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News Bits: 8/13/2012

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This week is GenCon, so that’s the biggest news. If you’re not going (like me), you can live vicariously through those who are. And you can be sure that, come next Monday, I’ll have the juiciest tidbits ready for your perusal, with my usual comments, of course.

Oh, and if you will be at GenCon, be sure to track down chief dragon slayer @Futurewolfie…if he isn’t too busy doing all the tasks I’ve assigned to him.

Now: the news.

Dominion, More Dominion, and Even More Dominion
Again, I make no pretense of impartiality here: I love Donald X’s design. I think it’s fantastic. So I was especially excited when he released these five previews of Dark Ages (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)–with another 26 cards awaiting discovery at GenCon! But that’s only one Dominion announcement. The other centers on third-party Dominion apps and websites. As of August 22, all these will close down. (You can see one such announcement on Board Game Arena and another on Isotropic.) On the positive side, the official Dominion app (and online implementation) will be released August 16 for iOS and Android. Details are a bit scant now, but it seems that users will be able to play the base game for free, with additional expansions available as in-app purchases. And according to DXV on BGG, playing with expansions will require only one player to have purchased it. All of this, depending on in-app prices, seems like a pretty good deal to me, and I am super stoked about this.

New Details Revealed for The Resistance: Avalon
Before we teased that a new Resistance expansion would be released. Thank goodness the publisher has given some more details. The new Resistance game will be a standalone game set in Arthurian times. Echoes of Shadows over Camelot, anyone? I don’t care. The Resistance is awesome. You can check out the game’s (barebones) page here, and this discussion, wherein some early players give glowing feedback. I’ll let you know as I find out any new details.

Android: Netrunner Rules Posted
The rules to the hotly anticipated new Living Card Game from Fantasy Flight Games are now available on FFG’s website. This will be available at GenCon. Check it out beforehand to see if it’s worth your while. (It probably is…)

Small World Fans Set No Small World RecordSome gamers from Scotland battled over Small World for the Guinness World Record for longest board game marathon. Their time? Fifty-four hours and 45 minutes. Presumably, the game that held this record before Small World was Monopoly or Chutes and Ladders or something else lame. The record is still awaiting official verification, so there’s plenty of time to level accusations of steroid usage. (But I wouldn’t: they did this for charity.)

Upper Deck Brings Marvel Superheroes to Deck-Building Upper Deck announced a new deck-building game, Legendary, set in the Marvel Universe. According to the announcement, the game should be available before Christmas. Honestly, I love the idea of a superhero deck-building game, and I liked Upper Deck’s Vs. System game, but the design on the preview cards is not appealing at all. I’m sure it will look better in time for the Christmas sales onslaught…?

Small Box Games Keeps It Small

John Clowdus of Small Box Games posted this article on Small Box’s publishing philosophy. It illustrates, once again, that there is room for diversity in this hobby of ours. It also shows that the label “success” is often best defined from the inside.
Kickstarters of Note
  • The Great Fire of London: Four days left on this Kickstarter. $60 gets you the game.
  • The Great Heartland Hauling Co.: This project has hit its funding goal. Now on to stretch goals! $25 buy-in
  • Heroes of Metro City: This is a superhero deck-building game. I’m not terribly excited by it (Sentinels of the Multiverse, while not a deckbuilding game, looks like it has a lot more soul), but I know some readers will be. $50 buy-in.
  • Unexploded Cow: This launches on Tuesday (according to Cheapass Games’ Twitter). This was one of my first hobby games, and it retains a special place in my heart. I don’t have any details on price, but the campaign goes live on Tuesday.
  • I’m the Boss: The Card Game: Some details of this were released following the Gathering of Friends earlier this year. In a newsletter from Eagle/Gryphon Games, they announced that a Kickstarter is coming soon. Definitely worth keeping an eye out for.

Completely Unrelated Awesomeness of the Week
The Olympic Games are now over, but if you’d like a recap of the games, I can offer no better source than the @NBCGold’s Twitter account. Get all of the bad commentary without having to watch any actual sports. My kind of Olympics coverage.

I'll try anything once, but my favorite games are generally middleweight Euros.

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