Archive for Andrea Ligabue
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Andrea Ligabue
Italy
Modena
Italy
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Here I am with another round-up of news from Italy:
Ares Games: Aztlàn, an Euro-style game from Leo Colovini
Ares Games announces its debut in the Eurogame category with the upcoming board game Aztlán, created by the Italian game designer Leo Colovini and scheduled for release in the fourth quarter of 2012.
The game had previously been announced in 2010 as the second title in the "Designer Series" from Nexus Games, following Faidutti and Laget's Ad Astra.
Aztlán is a strategy game with bluffing and challenging mechanisms, for 3 to 4 players, set in the mythical land of Aztlán, ancestral home of the Nahuatl (Aztec) people. In Aztlán, four tribes strive to survive and prosper under the scrutiny of the Aztec Gods themselves.
From the publisher's game description: The game develops over five different epochs, with each divided into four phases. Players try to conquer the largest realm, using an intriguing and highly interactive mechanism. In each epoch, the tribes have uneven and secret strengths, so a player's strategy must be based on intuition and bluff. When winning a conflict, you are faced with the difficult choice between eliminating your enemies, or deciding to co-exist with them. Peaceful co-existence brings the opportunity to develop your own civilization and gain future advantages, but can you trust your opponent?
In a press release announcing the title, Christoph Cianci, CEO of Ares Games, said, "We are very happy to publish Aztlán. This will enrich our catalog with a great Euro-style game from Leo Colovini, one of the most renowned Italian game designers. It's an easy to learn game system, but with a deep strategy, which will please different players' profiles."
Game development is at an advanced stage, and Ares Games plans to release Aztlán at Spiel 2012, which takes place October 18-21 in Essen, Germany.
Ares Games: Details of Micro Monsters
I was able to get a preview copy of the international edition of Micro Monsters from Ares Games, and comparing it to previous editions of the design – that is, X-Bugs and Micro Mutants: Evolution – Micro Monsters is much simpler and more oriented toward play with kids and families. The four races differ only in their graphics and in the special power that's activated by one face of the single die.
During your turn, you roll the die and move the displayed monster. You have three different kinds of pieces: small round ones, big round ones, and rectangular ones.
The game is much more of a dexterity game than it was before, but it's really fun for families and kids. (Within a few days of receiving this preview copy, I had played it more than ten times with my son and his friends!)
Mücke Spiele: AstroNuts from Angelo Porazzi
Since I know Angelo Porazzi very well, thanks to his greatest design (Warangel) and to his presence at most of the Italian gaming events with Area Autoproduzione – an area for self-publishers to show of their creations – I'm going to let him say a little about AstroNuts, an almost unknown design published by Mücke Spiele and first presented at PLAY: The Games Festival in Modena in March 2012.
Quote: AstroNuts is a game in which you have to colonize the Galaxy to discover the "Nuts", the colored resources on the planets.
You can improve the technology of your fleet, meet Aliens, attack other players' colonies, and buy new ships...controlling the actions you have each turn.
The game art is also by Angelo, who started drawing the fighting fantasy warriors that you see in Warangel back in 1986! For the 2012 release AstroNuts, you have a more cartoonish "AstroNut" piloting his funny astroship while another ship is dogfighting as in a scene from Star Wars, a third ship is crashing in asteroids, and a mellow alien has discovered a ganja nut...
I've played the preview copy I got from the designer with my kids, and it's a real family/kids game with a lot of luck and interaction. To start your turn, you figure out how many actions you have by choosing a number from 1 to 6, then rolling the die. If you roll that number or higher, you receive two times as many action points as your declared number; otherwise you receive just the rolled number. With actions you can move, collect resources, colonize planets, attack, build new starships or research. Planets have 2-3 resources in different colors. Landing on a planet forces you to roll for a random effect on a 36-line table, something that brings to mind the random tables in the old Task Force Games.
iPad/iPhone Game News
• Designer Spartaco Albertarelli announced that he's working on an iPad version of Magnifico. More details in the next "News from Italy" round-up.
• Dario de Toffoli announced that Studiogiochi and iNigma are working on an iPad version of Inkognito, which which was designed by Leo Colovini and Alex Randolph.
