The idiosyncrasies of international toy licensing means that some of the latest Star Wars games are not available (at least not officially) to us here in the North American market. Though new and packaged for The Force Awakens, some of these are also actually based on events and characters of the earlier movies.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens Ubongo is a fast-play puzzle game where the players race to fill in mission cards with a set of polyominoes. There are 50 different mission cards and each turn the players roll a die to determine whether to use First Order or Resistance pieces filling them in.

Star Wars Galaxy Rebellion is a push-your-luck dice game representing a competition between Han, Luke, Leia, and Chewbacca to see who will blow up the Death Star.

In Star Wars Labyrinth the goal is to find the various Star Wars characters at the center of a shifting maze.

A variant of the classic tile-laying game, Star Wars Carcassonne incorporates new rules for taking over other players’ planets and for dice-based combat over other features.

Star Wars: Secret Invasion is a Star Wars-themed version of Love Letter. Exclusive to the Russian market, the game is about rescuing Princess Leia with each round seeing one player closer to success.

Just released by Ravensburger, Star Wars: The Force Awakens Rebel Forces is a Reiner Knizia design that requires “concentration and a quick response”, so fast-play memory?

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It seems like a long time since I’ve seen Kosmos game around, but they’re back with a vengeance in 2015! Six new games were being shown, some great reprints among them. I wish I had more pictures from the booth, but for some reason they all came out incredibly blurry. The only clear shot I got was from Lost Cities.

Dohdles! – $39.95 – Ages 8+

A sculpting family party game for 3-6 players, Dohdles is actually a reprint of the Spiel des Jahres winner Barbarossa. You need to sculpt items and have someone guess what it is, but you don’t want everyone to guess correctly! You also don’t want to make it so no one guesses correctly. Find the right mix to score the most points. Available in May.

Ubongo – $39.95 – Ages 8+

A reprint of the excellent puzzle game where players race against a timer to solve a puzzle. The faster you solve the geometric puzzles, the more gems you get. This new version looks excellent, and it’s about time I added this one to my collection! Available in May.

Dimension – $49.95 – Ages 8+

Dimension is another puzzle game, but this one uses colorful spheres. Using rules from 6 cards, players need to build with the spheres while adhering to the constraints. Fast building is important, but so is following the rules. Available in April.

Lost Cities – $19.95 – Ages 10+

A favorite of my wife and mine, Lost Cities is back in all its glory. With a very slightly updated look, everything you love about the classic exploration card game is still here. Play expedition cards to earn points, but make sure you have enough to cover the cost of the journey! Available in April.

Lost Cities: The Board Game – $39.95 – Ages 10+

Just like Lost Cities, except bigger and supporting up to 4 players. Of course it’s a bit different being a board game instead of a card game, but all the mechanics are still there. Set out on expeditions by playing cards in a path’s color to proceed along. Available in April.

Kahuna – $24.05 – Ages 10+

Another faithful reprint of a classic Kosmos game, Kahuna is a two player game where you’re trying to gain dominance of 12 small islands. As always with Kosmos 2-player games, it’s deceptively simple yet very strategic. Available in April.

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European game company KOSMOS is set to launch a series of six popular strategy board games directly in the U.S. for the first time.

Lost Cities: The Board Game and Kahuna are both popular games previously distributed by Rio Grande Games that have been out of print in the U.S. market for a few years. Ubongo was distributed by Z-Man Games and is also currently out of print. Dimension and Dohdles are both new to the U.S. market. Read the rest of this entry »

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