For 2013, Gamewright’s lineup includes nine new games, ranging from preschool to strategy titles.

Skunk Bingo is for preschoolers and features a spinner, plastic log, bingo-style game boards, and tokens with pictures of various woodland creatures. The point, of course, is to fill one’s bingo board with matching creature tokens. The twist is that while the spinner indicates a number and type of token each turn, those tokens don’t go directly onto a player’s board. Rather, the player is supposed to slip them in to one end of the plastic log, which pushes a corresponding number of tokens—different ones—out the other end. These are the ones that go on the board. Also, skunks are useless. They don’t match anything.

Wig Out is actually a rerelease of an earlier Gamewright card game but with new packaging and cards for four additional characters. The game is played simultaneously, players throwing down their cards onto matching stacks. Stacks, though, can’t be started until one player puts down a pair. A player that has no matching cards is supposed to draw back up to a hand of eight. The winner is the first player to get rid of all their cards.

Chef Pop de Pop also involves a hand of eight cards. In this one, though, the goal is to save as many cards as possible by matching them to the results on popcorn dice in a shaker (the shaker looks kind of like a frying pan or a Jiffy Pop device from before everyone switched to the microwave). Also, one of the dice in the shaker is an action die meant to stir things up. For example, if the action die reads “Pop” then the first person to yell out “Pop” gets a free turn to themselves.

The goal when playing Monster Cafe is to feed as many monsters as possible their favorite meals, while not being stuck with any that are still hungry. It’s a set-collection game with a push-your-luck element. Players can grab monsters earlier, in the hope that they’ll be able to feed them later, or wait until they’ve been fed, with the risk that someone else will grab them first.

In Terzetto, two players go head-to-head, each turn trying to match with three same-colored marbles a pattern set with a shaker. The first person who can’t fit the pattern within their 5 x 5 grid, loses. The game can also be played with a variant, where the three placed marbles must be of different colors and the goal is to get three in a row of the same color.

Combining a marbles-like action game with a miniatures-style fantasy battle game is Cube Quest. In it, two players each get to recruit an army from among 25 cubes representing knights, priests, monsters, and other soldiers. Then, taking turns, they flick the cubes against the defensive structures each other has built, with the goal of knocking the opponent’s king out of his castle. A cube, though, that lands in an opponent’s area has the potential of being captured. Also, different types of cubes have different special abilities. For example, knights can be flicked twice on a turn.

That’s It! is a a trivia guessing game that is part of Gamewright’s Port-a-Party line. It comes with a set of cards, each listing five categories with specific examples. Each round, one player is supposed to read the categories, after which the other players attempt to guess the example. When a player guesses correctly, the reader yells, “That’s it” and hands the player a scoring token.

Iota, previously published by its designer, is a card game most easily described as a cross between Set and Qwirkle. Its cards are square and each has a unique combination of color, number, and symbol. Players are supposed to play the cards in a grid such that in any line either all cards have the same color, same number, and same symbol; or no two cards have the same color, same number, or same symbol; or the cards have the same color and same symbol, but are numbered sequentially.

And finally, there’s Forbidden Desert, a sequel to the company’s Forbidden Island. Like the previous game, Forbidden Desert is played cooperatively, with the players trying to collect artifacts—in this case, components to an ancient flying machine—while fighting the environment. Rather than rising water, however, this game features sand storms and shifting dunes. In fact, the tiles that represent the desert, not only slowly cover with sand markers, making it more difficult to excavate the artifacts, they also move around the board. And while running around the board, shoveling sand, and excavating (flipping desert tiles) the players’ characters are constantly dehydrating, making finding and managing water resources an important element of the game.

Forbidden Desert will be packaged in a tin a bit larger than Forbidden Island but still retail for only $25.

• Comments Off on Toy Fair 2013—Gamewright

I decided to hit up the Games Workshop booth in order to establish a better relationship with them to get Purple Pawn back into miniatures news again. I was met with a warm reception, got a few painting tips, and will be expecting some awesome product news and more in the future.

The biggest thing GW was showing off was the Warhammer 40k Dark Vengeance box. This starter set contains Dark Angel Space Marines and the Crimson Slaughter Chaos Space Marines. Of course you get the rules, dice, rulers, scenarios, etc… All-in-all you get a lot in the box for $100.

So there you have it. Keep an eye here in the future for more GW news!

 

• 2 Comments

Patch Products had a varied lineup of new games for 2013 ranging from toy-like games to party games. I had a wonderful tour of their booth, and saw a lot of really cool stuff.

Flying Kung Fu Frogs: In this game you’re trying to flip plastic frogs onto several targets attached to a circulating set of trees. Trust me, it’s not as easy as it looks! 1-4 players, ages 4+.

Odd Jobs: A party game where one player plays the “client” and all the other players use the wacky business cards that come with the game to find the best solution to the problem at hand. Most of the time players won’t have a business that perfectly fits the job, so they need to convince the client to hire them. The business cards are pretty awesome in how ridiculous they are. The iPad pictured above shows the second image for the box cover, which will be lenticular when the game goes to print. 3+ players, ages 10+.