Game Releases
• Asterion Press released Dobble, the Italian version of Spot It!
• Giochi Uniti released Olympicards by Paolo Mori.
• Stratelibri released the Italian version of the new edition of 1830.
• Play Strong released Play Ultras, which is *ahem* "only for radicals".
Italian Masters 2012
Quote: 25.308 points, 907 minutes of play, 68 gamers, 17 team, 7 games, 6 referees, 2 games of play, 1 winner: game
That's the data from the Italian Masters 2012, Italy's greatest board game competition which qualifies the team for the European Championship. Details of the event are on the website.
Tue May 22, 2012 12:39 pm
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Andrea Ligabue
Italy
Modena
Italy
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While most of my writing on BGG News has been game previews, this post is my first periodical round-up of what's happening in Italy. In such posts, I'll mostly focus on things that could be interesting for all BGG users (i.e., previews, interviews, new releases), but sometimes I'll include news about the Italian localization of games or gaming events in Italy.
Ares Games: Micro Monsters
The first family game from Ares Games arrives in stores starting April 30th: Micro Monsters from Francesco Nepitello and Marco Maggi, a funny dexterity game that's a revised edition of the old great X-Bugs! Here's a game summary:
Quote: Four armies of alien micro-monstrosities clash in a challenge to the last jump, fighting to close their rival monsters’ dimensional gates in an exciting contest of strategy and dexterity.
Micro Monsters presents four armies of horribly cute little aliens, each of them with special powers: the green, reptile-like wheeled Autogators; the bossy, brass-bolted Bigbears; the fuzzy, free-floating Finbacks; and toxic, tremor-triggering Turboturtles. A match between two players can be played under fifteen minutes, while three or four players’ games last no more than half an hour on average.
Albe Pavo: from Sake & Samurai to Beer & Vikings
After the success of Sake & Samurai and an expansion released during PLAY: The Games Festival, Albe Pavo's next release will be Beer & Vikings, a standalone game that will also be fully compatible with Sake & Samurai. Here's extra info about the new release that I was able to get from Matteo Santus, the game's designer.
1. As in real life, the effect of beer will differ from the effect of sake.
2. Vikings, as you might expect, will not be able to use iado but will become berserker with different effects.
3. The game will include funny Valhalla cards, a new add-on that could also be integrated with S&S. The cards will include Unloved Valkyrie, The Ticket for Valhalla, Fenrir's Fur, and the Drakkar in flames, something that shouldn't be missed from any Vikings' story.
4. The game will include new weapons, such as a battle axe that can also be thrown.
5. Moving will include the rules for charging, something Vikings are used to.
6. All the cards will differ from those in Sake & Samurai, both in theme and in effects.
7. Vikings will have new abilities.
All in all, this might be enough to consider Beer & Vikings a new game.
Albe Pavo: Winter Tales
I have an early version of the rules for Winter Tales in hand: 37 pages for the Italian version. The game genre is along the lines of Fabula, mixing boardgame elements with storytelling elements. The first six pages describe the setting and the character backgrounds, helping to set the right mood.
The players will be divided in factions: Spring (Fairy Tales), Winter (Soldiers of Autumn), and the Writer. Spring and Winter will fight along three Memories, and the Writer wins if the conflict ends with no winners or losers. Each player will control 2-4 of the 14 characters depending on the number of players. Each character – including Alice, Pinocchio, and Snow White (in a new dress you're not used to seeing) – has a deep background and special abilities. The game board displays the village with its plazas and streets, and locations have different effects on the game.
Missions are displayed on the game board, with players trying to use "narration cards" to resolve these missions. The rules about how cards are used, how missions are resolved, and how resolved missions are used to create Memories that influence the continuation of the game look really fine and seem to mix well both storytelling and "regular" gaming.
When the game is close to being finished, I'll be back with a full preview.
Cranio Creations: Sheepland
Cranio Creation has announced its July 2012 release: Sheepland by Simone Luciani and Daniele Tascini for 2-4 players.
