Just as Toy Fair was starting, the news went out that Ravensburger, Wonder Forge, and BRIO were all being reorganized under a new Ravensburger North America division. Most of what we saw at the show game-wise is starting to be listed under the Wonder Forge brand line, but there were quite a few games that were coming out with a Ravensburger logo on them. Several items featuring Minions and other characters from the Despicable Me movie franchise were found in both brand lines.

On the Ravensburger side, Despicable Me Labyrinth (Spring, $32) is a themed version of their popular Labyrinth game line. The Despicable Me-themed Eye Found It! (Fall, $26) joins that game’s line with a six-foot board and a card game version (Fall, $6). Those last two were so new, that even though they had them for display at the show, they were waiting for the licensor’s artwork approval, so no photos as of yet!

Wonder Forge’s Despicable Me showings included Linked Up (a Fall Target exclusive, $15), where you place plastic “link” bars connecting character images on a tight board; Battle Matching (Summer, under $10), a cute take on a memory/picture matching game; and Surprise Slides (Summer, price TBD), a spin and move game that’s a bit like Snakes & Ladders if you could move snakes and ladders around during the game.

Wonder Forge’s other items this year mainly featured Disney properties. The Elena of Avalor Flight of the Jaquins game (Fall, $20) features sculpts of Jaquins, a player-assembled palace, and bilingual cards. The game also has different modes of play to scale for age ranges: your kindergartener can play with your fourth-grader, each with different objectives, to complete first. Mickey and the Roadster Racers Bump ‘n’ Race (a Spring Toys R Us exclusive, $20) features a very simple game element with four small cars representing racers from the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, a sloped playing surface, and movable barriers to bounce off of.

The trivia-with-images game line Pictopia has two new entries, a smaller sized Marvel Cinematic Universe-themed Pictopia game (soon) and a big box Harry Potter edition (Summer). Each game has similar game play with trivia questions on the back of a card that features four images. The Harry Potter game contains questions about all of the movies, including Fantastic Beasts.

Back on the Ravensburger side of the booth, we find Krazy Wordz (Spring, $20). Create words out of your letter tiles, and then players choose which word sounds like it would fit the definition on the term cards in the center of the table. Does a “Garbuna” sound more like an Australian marsupial or a brand of chocolate bar to you?

The tenth anniversary editions of Notre Dame and In The Year of the Dragon are coming! (Availability date and retail prices TBD.) Both games will come with expansions included.

 

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Based on the cute, stackable stuffed toys, Disney Tsum Tsum Bubble Fever from Wonder Forge is a fast-play card game in the same vein as Ligretto or Dutch Blitz. As with those, a major part of the game is to throw down cards on matching stacks. What’s different with Bubble Fever, though, is that the goal is to accumulate cards, not to get rid of them. To claim a stack, players use their bubble cards.

 

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I already wrote about Star Wars The Force Awakens games from Hasbro, Spin Master, and Topps but, as you’ll see below, there are still more.

Some of these may be exclusive to certain retailers. Also, some saw publication under a Star Wars theme previously but all have now at least been updated with the latest characters, graphic design, and images.

The Star Wars Death Star Perplexus 3-D maze has lights and sounds and… well, let’s be fair, was already shaped like a Death Star. Spin Master is distributing it to major retail outlets, Patch Products to specialty stores.

Spin Master is also doing a Star Wars Death Star Boom Boom Balloon. It seems like such an obvious fit, yet don’t the good guys want the Death Star to explode?

Uncle Milton’s selling a Star Wars Jedi Holocron. It’s an electronic thingamabob that can guess what you’re thinking (providing it’s related to Star Wars) within 20 questions.

From Wonder Forge, there’s a Star Wars The Force Awakens Battle Matching Game, which supposedly adds a twist to basic matching games but what that is I don’t know.

Also from Wonder Forge is Star Wars The Force Awakens 6-in-1, which includes the Battle Matching Game, as well as Star Wars versions of Dominoes, Bingo, and other standards.

Exclusive for Target, Wonder Forge has made the Star Wars Star Destroyer Strike Game. This one has the Finalizer at the center shooting actual lasers.

Toys “R” Us has two more Star Wars games from Hasbro: Star Wars Guess Who? and Star Wars Sorry. The latter imagines droids darting around the Millennium Falcon attempting to effect repairs without getting in each other’s way.

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New Marvel games from Hasbro include:

• Monopoly Avengers Edition (spring, $20)—with hero cards that grant each player unique abilities.
• Operation Marvel Super Hero Adventures Edition (fall, $20)—where players remove debris from Iron Man’s suit.
• Hands Down Marvel Super Hero Adventures Edition (spring, $10)—in which the goal is to earn the “Ruler of Justice” title by being the first to get rid of all character cards.
• Thor’s Power Hammer Game (spring, $20)—featuring an electronic toy hammer that when struck on a flat surface measures a strength score against various villains.

