We have a bumper News Collider for you this week to hopefully make up for the recent lack of News Colliders.
Within you’ll discover news of awards, team-up, and firings, there’s updates and guesses of great things to come too. So make yourself a cuppa and put your feet up with the very best of board game related news.
Games Workshop and Marvel Team Up to make Warhammer Comics
Actually, that’s pretty much all the details that come with that title. All we do know is we can expect the first issue to hit shelves in Autumn 2020, so expect more news to come along over the next few months. Personally, I harbour a strong hope that they rope Dan Abbnett in to oversee or at the very least pen a story, or several.
Hasbro announce Ms. Monopoly
Hasbro has finally bent to the pressure and released Ms. Monopoly. No longer will the fairer sex be at a disadvanage when playing Monopoly. Gone are the days where they will be punished for simply having an extra pair of chromosomes. Now they will be living large in a game that strives to narrow the boardgame gap where female players will actually earn more money than male players.
On a slightly more serious note, Ms. Monopoly sees properties replaced with inventions realised by women throughout history and is the first time the game has ever been published without featuring Mr Moneypenny on the front cover.
And getting even more serious, as part of the launch of the game Hasbro are awarding young female inventors and entrepreneurs from across the world with a cash payout to help further their work. Naturally, they are giving out $20,580, which is the sum total of money found in a standard version of the game.
Kickstarter United
A little while ago we brought you news of an attempt by staff of Kickstarter to form a Union. Well, it turns out that the idea wasn’t a popular one as the crowdfunding company now sits accused of Union Busting when it fired three members of staff that were heavily involved in the formation of the Union.
According to Taylor Moore, former Head of Comedy and Podcasts, he was offered one months’ pay in exchange for signing a nondisclosure agreement, something he says won’t be doing. No “real” reasons have been offered to these members of staff, Kickstarter has cited “performance issues” which are being refuted.
Reading this you may feel a little uncomfortable continuing to use the crowding funding platform, knowing that a wedge of your money goes to the company. The advice of Kickstarter United currently is to please continue supporting the realisation of projects and their creators. Of course, if that changes, we’ll let you know.
The American Table Top Awards Launches
You'll be forgiven for thinking the newly launched American Tabletop Awards is a new awards body for American publishers. Or American designers. Or that it is judged by Americans (technically, it currently is judged by the committee which is comprised of Americans, but it isn't a requirement for judges) . Nope, the American Tabletop Awards is not specifically any of these things, which, in essence, makes it The [read: Another] Tabletop Awards.
There are 4 categories: Early Gamers, Casual Gamers, Strategy Games, and Complex Games. But really, the most important thing about these new awards are the committee members, who "...strongly believe that the selection committee for the ATTAs needed to strongly reflect that diversity and be an inclusive organization.”
The principal qualification a game needs to be in the running to win this award is for it to be printed in English and...nope, that's it, just be suitable for English readers.
Juego Del Ano Award Nominees Announced
The JDA, which is the Spanish Game of the Year award, has recently announced the finalists for games released in Spain in 2019. The five finalists are, Cryptid, El Dorado, Inis, Manhattan and Optimus with a further 15 recommended games.
The winner will be announced during the XIV International Games Festival Córdoba on 12th October.
BGG Mechanism Update
Hot on the heels of the odd and community splitting new logo, Board Game Geek are making another sizable change. Finally, they are updating their list of board game mechanics.
In a blog post on the site, Scott Alden covers the how, the why of this and offers BGG users the opportunity in participating in the recategorization of the extensive back catalogue of games.
In short, the move is heavily influenced by the book buy Geoff Engelstein and Isaac Shalev; Building Blocks of Tabletop Game Design: An Encyclopedia of Mechanisms which lists nearly 200 mechanics broken up into 13 categories.
Don’t expect this to happen overnight but soon you’ll be able to sort by and find all the Roll & Write games you could ever want!
Something big is coming for Dungeons & Dragons (probably)
Over the last few months Wizards of the Coast have released a slew of new subclasses as part of their Unearthed Arcana. In and of itself this isn’t especially exciting unless you’re the type of gamer who wants to get involved with the shaping of these game additions. What is striking though is the amount of continual releases.
August saw the release of the Barbarian Primal Path feature: Path of the Wild Soul and the Monk got a new Monastic Tradition feature with the Way of the Astral Self .
In September The Aberrant Mind was released as a new Sorcerous Origin and the Warlock gained access to a new Otherworldly Patron feature in the Lurker in the Deep. The College of Eloquence opened it’s door to Bards everywhere too and the best Class of all, the Paladin, can now take a Sacred Oath of Heroism (which is ridiculously cool).
Most recently, the Wizard, Cleric and Druid all received new subclasses with the very Patrick Rothfuss Onomancy, the magic of true names for the Wizard, the Cleric’s Twilight Domain, the Druidic Circle of Wildfire.
With only the Fighter, Ranger and Rogue to go I think we’re in for a new D&D supplement soon.
Our guess is that this is all leading to another rules book, in the same vein of Xanathar’s Guide to Everything.
Wendy’s Release a Tabletop RPG
Wendy’s, the American burger restaurant, has released it’s very own tabletop roleplaying game. The Feast of Legends, which is a free to download 97 page rule book and campaign is exactly that, a whole new game ready to play and enjoy. As a British man that has never set foot in a Wendy’s it’s hard to get my head around how truly odd this news is. I mean, I know it’s odd, I just can’t really capture HOW odd. I mean I can’t really imagine a Little Chef or Greggs RPG, can you?
If you fancy giving it a go, please be sure to let us know your thoughts on the game.
New Crowdfunding Platform Launches
LOOT LAUNCHER is a new crowdfunding platform that was launched during the New York Comic Con, which as the name might suggest is a platform much like Kickstarter or Indigogo, except for Loot Box style projects.
There aren’t too many projects running currently, there’s a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 30th Anniversary Loot Box and WizKids have curated a Board Game Loot Box and another for Dungeon Masters too.
The fact that WizKids and Kidrobot are owned by NECA who also bought The Loot Company out of bankruptcy last month should go a long way to explain why those are the only companies currently using the platform but it does raise the question of whether it will still be around at Christmas and if more established platforms such as Kickstarter will soon start seeing publisher specific Loot Boxes...
Games Workshop Released its first Action Figure
Back in May we brought you news of the Games Workshop and Bandai team up from the Shizuoka Hobby Show to create action figures based on the huge canon of Warhammer and 40K characters. Finally pre-orders are open for the 8 inch Adeptus Astartes Space Marine, featuring 50 points of articulation and even comes with a display box and all for just £75
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