After going through the rules, I think Sheepland looks like a nice easy-to-learn game. During your turn, you can do three actions choosing between moving the shepherd, moving a sheep, or buying a terrain tile. Moving the shepherd to an adjacent space is free, while moving elsewhere costs money. You also have to place a fence in the space you move from, and since you can't enter a terrain already occupied by a fence, you have to think carefully about when and where to move.
You can move a sheep from a space adjacent to your shepherd to another space adjacent to him.
You can buy a terrain tile of one of the terrain type adjacent to you.
In the end, you'll score points according to the terrain tiles you have and the number of sheep occupying this kind of terrain. A black sheep worth two points moves randomly during the game.
The game looks intriguing. If I'm able to grab a preview copy, I'll be back with a more detailed preview.
Ghenos Games: Wild
Ghenos Games has just published Wild Oltrenatura, a game based on the television series of the same name, and like that series, game play is based on extreme environments like Kenya's savanna, Namibia's desert, Colombia's jungle, and Alaska's forests and ice.
The object of the game is to meet as many animals as possible and, of course, to survive in the different extreme environments. Wild Oltrenatura, which includes rules in both Italian and English, looks like a family game, with the game being recommended for 2-4 players, ages 8 and up.
During your turn, you have to decide whether to move 1-3 spaces (consuming water and energy) to receive an animal card or special natural resource benefits, feed (discard an animal card to get energy back), or rest (to recover one energy, water or health). Players can challenge opponents to take over their animal cards, and the game ends as soon as one player has explored all four environments.
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Andrea Ligabue
Italy
Modena
Italy
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PLAY: The Games Festival – which takes place March 24-25, 2012 in Modena, Italy – has more than 15,000 square meters dedicated to games, with hundreds of tables available for open play. More than three hundred events are scheduled, along with sixty tournaments and many conferences, workshops and meetings.
Nearly all of the Italian game publishers will be in attendance, showcasing their recent releases while previewing titles to be released later in 2012. Here's a list of publishers scheduled to be at PLAY along with what they'll be featuring:
-----• Albe Pavo – Winter Tales, Birra & Vichinghi, and the new Ninja Pack for Sake & Samurai
-----• Alex Games – Socc'mel and Socc'mel 2
-----• Angelo Porazzi Games – the complete line from designer Angelo Porazzi
-----• Asterion Press – the Italian edition of A Few Acres of Snow which includes a special card designed by Martin Wallace, Hyperborea (preview), and many other games
-----• Cranio Creations – 1969 and Pimp My Park
-----• DastWork – I Signore dei Draghi
-----• Distric Games – Warage and expansions
-----• Dynamix Italia – Telendar
-----• Editrice Giochi – Picchiatello, Scarabeo nel Pallone, Scarabeo Flash
-----• Ghenos Games – Sword (prototype), Lupin the Third, Leader 1: Hell of the North, Lamborghini, Jurassik, Sherlock
-----• Giochi Uniti – many games including Battlestar Galactica and Il Segno degli Antichi
-----• Giochix – previews of Gladiatori and CO2, Upon a Salty Ocean and The Forgotten Planet
-----• LEGO – Star Wars: Battle of Hoth, City Alarm, Kokoriko, and Mini-Taurus
-----• Oliphante – the new edition of Ghosts by Alex Randolph and a preview of Movie Trailer
-----• Play Strong – Play Ultras
-----• Red Glove – Monster-Falle, Micro Monsters, Fuori di Rotella, Wings of Glory
-----• Sir Chester Cobbelpot – Collapsible D: The Final Minutes of the Titanic
-----• Winterlair – Ninja Shadow Forged
In addition to the publishers listed above, designers on hand at PLAY will include Andrea Angiolino, Francesco Nepitello, Leo Colovini, Andrea Chiarvesio, Dario de Toffoli, and Pierluca Zizzi, with special non-Italian guests: Martin Wallace, Mac Gerdts, Andrew Sheerin and Ignacy Trzewiczek.
If you are intested in information about this year's PLAY or the next one - scheduled for April 6-8, 2013 – please contact me at info@play-modena.it. You can also download a more detailed presentation (PDF) of what will take place at PLAY in just a few days.
