More Kingdom Builder on the Way

Queen Games has provided some previews of the games they'll have at the upcoming Spielwarenmesse...the toy and game fair in Nürnberg, Germany. Probably the biggest news is that they're unveiling a new expansion for the Spiel des Jahres winner Kingdom Builder—Kingdom Builder: Crossroads "New locations and new challenges are what the land needs! Kingdom Builder: Crossroads includes four new landscapes with two different location spaces to offer new options to shape the kingdom. The task cards challenge players to build their settlements in a certain way in order to gain even more gold at the end of the game."

Not much to go on, but for Donald X and Kingdom Builder fans, it'll be an instant buy.

In related news, Queen is coming out with a Big Box version of Kingdom Builders, set to release in October. It'll have the base game and all current expansions—including the Nomads and Crossroads expansions, and the Capitol and Caves mini expansions

A Big Rio Grande Games Release Update

This week Rio Grande Game posted a release update on their Facebook page. Unfortunately, it looks like Race For the Galaxy: Alien Artifacts has been pushed from two months ago to sometime this spring. Oh well...there are a BUNCH of games to play until then. "December and January have seen the release of several new games from Rio Grande Games. The games we have released are Monster Factory, Power Grid: Northern Europe/UK, Cavemen, A Fool’s Fortune, Spin Monkeys, Tzolk’in, Goblins, Inc, Galaxy Trucker: Another Big Expansion, Galaxy Trucker: Anniversary Edition, Copycat, Unexpected Treasures, Maria, The Doge Ship, Myrmes, and Antike:Duellum.

We have several other new games in the pipeline which we plan to release in February. These include Cinque Terre, Piñata (a rethemed version of Balloon Cup by Stephen Glenn) and Arctic Scavengers.

Later this spring we plan to release Credit Mobilier, Mogul, Dominion:The Guilds, and Race for the Galaxy: Alien Artifacts. We also have planned several reprints for the spring:El Caballero, Tikal, Space Alert, and Space Alert: New Frontier."

I (Firestone) played Tzolk'in on Tuesday, and it was AMAZING. We'll have a full review up next week.

Thanks for reading, and as always you can find and even "Like" us on Facebook. And over on Twitter too!

A Last-Minute Plea for Formula E!

A few weeks ago we told you about a racing game from Game Salute and Clever Mojo games called Formula E. Well, with 6 hours to go on the Kickstarter campaign, they're only $3000 away from funding the game! "You've got games about car races, boat races, bicycle races, sled dog races, and even ostrich races, but there's one type of racing that's missing–Elephant Races! Formula E is here to fill that gap. FORMULA E has a double sided game board–one track is for 3 & 4 players, and the other is for 5 & 6 players. There are six colorful Elephant Meeples included with colors that 'should' be tinted correctly for colorblind friendliness. There are ten Holy Cow Meeples that start the game scattered around the track but can be moved to create obstacles for your competitors. Then there is the Mouse Meeple, which you can use to scare elephants into backing up. As you might guess, there's a lot of 'screwage' potential in a game of FORMULA E–and I haven't even mentioned the Cobras and Monkey's yet!"

So if you're on the fence, make up your mind and consider hopping on board. It looks like a fun little racing game—and racing games are great choices for nongamers and families.

Inconceivable! A Princess Bride Board Game!

Yes, you read that right. The folks over at Game Salute are putting together a board game based on the cult classic The Princess Bride. The game will be a part of Game Salutes Storybuilding line, and will tie into many short/mini games that represent different scenes from the modern fractured fairy tale. Not only that...while they are working with some of their top notch game designers, Game Salute is also accepting your submissions for the project! If you have a game design that you think would represent a scene of the movie you can send it in for their consideration.

Looks like it's time to dust off my old "Rhyming Game" design... Which consists of players trying to end their next statement with a word that rhymes with the last word of the previous player's statement... It's still a work in progress...

You can read the whole announcement from Game Salute, right here.

Thanks for reading this announcement, and don't forget to like us on Facebook, and follow us on Twitter!

Presidential Meeples!

So, a few months ago we reviewed a great little deck builder of presidential proportions called Pixel Lincoln. They're plugging away on production and unfortunately we don't have a release date to report. But they did leak out a photo of the production sample Lincoln Meeples on their Kickstarter page, and I have to say they look AWESOME!

When we reviewed the game it was a print on demand prototype version so we had to use our own tokens to mark our movement in the game.  And a game like this, while it doesn't rely solely on ascetics, it certainly was born of a theme, and having a glimpse of the meeples we can see how they're going to add to the game play experience!

We interviewed Jason Tagmire and President P. Lincoln last year, and you can read it here!

You can also read our full review of Pixel Lincoln here!

And you can check out the Pixel Lincoln website and pre-order your copy right here!

Thanks for reading! Check us out on Twitter, like us on Facebook, and be sure to answer our question of the day! 

What You Missed....

Good Friday everyone! It's that time of the week when we look back on the rest of the week and tell you , what you missed!

Monday's news brought us glad tidings of more Star Wars and more Netrunner from the busy, busy folks over at Fantasy Flight Games!

Tuesday's Review was a Double-Take on one of our favorite kids games - Catan Junior.

Wednesday's Interview was with our very own Scott Firestone IV!

And our Kickstarter Weekly featured the campaign launched by The Dice Tower as they gear up for their ninth season!