WizKids has coming out in April Marvel Avengers Age of Ultron HeroClix and the Marvel X-Men Mutant Revolution strategy board game.

From Wonder Forge expect:

• Marvel On the Go Dominoes (spring, $6)—which is just Dominoes but with the pips replaced by pics.
• Marvel Matching (spring, $6)—a basic matching memory game with hexagonal pieces.
• Marvel Avengers Age of Ultron Party Game (fall, $10)—in which teams compete at using paddles to keep balloons in the air.
• Marvel 6-in-1 Games (spring, $15)—which includes Dominoes, Crazy Eights, Go Fish, Four-in-a-Row, Matching, and Bingo.

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From Pressman Toy, just released are two How to Train Your Dragon 2 games…

There’s the Sheep Launcher Game, which has players catapulting sheep tokens while keeping score with dragon figures.

And a Pop N Race Game:

From Wonder Forge, there’s a Matching Game.

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With licenses for Disney, Dr. Suess, Marvel, DC, TMNT, and Star Wars, Wonder Forge had on display 13 new games for 2014.

Dr. Suess Charades ($14, July) takes the well-known game and makes it manageable for 3 year-olds. On one side of each display card are three choices for the one player to act out, and on the other side are six choices from which the other players can guess.

Meant to be played around the house, the Disney Sky Race Action Game ($24) mimics the air race of Disney’s Planes. Display signs representing waypoints in various countries are placed in different rooms. Then the players toss foam airplanes around the established circuit. During the course of the race, flight control cards set special conditions. For example, a wind card requires players to toss their planes with opposite hand. A turbulence card means the players have to toss their planes upside-down.

Jake and the Neverland Pirates Shipwreck Beach Treasure Hunt Game ($24, April) combines matching and action elements and includes components that will probably see just as much use as role-play toys. Looking through the included spyglass, children decode secret clues then run to grab matching treasures using a foam sword.

Another matching game with lots of role-play opportunities is the Doc McStuffins All Better Game ($24, April). It comes with a medical kit bag, spinner, cardboard medical instruments, and slap bracelet bandages.

Included in the Sofia the First Magical Tea Time Game ($25) are tea cup devices, which a player blows on (as if to cool the tea), spinning a piece that determines the color of treat that player is supposed to collect.

In the Disney Princess Palace Pets Pretty as a Picture Game ($13, fall), players try to complete basic puzzles of the princesses’ pets. Certain space on the spinner, though, allow them to switch puzzles with other players.

Pictopia ($24, fall) is a Disney roll-and-move trivia game that covers the whole range of Disney properties, including classic cartoons, modern animation, and even teen pop music. The game also incorporates a wagering element. Players can bet on the answers in order to move their tokens forward.

The Justice League Axis of Villains Strategy Game ($24, May) challenges players to defeat a range of villains before they blow up space mission control. This one is very card and dice driven. A six-sided die determines what type of card a player gets, while an eight-sided die is used for movement.

Marvel Avengers Slide Strike Battle Game ($13, fall) combines a Stratego-like game of hidden pieces with a sliding-block puzzle. Each piece, Marvel superheroes on one side and villains on the other, have different strength ratings for their front, left, and right edges. A die roll indicates how many slides a player may make to move pieces around the board. When a hero and villain come in contact, the winner of the battle is based on the strengths of those characters on the edges that touch. To show that the losing character is out of the game, its disc is removed from the sliding block.

In the Marvel Ultimate Spider-Man Trickshot Duel Action Game ($23, fall) players are supposed to take turns using these doohickeys to shoot plastic discs and try to knock top-like pieces from the opponents team out of a building-like pen. Supposed to take turns, I said.

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Foot Clan Street Fight Game ($23, spring) has neat painted mini figures for each of the turtles and a board that varies with each game (the spaces are separate cardboard discs). In terms of play, though, it combines roll-and-move and matching.

Star Wars Spotcha! ($20, fall) is a grabbing game with small plastic pieces derived from the Star Wars universe: a speeder, C3PO’s head, Jabba the Hutt, and others. Someone drops all the pieces on the table and then the players rush to grab the ones that are lying in positions matching the players’ cards.

The Star Wars Rebel Missions Adventure Game is a cooperative, real-time, code-breaking game with an electronic device that acts as a timer and plays a soundtrack. The goal is to match the code and enter it on the device before time runs out. To collect pieces of the code, players visit Imperial installations on sabotage missions, using dice to collect the tools that will give them elements of the code.

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