Good play and best wishes,
Liga
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Andrea Ligabue
Italy
Modena
Italy
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Some days ago, I was lucky enough to be contacted by "Cielo d'Oro", an Italian design group, asking me to playtest the new game they are going to propose to publishers at Spiel 2011. I was so impressed by this new game that I asked whether they had already designed something and discovered that they are the design team behind Aquileia, the winner of the 2010 Premio Archimede, that being Italy's greatest award for unpublished games and new designers. Here's the summary of that game from the Studiogiochi website:
Quote: If you think that modern life is complicated, try to find your way between the market, the arena, the stadium, the theatre and the forum of ancient Aquileia.
I was also surprised to find almost nothing about this game online – despite it being a Spiel 2011 release from Zoch Verlag – so I decided to send a few questions to Cielo d'Oro's Giorgio Villa and write this preview. Let's start with a slightly longer summary of game play and the game's setting:
Quote: Each player, representing a wealthy Aquileian patrician, owns a certain number of henchmen (pawns) whom he uses for the main activities: playing, gaining culture, trading, and building. Each activity can bring expenses, earnings and sometimes victory points. The game lasts six rounds, and the player with the most victory points wins.
Aquileia, the second most important city of the Roman Empire, had been originally founded as an outpost against the Barbarian invaders. From its military origin comes the peculiar quadrilateral structure divided by the main streets.
Later, the city developed to become an important political and cultural center and a prosperous trading city, especially for precious goods, thanks to its convenient and efficient river port. Important monuments such as the Gladiator Arena, the horse-racing Stadium, and the famous theater were built, as well as craftsmen's workshops and patrician villas, which completed the architectural network of the city.
Andrea Ligabue: Aquileia, your first design, was the winner of the last edition of Premio Archimede. Can you tell us the story of Aquileia?
Giorgio Villa: Aquileia is not our first design. We have been inventing games since ten years ago, and sometimes we had already come close to publication. We had visited the Nürnberg fair and the Essen fair a few times, bringing our ideas, learning from our contacts with the publishers (we got to know most of them) and playing the most acclaimed games.
We had already participated twice in the Premio Archimede, always qualifying as finalist. In 2008 we got tenth place with Expo; in 2006 we got fourth and 14th with Tiago and Calderone.
Other games were tested and unfortunately not accepted by the biggest German publishers.
Aquileia is somehow the "summa" of all our experiences. The setting was chosen after a visit to the archeological site of Aquileia, that inspired the creative minds in our group.
Aquileia prototype
Liga: "Cielo d'Oro" is a collective name. Who are the designers behind this name?
Giorgio: We are all friends since fifty years ago when we were classmates in the elementary school of our town, Saronno.
• Pier Volonté: the promoter and designer. He is the "Yin". He has the idea.
• Giorgio Villa: the public relations man. He has the words.
• Chicco & Gigi Tramezzani: "the sponsors". Providing commitment and support, but no cash!
• Stefano Fontana: the artist and designer. He is the "Yang". He gives a shape to "the idea".
• Mario Biscella: the old, wise guy. He cools down the "Yin" and the "Yang".
• Ercole Telazzi: the workshop apprentice.
• Renato Borgatti: the professional tester
The story begins ten years ago with a little child who did not sleep and her dad (Pier) who designed his first game to keep her awake. The experiment worked, so Pier created another game and then another, and another, and another! He needed some friends to test his creations and there we were.
The story continues with hundreds of nights spent playing and arguing (as only friends can afford to do) and with the shared commitment of publishing games, sooner or later!
By the way: "Cielo d'Oro" was the name of a weird stage character played by Pier thirty years ago. What does it mean? Who knows? The crazy comedy was entirely written, produced, acted and directed by all of us – but that is another story.
Liga: Can you tell something about the game? Is it a gamer's game or a family game?
Giorgio: It's a gamers game, but in our opinion it's also a game that can be easily enjoyed by "non-gamers". There is a lot of interaction, fun and strategy at the same time.
We think that one of the main features of this game is that it's made of many games in the same game. The "strategic" gamer can build his strategy balancing his strength and his participation in the different areas of the game, while the "amateur" player can enjoy the fun of the competition. The presence of dice in certain areas allows the non-gamers to compete with the most "professional" players with a chance to win.
