Over the years, FlamesRising.com has played a number of Munchkin games including Munchkin Cthulhu, Munchkin Bites and Munchkin Bites 2: Pants Macabre, and Munchkin Zombies.

Today, we get to offer you a sneak peek at the latest expansion to classic Munchkin.

Dubbed Munchkin 8 – Half Horse, Will Travel, this is the first expansion in two years and it offers new types of cards for players to use in the game. You’ll find Centaurs and Lizard Guys, two classic fantasy races that finally get a full color Munchkin treatment. You’ll also receive brand new Race and Class Enhancers like the one pictured here!

In November 2011, I took on the role of Marketing Director for Steve Jackson Games. I telecommute, which helps me get a lot more done than I would if I was down in Austin. I recently spent a week down there and talked about my trip when I returned from Austin on my blog. The experience reminded me of working for a restaurant or a newspaper because everything hinges upon product getting out the door in a timely fashion. For a small company with a big reputation, day-to-day operations can get pretty crazy especially when we’ve got a lot of new staff.

This preview and the images were provided with permission from the publisher as part of FlamesRising.com’s continuing coverage of Steve Jackson Games Week. Today, you’ll find images of upcoming Munchkin Games including Munchkin: Axe Cop, Munchkin Zombies 2, Munchin: Conan and a few other Cthulhu-related treats.

From Steve Jackson Games to our dice bags, there will be an attractive plethora of custom and jumbo die this Fall for Cthulhu Dice, Fairy Dust and Munchkin Jolly. One color in particular stood out in our minds. We regard it as watered down red, but you’ll probably look at it and go… Pink? Pink Cthulhu Dice? With SPARKLES? It’s almost as if they know we’ll lose sanity just by picking one of them up. Well, if that doesn’t cause you to go a little insane, the giant foam Cthulhu Dice (pictured above) probably will. Instead of marbles? Think Silly Bandz in the shape of Cthulhu. Oh. My.

Kill the Monster – Steal the Treasure – Stab Your Buddy

To celebrate the Munchkin 10 Year anniversary, FlamesRising.com asked John Kovalic, the main illustrator for this collectible card game, to open up the floor to questions from his fans for this interview. Every question you read here was asked by a fan on John Kovalic’s Facebook page.

In his own words, find out how John works on Munchkin with Steve Jackson Games, what some of his memorable experiences are, and more.

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.

Last week, I was able to sit down with Steve Jackson from Steve Jackson Games and a group of playtesters at ACD Games Day to play a round of the upcoming Munchkin Zombies game.

Having played several flavors of Munchkin, I thought I knew what to expect when we started to play. I couldn’t have been more wrong. You see, I thought this game would be like Munchkin: Cthulhu, where you play humans that have the potential to turn into zombies. Boy, was I off-the-mark! In Munchkin: Zombies you play…a zombie! Immediately, I was struck by how disgusting and wrong the cards were. Class cards cover all the different zombie types from your favorite movies, books and world myths. There are Strong Zombies, Fast Zombies, Plague Zombies — even Atomic Zombies! There’s also also the chance you can pick up different types of zombie Mojo, too, which functions as a special ability.

Plenty of new cards, bad jokes and all, are included in this expansion for the Munchkin Bites card game from Steve Jackson Games. The set we got did not have any additional rules for the game and we did not run into any problems with the new cards (after all the information on the cards usually explains everything you need to know).

Expanding on the jokes in the core box, Pants Macabre has plenty of puns from horror films and horror RPGs (and LARPing). Most of the jokes are fairly predictable, but worth a good laugh if the player manages to add a little style to the delivery.

Munchkins have hacked their way through dungeons, kung fu temples, starships, haunted houses, and super-foes. Now they face their greatest challenge – Cthulhu! Will they survive? Will they retain their sanity? Will they . . . level up?

Munchkin Cthulhu combines the zany comedy of the previous Munchkin games with the oddities of the Cthulhu Mythos created by H.P. Lovecraft and its further developments by other authors and game designers.