Game designer Sandy Petersen returns again to Lovecraftian gaming with a new board game: Call of Cthulhu Terror Paths

Forty years ago Sandy’s roleplaying game Call of Cthulhu was published by Chaosium. It changed the world of gaming and also made the then-obscure writer Lovecraft and his creations (such as Cthulhu) both cultural phenomena.

Now Sandy is back with a new board game inspired by the Call of Cthulhu RPG, and produced under license from Chaosium Inc.

Giochi Uniti and Paizo Inc. will release Pathfinder Arena, a new board game set in the Pathfinder roleplaying game’s fantasy fiction Age of Lost Omens setting. The game will be available through a crowdfunding campaign in 2021.

Pathfinder Arena is a competitive strategy game divided in four stages of challenges between monsters and heroes. In each stage the number and power of monsters increase, while heroes level-up and gather resources to gain new skills, magic spells, equipment and the deities’ favor.

First published in 2000, The Lord of the Rings: The Board Game has been a seminal classic and an iconic tabletop retelling of J.R.R. Tolkien’s trilogy, created by world renowned game designer, Reiner Knizia, and brought to life with the stunning artwork of John Howe. Twenty years later, the game returns to print in a brand-new anniversary edition—a faithful recreation that now includes beautifully sculpted plastic miniatures for the Hobbits, Sauron, the threat die, and the One Ring.

The Lord of the Rings: The Board Game Anniversary Edition is the definitive edition of this classic cooperative board game, challenging you and up to four other players to play through the entire trilogy, from the long darkness of Moria and the ferocious battles beneath the walls of Helm’s Deep, to the shadows of Shelob’s Lair and the dusty grey wastes of Mordor. In every location, you and your fellow Hobbits must push forward, battling the forces of the Dark Lord and marching ever closer to the Cracks of Doom and the destruction of the One Ring. The road is long, the Eye of Sauron is watchful, and the threat of the Ring’s corruption is ever-present. Can you save the Free Peoples of Middle-earth and destroy the One Ring?

Jinkies!, the Mystery Inc. gang is about to face the ultimate betrayal!

Designed by the team behind the critically acclaimed Betrayal Legacy, Betrayal at Mystery Mansion lets players take on the role of Scooby-Doo, Shaggy, Velma, Daphne, and Fred, as they explore the mysterious mansion to find clues, run away from (or toward) scary noises, and maybe even catch sight of a monster. Or was it a g-g-g-g-ghost? Zoinks! Betrayal at Mystery Mansion will be available in stores everywhere on May 15, 2020, the same day the new SCOOB! movie, distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, hits theaters.

15 years ago, the Avalon Hill division of Wizards of the Coast/Hasbro released a board game called Betrayal at the House on the Hill, to little fanfare. It was a game of exploring a classic haunted house, but with a twist: eventually, as the mansion was explored and the tension grew, one player would be […]

Award-winning composers and dark music pioneers Midnight Syndicate have released the Zombies!!! Official Board Game Soundtrack.

The new release features Midnight Syndicate’s signature blend of sound effects and instrumental music set in the modern day, post-zombie apocalypse world of the Zombies!!! board game. “We wanted to design a soundtrack that would not only heighten the Zombies!!! game play experience, but also appeal to all fans of zombies and our friends in the haunted attraction industry,” said Edward Douglas. “I think we were able to achieve that.”

In an exciting team-up certain to rock the cosmos, Toy Vault, Inc. and legendary game designer Richard Borg (Memoir’44, Battle Cry) have joined forces to take you on a new action-packed adventure through the cold depths of space in ABADDON!

It’s the distant future and mankind has taken a galactic leap forward through space, time, and technology. Life as we know it struggles to endure on the ABADDON. Once the home of a mysterious, non-human civilization, the planet is now a desolate wasteland bearing one immensely precious resource: Feronium power crystals. The unimaginable energy contained within the crystals is coveted by two groups of humans: the Satellite City-States and the Commonwealth Alliance. Using giant bio-mech suits called Links, made from modified military vehicles and alien technology; the warring factions fight a weary battle for territorial control of the ABADDON.