Actually one of the nicest sides of the game is that you have the chance to win until the end; you are never cut out of the competition to win.
Liga: Which games have inspired you in the design of Aquileia?
Giorgio: As we said before, Aquileia is somehow the "summa" of all our experiences. There are ideas inspired from many games, and it would be hard to name any of them. In the end, we prefer to think that this game is an original, very original compilation of the best ideas and mechanisms in the game market.
Liga: Is there something special in Aquileia that you want to tell us about?
Giorgio: I think that what makes Aquileia special is already written in the above paragraph. While being an outsider in the game market, we honestly think we have created a very playable and amusing game which hopefully will open more doors for us in the game inventor environment!
Game board
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Andrea Ligabue
Italy
Modena
Italy
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I was curious to learn more about Upon a Salty Ocean – being released by Italian publisher Giochix.it at Spiel 2011 – because I know the designer, Marco Pranzo.
At the first PLAY: The Games Festival in Modena, Italy in 2010, he won a contest by designing a special game with Moonghs, the characters from Martin Wallace's Moongha Inavders that are also the mascots of PLAY. The game was simple as it was constrained by the promo cards available at the event, but Marco's skills were already evident. So I did the reasonable thing and asked him for more details.
Marco sent me images of the early stages of the game board and they show the evolution of the game up to when Giochix.it started work on it.
Liga: Please, Marco, tell us how you got the idea for this game and what is new in it?
Marco Pranzo: I got the idea for this game reading the book Fish on Friday by Brian Fagan. In the book the author explains the importance of fish and salt in the history of Europe. Due to religious norms there were several days in the year when it was forbidden to eat meat. Therefore there was a demand for fish and the main way to store it for long periods of time was to have it salted. At the time ships left the harbors loaded with salt in order to be able to process fish directly on board.
Prototype game boards, versions 1 and 2
What I found interesting is that incidentally the high demand of fish pushed for an improvement of naval technology and the development of new ships such as caravels and carracks, and in the end this made possible the discoveries of the Americas by Columbus and the Great Banks of Newfoundland by Cabot.
The game is a classical German-style resource management game with a tight integration between mechanisms and theme. Actions require money and the cost is incremental because it grows every time that action is performed.
Prototype game board, version 6
Liga: Can you explain in more detail how the game works?
MP: The players are rich merchants in Rouen. At the time Rouen was the main French harbor, and one of the main activities was to fish in the ocean. The players have to accumulate money as after the fifth turn, the King of France, Francis I, arrives in the city and the richest merchant will be declared the winner.
However, the coins are also used to take actions, so the players have to find a trade-off between accumulating money and spending money for doing actions. There are four types of actions:
1. Navigation: A player can either move ships from Rouen to the sea and fish for cod or herring, or move a ship back to Rouen.
2. Harbor: A player can either build a ship or load them with salt.
3. Market: A player can either sell their fish and salt to the market, or to buy them from the market and store them for later.
4. City: A player can either build a building in the city – with buildings providing bonuses, special abilities and additional points at the end of the game – or build a salt mine.
The cost of the actions increases each time during a round that any player uses that type of action. What's more, the price of the goods is influenced by other market actions and by events. Hence it is important to sell at the right moment.
Liga: It looks a gamer's game – is it?
MP: Upon a Salty Ocean is mainly a game for gamers, but it is not too complex.
Nearly final game board
For more details, read the longer game description on the game's BGG page or download the rules, which are available in various languages on the Giochix.it website.
Wed Oct 12, 2011 10:00 pm
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Andrea Ligabue
Italy
Modena
Italy
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Dungeon crawl games – that is, games in which players fight monsters and collect treasure in an underground lair – have taken many forms over the years, and in keeping with the spirit of its previously released light party games Horse Fever and Monkey See Monkey Do, Italian publisher Cranio Creations is putting its own spin on the genre with Dungeon Fighter.
