This week’s News Collider is brought to you with the letter “i”.
Investments, imprints, implementations, irony, insemination and fun make up this week’s board game news.
Asmodee launches Fiction Imprint Aconyte
Goliath boardgame publisher and distributor, Asmodee, will be launching a new fiction imprint in early summer 2020. The focus will be on publishing novels based on their game extensive game catalogue and then third-party tie-in fiction.
Marc Gascoigne, former MD of Angry Robot will be at the helm as they bring you possible Pandemic, Catan, and Ticket To Ride titles. Could we maybe even see books based on Arkham Horror - that would be...interesting at least.
Zombizide the video game
Last week, Asmodee Digital launched the official Zombicide adaptation (available on both Android and iOS). This is a single-player, squad based RPG adventure made up of 40 missions where players will encounter all types of zombies like Wakers, Fatties and Abominations.
Charterstone the video game
Acram Digital, the folks behind the digital implementations of Istanbul have signed an agreement to bring Charterstone to Steam, Switch, iOS and Android some time in 2020. Andy mused over the legacy format in a recent blog post and both he and Steve talked at length about this particular game recently on the podcast too.
Can the permanence of ripping cards up and putting stickers down translate into a digital format? Will it still be a legacy game, or something else? We’ll have to wait for more details and maybe to even try it ourselves. Jamey Stegmaier is working closer with the developers to ensure the game stays true to his vision, but can you really still have a legacy vision and a restart button?
Can the permanence of ripping cards up and putting stickers down translate into a digital format? Will it still be a legacy game, or something else? We’ll have to wait for more details and maybe to even try it ourselves. Jamey Stegmaier is working closer with the developers to ensure the game stays true to his vision, but can you really still have a legacy vision and a restart button?
Alderac Publish Fewer New Games
A recent blog post by John Zinser, on the AEG website swept through the gaming community explaining why the company behind games like Mystic Vale, Smash Up and Istanbul, are vowing to publish fewer new games. The simple reason behind the change from lots of “good” games to one or two great games is neaty attributed and summed up in just one word. FUN.
“I strongly believe that the more fun you have making games, the better the games you will make.”
In the last few years AEG has sold off some of its titles and also taken to Kickstarter for new titles, the plan is that these sales and fundraising efforts will put the company in a very strong position to focus on is puts them in a position to be able to focus on expanding their existing catalogue and that:
“Every game is treated like it must succeed and we are fighting for each game to get more than its day in the sun”
Tiny Towns, which (Steve, Andy and Jon enjoyed playing at City of Games) is the first game on this path.
Aliens RPG
The Swedish publisher, Free League Publishing, who have so far brought us Tales from the Loop and Mutant: Year Zero have acquired the rights to produce an RPG based on the Alien film franchise. The game will use a very similar system to tat found in tAles from the Loop that has been modified slightly to capture the horror essence that is part of the fabric of the IP. The game will be playable in two “modes”: Cinematic Play” games are built as one-shot stories that play in a single sitting and follow the major beats of an Aliens type film. “Campaign Play” is the more typical RPG style of game.
We don’t even have a rough idea as when we can expect to see these core books but I’m really interested to see how they manage polymorph combinations.
Is this the end of Plaid Hat?
Over the course of two consecutive days last week Plaid Hat announced the end of one of their games and the...well, termination of another (I know “end” and “termination” mean more or less the same thing but I wanted to dramatically differentiate them). Now, this doesn’t mean the end of the publishing company, not by a long stretch, but, one does have to wonder why.
First off, Guardians Retribution expansion pack has been inexplicably canned. Could it be because no bugger even knows of or plays Guardians? Possibly.
The following day, the publisher announced that Ashes, Rise of the Phoenixborn has come to it’s (ironic) end with the final expansion decks: the Grave King and the Protector of Argaia.
This could just be some very sensible decision making going on here, rounding off a game instead of just rehashing and releasing expansion after expansion like Dominion or Carcassonne. Or, it could be something more serious...I guess a lot rides on their next game: Super Punch Fighter.
This could just be some very sensible decision making going on here, rounding off a game instead of just rehashing and releasing expansion after expansion like Dominion or Carcassonne. Or, it could be something more serious...I guess a lot rides on their next game: Super Punch Fighter.
Oh dear.
Steamforged Games Investment
Steamforged Games, you know, the ones who still haven’t delivered on the Dark Souls Kickstarter yet. Well, they’ve just had a huge cash injection in the region of £5 million from a private equity manager. The equity deal comes with the added attachment of one Mr Ian Livingstone, the co-founder of Games Workshop, who will join the board of directors.
Steamforged has 8 new titles planned for release over the next two years and hopefully, hopefully, the end of Dark Souls.
Shadowborne
Finally, we have a little puzzle for you.
Can you solve this riddle?
Submit your answer to shadowborne-games.com and you'll uncover more about this dark and Gothic game from new indie publisher, Shadowborne Games
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