Farkle Around:  Roll the dice and try to fill up either side of whatever card is in play. It’s a race to see who can roll the right numbers the fastest. 2+ players, ages 8+.

Go Oink: A children’s cards game that plays like Go Fish, except instead of asking for a certain card, you need to make the sound of the animal you’re looking for. Ages 4+.

Shizzle: The coolest part about this is the Twist & Tumble dice cup. Put the dice in, give it a quick twist, and the dice come tumbling out of the bottom of the cup. Each die has different colored pips on each side, and players are trying to create a line of colors or numbers to score points. 2-6 players, ages 8+.

The Game of Things: Pictures above with one of the designers, Tom Quinn. A party game with an interesting twist. One player reads a statement, such as “Things you don’t want to put in your mouth.” All the other players then write an answer secretly, and the reader reads all the answers. Then the players go around the game trying to guess who wrote each response. 1 point is awarded for each correct guess, and an incorrect guess passes the guessing to the next player. Players who avoid detection earn 6 points. 4+ players, ages 10+

• Comments Off on Toy Fair 2013—Patch Products

It seems that Goliath Games’ Doggie Doo was such a hit (6 million copies sold!) that the company was inspired to bring back another gross activity game from 15 years ago. Gooey Louie includes a large plastic head and players are supposed to stick their fingers up its nose to pull out a long green booger! One of these gooeys, though, is attached. Pulling on it triggers the scalp to open and brain to pop out!

Goliath’s other new game for 2013 is considerably less disgusting. Don’t Panic is a party trivia game where the goal is to name as many items as one can in a particular category before the timer runs out. The number of items named by the player—or team— is the number of space that the player moves forward on the board. The first to the end of the board wins.

• Comments Off on Toy Fair 2013—Goliath Games

North Star Games first foray outside the party-game field is Clubs, a light trick-taking card game. Cards are numbered 1 to 15 in four suits but only clubs count for points.

Players can also earn bonus points for getting rid of all their cards. The last player with cards each round, though, gets no bonus points and no points for clubs—a big fat zilch!

Rounds continue until one player hits 50 points.

• Comments Off on Toy Fair 2013—North Star Games

While at Asmodee‘s booth at Toy Fair today, I learned there’s a Dungeon Twister card game in the works. This is excellent news for fans of Dungeon Twister who were disappointed with the discontinuation of the Dungeon Twister board game in the the US.

It took a bit of talking to get this info, but man am I super excited about it. An official announcement is planned for Gen Con this year.

• Comments Off on Inside Tip—Asmodee Working on Dungeon Twister Card Game

The Haba booth was jam-packed full of games and a ton of their other products. I snagged a wonderful young woman who was most enthusiastic to describe just about every game Haba had to offer. Unfortunately due to time constraints I only had her explain some new, 2013 releases.

Monster Torte: A fun dexterity game where the box is also the play space.  A card is drawn showing a pastry with different colored candy toppings. Players much race to get matching colored balls out of the box and into their bowls using only a wooden spoon with a hole in it. First to collect all the right balls wins the round. Frantic and fun. I lost horribly to the Haba PR rep. 2-4 players, ages 8+.

Secret Code 13+4: Players are secret agents trying to break into a museum. By rolling dice you can use addition, subtraction, multiplication, or division to match the number that stands between you and the next space on the board. A great game for math skills, and a ton of fun. 2-4 players, ages 8+.

Blick Click: Seen in the gallery as Kuck Ruck Zuck, Blink Click is a game about perspective. In the game you’re trying to find out where a photographer is taking a picture from by using cards showing the perspective of the photographer. A large elephant with a farther away kangaroo in the background? The photographer must be the donkey! 2 -6 players, ages 6+.

Treetop Trouble: A memory game where you’re trying to get each animal to their correct floor of a treehouse using an elevator. The real trick is that you only know what animals are currently in the elevator. Using your memory you need to swap animals off the elevator into the treehouse and back, remembering what animals the flipped over tiles in the tree are. 2-4 players, ages 8+

 

• 1 Comment

One of the first games I saw, and got to play, at Toy Fair was Serpent Stones by Robert Harrington. After a successful Kickstarter campaign, Robert is selling the game through Game Salute, which you can preorder for $40. The game is easy to learn, smooth the play, and has a good amount of strategy.

Using warrior cards, Nahualli cards, and Teotl cards you battle, capture, and give yourself a tactical advantage to play and capture your opponent’s temple stone. An expansion will also be available that adds barriers that block off areas of the board, and includes 3 more types of special action cards.

I also got a chance to meet the designer of Zpocolypse, Jeff Gracia, at the Game Salute booth. A really cool feature of the game comes in the rulebook. Every page of the rulebook has a QR code that can be scanned by a smartphone to access video clips of play examples of the rules on that page.

Another Kickstarter success story, Zpocolypse can be preordered for $60.

For more info on the game, see our previous post about it from October of last year.

 
 
 

• 2 Comments