Dungeon Fighter can best be described as a dexterity-based dungeon crawl game, and while the 2010 release Catacombs could also fit that description, Catacombs used an as-serious-as-you-want-it-to-be approach by using wooden disks that players had to flick during play. Sure, flicking a wood disk is not inherently serious, but you can still imagine yourself drawing back an arrow and looking down the shaft at a target be you launch the disk.
Not so in Dungeon Fighter, which leans toward the silly end of the dexterity scale.
But first, let's get an overview of the game. In Dungeon Fighter, you play a hero who will explore a dungeon with the other members of his party, facing off against the monster hordes infesting the various rooms. The dungeon is randomly created by combining two adventure maps with one boss map, with each map showing various corridors and rooms. Only through steady applications of skill and courage will a party be able to face off against the final dungeon boss – not to mention have a chance to defeat it.
An additional difficulty is that the team must agree how to move the party each turn, or else the leader will decide on his own and drag everyone else with him.
In each room, players will face a monster and to fight off this beast players must throw one or more dice onto the monster's card. Yes, when you're trying to hit a monster in this dungeon, you're really trying to hit it!
How are the monsters represented? Similar to a game of darts, each monster card has five concentric zones with increasing numbers from the edge to the center (1-5), with the number equalling the amount of damage that the player will inflict on a monster while fighting. The cards also include four "Missed Shot" zones (which always count as a miss), four "Critical Hit" zones that cause six points of damage when struck, and (of course) the center of the target, which inflicts ten points of damage when hit.
Heroes try to defeat a monster using the dice available to them at that time. The party starts with three basic dice, and throughout the adventure players can earn more dice that offer additional skills. Some faces on the dice display special icons that can activate special powers on a Hero's information sheet.
As you might expect from a dungeon crawler, all the familiar material is present: equipment, the aforementioned special powers, big bosses who await at the end of the dungeon.
A hero can be knocked out at most three times, with each time spent unconscious causing a scar – with the "scar" after the third knockout being removal from play. Maybe next time, Hero!
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Andrea Ligabue
Italy
Modena
Italy
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Lupin III was probably one of the best cartoons I watched during my childhood, so I was happy when I learned that Italian publisher Ghenos Games would be publishing a board game that will bring Jigen, Goemon and Fujiko to the table!
For those not familiar with the series, Lupin is a "gentleman thief" who announces what he plans to steal, then goes for his target with the assistance of the marksman Jigen, the swordsman Goemon, and his love interest (and sometime rival) Fujiko Mine. They would constantly be chased by Inspector Koichi Zenigata, who loved the chase more than anything else – even to the point of hoping Lupin and his gang would free themselves on the rare occasions they were captured.
In Lupin the Third by designer Pierluigi Frumusa, you get to play one of these five characters, either in a semi-cooperative version or a competitive one, with two different missions and corresponding game boards in the box.
Overview of the Game
At the end of the second cartoon series, Lupin and his gang are looking for their next heist and trying to decide between "Red Ruby" in Burma and "The Great Bank Robbery" in Switzerland.
Players choose to play the role of Inspector Zenigata and his agents or Lupin III and his gang or just one character. The gang's goal is to steal the treasures and escape from the law, while Inspector Zenigata wants to arrest them. Be aware of Fujiko, however, for while she usually works with the others, she occasionally exploits Lupin's interest in her to steal the treasure for herself.
How to Play
Players choose one of the two missions – "Red Ruby" or "The Great Bank Robbery" – lay out the appropriate game board, and choose a character, receiving two mission cards if they play one of the members of Lupin's gang.
During phase 1, the Zenigata character places the policemen into position. In phase 2, Lupin's gang plans the robbery by assigning tasks and equipment.
Phase 3 consists of a series of game turns, up to a maximum of 13. During these turns, Lupin's gang tries to move about invisibly on the game board while Zenigata attempts to stop them from leaving the game board with the treasure. To stay invisible while moving, the gang members leave their miniature off the game board and instead note their moves in a "mission note" log. During their turn, players may use weapons or play actions specific to their character. Every character has personal values listed on its character card for these actions:
1. Move
2. Shoot with a gun
3. Shoot with a rifle
4. Throw a knife
5. Hit during a hand-to-hand fight
6. Dodge a blow during a hand-to-hand fight
Mission cards are played and drawn during the game, changing the priority of the actions to play. The mission cards are linked to the characteristics of the individual characters and are at the heart of the game. When played, the characters perform brave, moral, or skillful actions – and then there's Fujiko, who might betray the gang at any time.