In his Foreword, lead author Mike Selinker tells a tale about a rather hot Thai curry, and thus gives an insight into how his mind works. You may or may not like your curry hot, but reading this book will give you an insight into how a whole bunch of successful game designers go about designing games that people will buy and play. If you want to turn inchoate ideas into workable – and saleable – board games, or just want to know a bit more about how your favourite games came to be, and about the underlying concepts that make good games, read on.

The book is made up of four sections, and a mastery of ALL of them is necessary to create a successful game.

Save the town of Blackwood, or drain it dry. The choice is yours.

The once quiet small town of Blackwood has become a battleground. A coven of vampires has crept in under the cover of darkness to drain the very life from its helpless citizens. As powerful as these creatures of legend are, they do not prowl the streets unchallenged. A team of skilled vampire hunters with an arsenal of modern weapons has tracked these bloodsuckers down and the battle for the soul of Blackwood is about to begin.

Bloodsuckers is a highly thematic strategy card game for 2 to 4 players ages 13 and up.

Designed By: Justin De Witt and Anne-Marie De Witt (Creators of the Castle Panic Board Game)

The crew of the exploration ship Znutar just wanted to cruise around the Galaxy, discovering strange new worlds and playing pool. But then their ship was invaded by the Awful Green Things . . . and suddenly they were fighting for their lives!

I recently had the chance to try this game. Amazingly, I had never even demoed the Awful Green Things From Outer Space before. I’d seen it sitting on the shelves of the local game store before and thought it looked like fun. Naturally, I played the role of the alien monsters the first time out, but both sides are just as fun in the end.

Before game play can begin, there’s a little set up involved in this primarily two-player (or two teams) game. First, the Znutar crew has to be placed into different locations on the ship. Then, players need to resolve the starting locations for the Awful Green Things, weapons, etc. Once you’ve played a few times, the set up will go fairly quickly. It took us about five or ten minutes to set up the game the first time we played.

Let’s be honest; who doesn’t love Count Dracula? The cape, the sex appeal, the slick hair, eschewing modern dentistry – he did it all, including upsetting more than a few well-to-do British noblemen. In Van Helsing, one player gets to play the toothy Count, while the remaining one to four players take on the roles of Jonathan Harker, Mina Murray, Lord Godalming and Abraham Van Helsing – the Hunters.

The board is a loose grid of spaces showing three levels of Dracula’s castle. Hunters move around the board looking for Dracula and his brides. The object of the game for them is to destroy five of the eight brides, or destroy Dracula himself if they like doing things the hard way. For the Count, his goal is to either transform all four of the Hunters into his minions or kill them, or to get four of his potential brides to the coffin space in his castle.

ACD Games Day is an annual tradeshow put on by hobby games distributor ACD Distribution LLC that connects retailers with the top publishers. This year’s show was bigger than last year and offered exhibitors and attendees to explore a brand new location in Downtown Madison.

Industry veteran Boyan Radakovich, who is ACD’s new Marketing Manager, had this to say about his first ACD Games Day.

“I wanted to make sure that ACD Games Day had the feeling of a marquee tradeshow. We moved to the beautiful Monona Terrace Convention Center and Hilton Madison for our event programming. We also increased the number of seminars to sixteen total, including key manufacturer seminars like the Wizards of the Coast track, the Mayfair Demo-2-Demo program, and many others.”

Having attended a show the previous year, I could definitely tell the difference between this year’s and last year’s show. This venue was bigger and well laid out. There were demo tables set up with games throughout the hall and there was a lot of attention to detail — included projected exhibitor and sponsor logos above the exhibition hall.

Castle Panic is a cooperative board game where players work together to protect their castle from an invading horde of Orcs, Trolls and their little Goblin minions. These monsters are bent on destroying what the humans have built and have a few nasty tricks up their sleeves to help them batter down the defenses of the castle.

My favorite element of Castle Panic is the teamwork to defend the castle from the attacking monster army. With a little strategy, plenty of communication and often…a little luck, the Heroes can defeat the Monsters with most of the castle intact at the end of the day.

THE STARS ARE RIGHT is a board game produced by Steve Jackson Games. Inspired by the Lovecraft mythos, the object of the game is to “summon” ten points worth of servitors and gods before your opponent.

