Big Pigs Edition ($18). Same game, same foam pigs, just bigger. Big enough to be fun tossing around the room.

Another new game on display by Winning Moves was Brainspin ($5). This one’s a deck of cards with simple shapes and symbols. Three are turned over each round and the players have 1 minute to come up with as many answers as they can as to what each card may represent. Then the answers are compared and the player with the most unique answers wins the round.

My favorite of the bunch was Brynk ($20), a stacking game that’s also a balancing game played on top of a rolling platform.

Winning Moves’ classic reprints for 2016 include Scrabble to Go, Upwords, and The Velveteen Rabbit Game.

Scrabble to Go ($45), previously known as Scrabble Folio, is, as you’d expect, a travel version of the popular word game. It’s letter tiles snap in to the board and tile racks hide their contents in between games.

Winning Moves’ version of the multi-level word-building game, Upwords ($20), returns to the 8×8 original board configuration.

The Velveteen Rabbit Game ($15), includes flocked standee pawns and features graduated play for children ages 4 and up.

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Equal parts strategy and lighthearted fun is what you get from Iello. And to make that combination even more accessible, Iello is lowering the price on its Tales and Games series to $25.

The Pied Piper (March 17th, $25), the latest in that series, has players scurrying rodents through each other’s homes. Regular cards move individual rodents clockwise around the neighborhood of player homes, sending each closer to condemnation with every visit. Sewer cards allow players to bypass a house, such as their own. And a Pied Piper figure clears rodents when traveling through, thus allowing a home’s owner to partially restore its condition.

King of New York Power Up (fall, $20) expands King of New York with the same type of monster customization options found in King of Tokyo Power Up.

Loot N Run (March 17th, $15) is an easy card game about archaeological treasure-hunting. Each turn a player has the choice to loot (take a card), awaken (challenge another player), or run (score the cards held in hand). On every card is a number of treasures and a number of monsters. If whenever challenged a player holds more monsters than treasures, they lose the cards they have.

Tem-purr-a (March 17th, $15), about over-eating cats, is one of those play-cards-in-sequence games. The twist with this one is that if a person can’t play in sequence, then they have to draw a number of cards equal to the total value of all cards in the discard pile. Lurking in the draw pile, though, are a few indigestion cards, with more added every time one is drawn. For each one of those drawn, players collect indigestion tokens. The player with the fewest tokens is the winner.

Happy Pigs (March 17th, $35) is a cute pig-farming game with a economics lesson buried inside. Players who sell pigs at the same time must split the points.

The economics lesson at the heart of Candy Chaser (April, $15) is market-manipulation. [Fortunately, though, there is no CFTC jurisdiction!] The players as kids smuggling sweets in to school each secretly specialize in a certain type of candy. While of course they’re trying to maximize the going price of their own candy, if another player is able to guess their specialty they’re knocked out of the game.

Sea of Clouds (summer, $30) is about air pirates, which is enough for me. I was told, though, that others would also appreciate the Winston card drafting.

Oceanos (summer, $35), from designer Antoine Bauza, is a game in which players customize submarines to explore the sea.

Another game from Antoine Bauza, Monster Chase (summer, $25) is a quick cooperative memory game for little kids. The idea is to chase the monsters, each of whom is afraid of one particular toy, back in to the closet before they surround your bed.

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