Finally, in phase 4 Lupin's gang tries to seize the treasure.
The rules also include a fully competitive variant in which all of the players play against one another. The gang members still play together at the start of the game, but then they compete to try to accumulate more mission points than their comrades.
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Andrea Ligabue
Italy
Modena
Italy
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In addition to Leader 1: Hell of the North, which I covered on BGG News a few days ago, Italian publisher Ghenos Games has another racing game due out in time for Spiel 2011: Lamborghini: The Official Race Game.
Lamborghini covers both preparations for a race as well as the race itself as you handle economic management of a Lamborghini racing team by signing the best driver possible, buying a car – specifically a Lamborghini Murciélago R-GT – and its components, equiping it to prepare for the qualifying session, then taking it out for a spin at 350 Km/h on the Monza or Hockenheim straightaways. Players use card play to move their cars, overtaking opponents, using slipstreaming and possibly even causing accidents.
Two versions of the game are included: a short game aimed at a younger audience in which players try to be first across the finish line and a longer game in which having the most money at the end of the championship determines who wins. (The five miniatures (scale 1/87) included serve as toys for child and adult alike.)
Overview of Play
Players choose to play a short game (one race without money) or a long game (several races with an additional economic phase). Players then:
1. Place the board on the table and choose which track to play.
2. Separately shuffle the Car cards and the Driver cards, then place them face down in two different decks on the board. Each card indicates a car's characteristics and a driver's abilities.
3. Separately shuffle the Manoeuvre cards and the Technology cards, then place them face down in two different decks on the board.
4. Choose to play with one Murciélago each (3-5 players) or two Murciélago each (2 players). Each Murciélago will have one driver, but any number of Technology and Manoeuvre cards.
5. Give $60,000 (2-4 players) or $52,000 (5 players) to each player if playing a long game.
The game is divided into three turns:
1. Strategic – Economic
2. Set-up and Qualification
3. The race
1. During the Strategic – Economic phase, players choose their car, the
corresponding driver, and the Technology and Manoeuvre cards. Then at the end of the phase, they receive additional cards.
2. Set-up: Players decide which combination of Tech and Manoeuvre cards they want for the car and driver on their team. Qualification: The starting grid is determined by the value of a drawn card from the Speed deck and the speed values printed on their Driver and Car cards.
3. The Murciélago cars move along the tracks' spaces, with movement determined by a played card's value (5-12), the car's own Speed value, the driver value and one (optional) Tech/Manoeuvre card. The Murciélago moves straight ahead or diagonally forward to adjacent squares and can never pass through or stop in occupied spaces.
Events
• Slipstreaming: A Murciélago that moves to the space exactly behind another car immediately takes one free movement.
• Manoeuvres: A driver must check whether his manoeuvre is successful or not in the following cases:
- Crazy Murciélago: The speed values are too high
- Crashes: A Murciélago placed behind an opponent's car can crash.
- Pushes: Murciélago placed beside an opponent's car can push.
Who Lifts the Cup in Victory?
In the short game, the race is all there is – win the race and you win the game.
In the long game, players receive cash bonuses based on their order across the finish line in each race, and they can then use that money while preparing for subsequent races. After the final race, players count their money, and the player with the largest sum wins.
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Andrea Ligabue
Italy
Modena
Italy
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I've received detailed information about the Ghenos Games line-up for Spiel 2011, and while I've yet to lay my hands on the games themselves, what I've seen so far is enough to make me sizzle in the waiting. Let's look first at Leader 1: Hell of the North, which will include rules in Italian, French, English, German, Dutch and Spanish and be co-published with Blackrock Editions and The Game Master.
Originally an expansion, Hell of the North is now a new standalone version of Leader 1, the fascinating bicicyle-racing simulation game. Players are free to recreate cycling races, to choose how their own cyclists advance, to manage their energy, and to define the peloton and the breaking away tactics.
