It's the magnificent return of the News Collider! Back by no demand whatsoever, but I know you've been wanting it, so here it is.
The thumb has been pulled from the arse and I've rounded up the best bits of board gaming news from around the internet, plus a little tidbit about Monopoly.
UK Games Expo Visitor Figures
A fantastic turn-out for the UK Games Expo this year with 10,671 unique visitors and 18,430 repeats. This is down 49% on 2019, back when everything was normal, but an incredible amount of people turned up over the extra-long Platinum Jubillee weekend – mainly, I think on Friday! [edit] 23,163 unique visitors and 39,527 - which is only slightly down on the pre-pandemic figures!
This currently makes the UK Games Expo the largest physical hobby games show in the world!
#Ramshackle
Dragonmeet Tickets Available
On the subject of conventions, the tickets for Dragonmeet in Hammersmith, London on the 3rd December have just gone on sale.
Dragonmeet, in my experience, has a lot of RPG gaming going on, but there are still plenty of board games to play and well worth checking out.
You can get your tickets here.
Asmodee owner raising $1.05 Billion
Embracer Group, which acquired Asmodee (along with Dark Horse Comics and Square Enix) in the last few months have raised a further $1.05 billion from Savvy Gaming Group – which invests funds on behalf of the Saudi Arabian Government.
This influx of cash represents approximately 8% of total shares with 5% of votes with Embracer.
Lars Wingefors (Embracer Group CEO) said: "Savvy Gaming Group’s investment of $1B enables us to continue executing our strategy proactively from a position of strength across the global gaming industry," – so expect big, big things.
But wow! A one Billion dollar investment!
Terra Nova
The brilliant game Terra Mystica is getting a new, streamlined version: Terra Nova, with new art, components and gameplay. 10 asymmetric factions to choose from as you build up your civilisation in “peaceful completion” – if you’ve played Terra Mystica you’ll know that it’s only peaceful on the board, there’s a lot of name-calling around my table when I play.
Details about “how streamlined” this new version is are still quite sketchy, we do know they’ve removed the workers and temples from the game though so that hints at the scale of the game.
Pre-orders will open soon from Capstone Games for the UK edition with a release date of 26th October.
Splendor Duel
Another game that’s getting a streamlined reimplementation is the classic gateway game: Splendor. Splendor Duel with Bruno Cathala (who did one of my favourite games: 7 Wonders Duel) behind the design along with Marc André is positioning itself as “being a bit more complex, dynamic, interactive, rich, tense, and mean” whilst retaining the main gameplay mechanics. Planned to be released in November 2022.
Colour me very interested…
No More T-Rex in Monopoly
I didn’t even know that you could play as a T-Rex in the current edition of Monopoly, but it turns out you can, but not for long. Hasbro held a poll on their website to find out which classic piece should return and which should leave. Overwhelmingly, the T-Rex was voted out, and the Thimble is back.
I also didn’t know you could play as a penguin in the current edition, and I’m very thankful for this. Is this really “board game news”? Well, I’m only really telling you this as it might turn up in this week’s pub quiz – let me know if it does.
PHC Painting Competition
Steve had a belting idea, let’s do a PHC painting competition. We’ll all pick the same mini at the UK Games Expo and paint it up for a public vote. If you’d like to keep up to date with our progress painting this beauty for Atlantis Miniatures/Blue Giant Studios make sure you follow us on Instagram, Facebook and the cesspit that is Twitter.
And if you have any ideas what prize the winner should get, let us know that too.
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