Just launched is Sword Coast Legends, a Dungeons & Dragons video RPG available for PS4 consoles and PC or Mac via Steam. Based on D&D’s 5th Edition rules and set in the Forgotten Realms, Sword Coast Legends features a Dungeon Master Mode, which allows a user to not only create new adventures but also to adjust them in real time in response to player actions.

The Exodus: Proxima Centauri Companion app (iOS) will calculate costs for working through the technology tree, plot fleet movement, and roll dice. Not yet but soon, it’ll provide a victory point calculation tool as well.

Another new companion app available on iOS devices substitutes for the Crossroads deck in Plaid Hat Games’ Dead of Winter. The app, though, forces the players to decide on which actions to take without the benefit of advance knowledge of the results.

A recent update to Sentinels of the Multiverse for iOS adds support for online cross-platform multiplayer games. There’s also now a free learn-to-play edition of the game (with limited content, of course) available for both iOS and Android.

Monopoly and Yahtzee join Catch Phrase as Hasbro games playable via Chromecast.

Family Fun Board Games’ The Postal Game is now available to download for PC or Mac, as an online browser game, for iOS, and for Android.

The City expansion for Talisman: Digital Edition adds a new region, six characters, 82 city cards, and three alternative ending cards.

Another classic, Titan, previously available for iOS, is now also available for Android.

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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.

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USAopoly surprised me at Toy Fair. I mostly know them for their licensed versions of Monopoly, Clue, Risk, Yahtzee, etc…, but a handful of original titles filled their booth this year. Before I get into those, I’m going to post a gallery of all the licensed products that are new.

OK! There’s a lot of material to cover above.

Monopoly

The Legend of Zelda version is new as of last year, and has been an excellent seller. New to the scene are Mass Effect, Pokemon, Jurassic World, Doctor Who: Villains, Firefly, and Penny Dreadful.

Yahtzee

There’s Back to the Future (the Flux Capacitor case lights up!), Firefly, The Legend of Zelda, and new versions for The Avengers, Age of Ultron. These I wasn’t allowed to take pictures of, but the dice come in either an Iron Man or Ultron head.

Clue

Doctor Who. It rhymes.

BANG!

It was really cool to see that there’s a Hereos of the Storm version, and a comic book Walking Dead version. Also, Halo.

Munchkin

A Walking Dead expansion for Munchkin Zombies was shown, as well as Adventure Time Munchkin. I actually took a copy of the latter home from a Steve Jackson party, and it’s pretty sweet. USAopoly did an excellent job of capturing the feeling of the show and fitting it in with the equally zany world of Munchkin.

Puzzles

Two beautiful Legend of Zelda puzzles. One is of the Hyrule Map, and the other is a colorful piece from The Wind Waker.

Risk

I wasn’t able to take pictures of either Risk title I saw, but they’re both very exciting. The first is an Avengers: Age of Ultron version that comes with little painted miniatures of the Avengers. The packaging said something about “collect them all,” but the rep showing me around didn’t know what that was about. It could be a pretty interesting mechanic if there were an element of randomness to the figures in the box.

The second, and by far one of the most exciting licensed products, was the Game of Thrones version of Risk. This thing was huge. It comes with 2 giant boards depicting Westeros and Essos, and the game is played over both maps at once. The pieces were amazing in their detail, and the box was minimal and beautiful. This is one I’d go out of my way to purchase.

 

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OK. That horizontal line above is where we break from the licensed copies of classic and well known board games and get into original titles USAopoly is putting out.

TacDex – $9.95

TacDex is a newer game to the USAopoly line, and is a War-style card game developed by Richard Borg. Already having a Pirates! deck, they’ve now added a Super Mario Brothers deck, Walking Dead deck, and Halo deck. I was told you can mix and match the decks, if so desired. Right off the bat I’m interested because of Richard Borg’s involvement.

Rollandia

Rollandia is a really cool looking game where you’re rolling dice to try and build your castle. You need to roll groups of numbers to build each piece, and there’s a component of using your already-claimed numbers to effect other players. The whole look and feel of the game caught be totally by surprise after seeing such a huge amount of licensed Monopoly, Clue, Yahtzee, etc… games. Nothing against those, but it’s always nice to see new and innovative titles hit the market.

Nefarious – $29.95 – Ages 13+

Rollandia was really cool looking, but one look at Nefarious and I had already moved on. In Nefarious you’re playing evil scientists trying to take over the world. You do this by inventing devices, performing espionage, and doing research. Visually stunning, designed by Donald X. Vaccarino, and slick looking game play make this one to keep an eye on.

Pass the Blame : The Party Game for Irresponsible and Telestrations 8: After Dark  – $29.95 and $19.95 – Ages 17+

Two adult games following the new trend in the wake of Cards Against Humanity. Both party games involve compromising situations and foul thoughts. Pass the Blame has situations cards that players must write excuses for. Not as filthy as Telestrations After Dark, but it can get a bit dicey. Telestrations After Dark has you playing a game of Telephone, but with sketches. One player sketches a phrase, the next guesses what the phrase is and tries to draw it again, and so on. This one is a bit more intentionally dirty with terms like “doggie style”, “human centipede”, and more.

Wonky

Wonky comes with a box of mostly-cube-like pieces and cards that tell you what color cubes to place and where. Players have to follow the directions on the cards and build a tower as high as they can without it falling. A quick, easy, family game.

Tapple

A word game with an interesting twist. A card is drawn with a category, after which each player takes turns naming something in the category and tapping down the letter the word started with. Once a letter is tapped down it can’t be used again. Players who can’t think of a word are knocked out.

Lift It

This one had a pretty cool hook to it (pun intended.) Lift It has you trying to build certain structures with the pieces provided, but you must do in within a time limit, and by only using your hook on a string to pick up and place pieces. Some challenges are even cooperative, where 2 players need to each hook pieces and work togehter to build something. I gave this a shot, but was met with an almost insurmountable challenge trying to get my shaky, carpal tunnel ridden hands and wrists to do as I asked.

 

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Stop It! is Winning Moves’ version of a card game where players play their cards in numeric order within each suit and the first to get rid of all their cards wins. The twist in Stop It! is that all 50 cards are dealt out at the start—which on its own would make the game pointless—but so are a number of “Stop It!” cards equal to one less than the number of players. Everyone knows that someone has the number 10 in each suit, so any one at any time can grab a Stop It! card to end play in one sequence and then start a new one.

Winning Moves continues to upsize Bogle with Super Big Boggle and a 6 x 6 grid of letter cubes. In this version the timer has been increased to 4 minutes, double-letter cubes have letter pairs on all sides, a blocking cube interrupts a row and column, and words must be a minimum of four letters long.

And this year’s crop of classic reprints from Winning Moves includes Yahtzee (in original packaging with an aluminum dice cup), Sorry (the 1930s era board with Point Sorry variant “for adult play”), and 5ive Straight. The last is a deceptively simple five-in-a-row game with an unusual board. Of course, the goal is to get five pegs in a straight line. The board is a 10 x 10 grid with spaces numbered 0 to 99 in a circuitous pattern. And the game includes a deck of cards numbered 0 to 99. Players start with four cards and each turn can either draw a new card or play a card to place a peg in a hole numbered that or higher. So it seems the lower-numbered cards provide more flexibility, while it’s good to target higher-numbered spaces for completing a line.

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