As always, we truly appreciate your support; we know people come here and read our posts and we can't even begin to say how cool that is!

Please head over to Facebook and "like" us, and if you have a Twitter machine you can follow us there as well! And if you're a game publisher, designer, artist etc. and would like us to review your game, accessory, or whatever, take a look at how we go about that right here!

Thanks everyone and we'll see you next week!

More Star Wars and More Netrunner!

Fantasy Flight is working overtime! They've announced A Dark Time—the third Force pack for Star Wars The Card Game. As if that weren't enough, they also announced Humanity's Shadow—the fifth Data pack for Netrunner. "With a new Criminal identity, a daring new resource, and unique sysops for the Corporations, Humanity’s Shadow profiles some of the most talented individuals pulling the strings behind the game’s cyberstruggles. New events for the Runners allow you to customize your strategies while the game’s Corporations look to increase their security with a more hands-on approach based upon new operations, talented sysops, traces, and traps."

The Star Wars pack includes assassins from Anzat:

"Long-lived and ruthless, the Anzati are tentacled predators, nearly indistinguishable from humans when their tentacles are withdrawn into their cheeks. Anzati have telepathic powers that grow in strength as they age, and they are frequently sought as highly paid assassins and mercenaries. In standard practice, they stun their prey with a telepathic blast and then feed on their victim’s life essence.

Anzati aren’t naturally evil, but their need to feed on the life essence of other, often sentient, races makes them susceptible to the lures of the dark side, as does the hunger that grows as they age. In Star Wars: The Card Game, the Anzati Elite (A Dark Time, 239) appears as a sleek and stealthy four-cost dark side Character. The Sith excel at manipulating their opponents by making tactical strikes, and the Anzati Elite fits right in with her two [Target] icons and Force Sensitive trait.

Part of the Sith affiliation’s Serve the Emperor objective set, Anzati Elite costs just as much as such iconic light side units as Luke Skywalker and Han Solo, though it has considerably less damage capacity. Nonetheless, the [Target] icon is an incredibly versatile combat icon, both on attack and defense, and the fact that the Anzati Elite has two, neither of which is edge-dependent, means she’ll likely feature prominently in future Sith decks."

Sounds fun to us! Thanks for reading, and don't forget to follow us on Twitter, and Like us on Facebook!

Wizkids Posts an Overview of The Lord of the Rings Dice Building Game!

Wizkids has posted an overview for their newest dice-building title: The Lord of the Rings Dice Building Game. If you're a fan of Quarriors, chances are you're going to want to look into this title as well. The game is said to have a similar feel to the game play of Quarriors, but also contain a few new elements to make it a fresh experience for everyone—including the fact that it's a co-op. And of course, the way-cool Lord of the Rings theme! The co-op aspect sounds pretty cool. The overview describes it this way: "Players alternate taking turns for Sauron and his forces. Sauron’s forces are represented by three sets of “Enemies” dice. Early in the game, players will face the likes of Goblins and Trolls with The Fellowship of the Ring Enemies dice. As players progress in the game, they will encounter tougher foes such as Wargs, Mumakil and Nazgul with The Two Towers Enemies dice & The Return of the King Enemies dice. If players are not able to defeat all of Sauron’s forces before his next turn, they may not advance to the next stage and Sauron gains corruption. Corruption is spread onto the cards on the playfield making the dice associated with these cards useless while corrupted. If too many cards are corrupted, Sauron has conquered Middle-earth and all players lose the game."

You can read our full review of Quarriors here.

While the preorder on Amazon claims that the release date is Feb. 28 of 2013, Wizkids is saying March. At any rate, you can pre-order it on Amazon RIGHT HERE!

12 Realms Heads to Germany

A few weeks ago we told you about the Kickstarter for the 2011 Best Print and Play nominee 12 Realms. Well that campaign was super successful and things stateside are well under way to get the game to market. We just received word today that the game has been brought to the German crowd sourcing site spiele-offensive.de. No, this isn't a site for offensive games; it's basically a German version of Kickstarter.

It seems like a lot of extra effort to go through another campaign and have the game published in two separate countries and in two different languages. But I think that's what's intriguing to me about this situation; Mage Company isn't just taking the easy road. They're doing what they can to get the game into the hands of their fans, and go the extra mile to help them save a little cash in the process. That is customer service that is rarely seen!

You can check out the campaign right here.

And as always thanks for reading, please tell your friends, family, loved ones and even  your worst enemies about us! And don't forget to follow us on Twitter @TheologyofGames and like us on FaceBook!

Z-Man Celebrates 5 Years of Pandemic with a New Edition

Z-Man games announced, on their Web site and Facebook page, a new edition of Matt Leacock's fantastic co-op game, Pandemic. The game features all-new artwork, along with two new Roles: the Contingency Planner and the Quarantine Specialist. The On The Brink expansion has also been redesigned to match the new artwork. The Z-Man page says that for those who own the original game, there will be a compatibility pack that will allow you to play the new edition of On The Brink with your old edition of Pandemic. The last surprise was the hint of a new expansion—called In The Lab, where "you will be transported inside a biotechnology lab in search of a cure. Put your lab coats on and get ready to look for a cure!" My big concern is whether there will be a compatibility pack for this expansion, too.

The new edition hits stores in February, and the On The Brink expansion should follow shortly afterward.

Here's a video of designer Matt Leacock talking about the new game.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=9xYUfVZNXX4]

Sounds great! Thanks for reading!