After playing through the game multiple times, I feel that in order to get a sense for what the game is about, you really need to play through it twice. To set the game up, you place the cardboard stars in rows of five by five, for a total of twenty-five. Each player gets five cards to start; I highly recommend giving each player a Turn Sequence card to help keep the movements straight. On the card there are a series of symbols that are used at different points in the Turn Sequence. There are two types of symbols, primarily. The directional symbols allow you to change the way the board is arranged; the pieces are double-sided so there’s a lot of different variations on how the pieces are set up.

I was destined to be a game geek. Back when I was but a wee Stevie, my folks introduced me to board games early. It was a fun and cheap family oriented activity we’d partake in when we could. My folks were big fans of the classics like Monopoly, Clue, Battleship and Trivial Pursuit while occasionally picking up a new “fad game” here and there like The A-Team, Pac-Man and Frogger.

As I got older and found ways of making my own coin, I started buying my own board games, the kinds that caught my interest more than the rest of the clan. These were games with more strategy and story/themes added to them, many of which you fellow board game geeks might recognize. Titles like Risk, The Omega Virus, Dragon Strike, Nightmare, oh yeah… let’s not forget a personal favorite of mine, HeroQuest and its expansion packs. My love of games in general led me to eventually discover RPG’s, which led me to start attending cons, which in turn opened my eyes to a ginormous cornucopia of gaming opportunities! And I dove in head first.

Madison Games Day 2 is all about the spookier side of gaming. Gamers in and around the Madison, Wisconsin area have a chance to meet new people and play new games. In addition to all the other great games, there will be horror-themed games and events.

We invite everyone in the area (or willing to make the trek) to come and play some games! There will be indie and mainstream roleplaying games, card games, and board games. If you have something you’d like to play, bring it!

Visit MadisonGamesDay.wordpress.com for all the latest information.

Twilight Creations earns the distinction of being the first board game I review. I’ve been familiar with the company since Zombies, moved through When Darkness Comes, and looked forward to their Deadlands release (I didn’t get a chance to play a demo, but I did hover for a little bit while a quartet enjoyed a brief visit to the weird west. Today, I’m reviewing Martians.

Martians is a tile-based board game similar to Zombies. The game is intended for two to six players, ages thirteen and up. I should go ahead and point out that my five-year-old son, a board game enthusiast, wanted to try out this game. After reading the rules and deciding to go with the cooperative version, I told him he could try. Except for reading the cards, he quickly grasped the fundamental concepts of the game. He places little green men and tokens accurately; furthermore, he understood the turn sequence just as well as his dad (who had to sometimes look at the rules).

Flying Frog Productions has only produced two games so far; so far — in my humble opinion — they have two winners. The First, Last Night on Earth, is a zombie survival exercise with real goals to achieve that put Flying Frog on the adventure gaming map. Their most recent title is A Touch of Evil, and fans of the Johnny Depp version of the Legend of Sleepy Hollow will find this game somehow familiar…

Players begin by each choosing one of eight characters to portray. Each character has a score of from one to five in four abilities: Spirit, Cunning, Combat and Honor. Players may increase these scores during the course of the game through a variety of means, and all four abilities will come in to play at some point. In addition, each character also has their own unique ability to give their player a particular advantage.

Fantasy Flight Games (FFG) today announced its scheduled convention appearances for 2009. From Con of the North in the spring to GenCon and Penny Arcade Expo in the summer to Essen Spiele in the fall, FFG will travel the world to show off their newest titles.

For more information, visit the Fantasy Flight Games website at www.fantasyflightgames.com.

Since monsters of various types are pretty much White Wolf Publishing’s stock and trade, it makes sense that they would attempt to diversify their product line to include horror-themed board or card games. One of White Wolf’s offerings, Monster Mayhem, has each player taking on the role of a different classic monster, seeking out victims and devouring those parts of them each fiend finds most delectable.

Players begin by selecting one of the five monsters – Vampire, Werewolf, Mummy, Zombie or Poltergeist – and placing the token for that monster on its starting space. The board is a grid of hexagons, and the players flesh out the city by placing the notable location tiles, either randomly or according to one of several sample layouts provided. Each player then draws three victims from the Victim deck and places that card by their monster’s data card.