Hell of the North includes settings that let you recreate the northern Europe one-day races, the tough cobblestone classics. However, the characteristics of the epic mountains, the fearful downhill and the stage races are still kept: sprints, breakaways, falls, cracks, punctures, made and broken alliances, final sprints. All of the components are compatible with the earlier version of the game.
So what's new and different in Hell of the North?
-----• Three types of asphalt: normal asphalt, treacherous and cobbled paving.
-----• The team's support riders are represented by a token, and the team has a number of 6 pursuits to use during the race.
-----• The peloton card, which represents the riders in the peloton and the leading team. For the riders: they can be placed in the back or front of the card. Only riders in the front can break away. The placement of the support riders token determines the pursuit choice and the breakaway team's choice.
-----• A new game turn is introduced: the movement of the riders in the peloton (front to back or vice-versa).
-----• The consequences of some events have been reduced.
-----• On cobblestone, a player risks a puncture and fall when crossing treacherous asphalt during the "paying" portion of his movement.
-----• Six weather tokens are randomly placed face down near the track, and as a player nears a token, it's revealed to indicate the weather in this section of the race – hot, rain, favourable or contrary wind – which will lead to positive or negative consequences for the cyclists.
Now on to an overview of the game itself...
Preparing the Race
Players choose and place the route hexagons one after another in order to form a race. There are four types of routes (Flatland, Hills, Mountains and Downhill) and three types of asphalt (normal asphalt, treacheourus and cobbled paving).
Players then place a "start line" token at the beginning of the race and a "finish line" token at the end, along with one or two "bonus time" tokens when playing a stage race. They then place one "sprint zone start" token before the finish line and before every "bonus time" token, one "mountain climb category" token at the beginning of each mountain, and one or more "feed zone" tokens. Players then shuffle the 36 "feed zone" tiles and place them on the table face down in three piles (green, yellow, red).
The Riders
Each team is composed of three cyclists (rouleur, leader, and climber) and one token (the team's support riders), which always stays on the peloton card; the order of these tokens determines both the pursuit order declaration and the team's pursuit order.
All cyclists begin the race with the same amount of energy and all the teams (support riders' token) begin the race with the same number of available pursuits. During the race, the cyclists consume their energy according to the number of squares they move more than the given free ones (the number of which depends on the characteristics of the route). A further quality is given to the cyclists: sprinter, descender or fighter. If a team decides to pursue the peloton, their support riders use up their pursuits.
The Peloton
This is one of Hell of the North's novelties. Aside from the peloton tile which moves along the track, the peloton is also represented by a card. All cyclists in the peloton are placed on this card (as well as the support riders' token which always remains on the card). The card has a front and a back. Depending on the players' strategy, cyclists can stay in the front (where they can break away) or go in the back (where they pay less after the peloton's movement).
The Race
The race is played in game turns:
-----1. Movement of the cyclists that broke away according to the classification order.
-----2. Breaking away.
-----3. Movement of the riders inside the peloton.
-----4. Notification of the peloton's pursuit and peloton's movement.
-----5. Movement of the cyclists dropped by the peloton (if any) according to the classification order.
Events
On top of the movements, situations occur that give the game a more realistic flavor:
-----1. Slipstreaming – when a cyclist ends its movement exactly behind another, it will enjoy the benefit of one free movement.
-----2. Cracks – which can occur when, after a movement on mountains, a cyclist exceeds the mountain category token's value – and falls – which might happen when a cyclist passes or ends its movement on treacherous asphalt during the "paying" portion of his movement.
-----3. Puncture – which occurs when the peloton die is rolled and it falls on the red face.
-----4. Cobblestone – when a cyclist passes on treacherous asphalt during the "paying" portion of his movement, he risks a fall or a puncture, which is resolved with a die roll.
-----5. Weather – when preparing the race, players decide the number of weather tokens they want to play with and place them face down along the race. A weather token is turned face up as soon as the first (cyclist or peloton) enters the second-to-last hexagon before the one with the token. The weather condition shown on the token determines positive or negative consequences for the cyclist.
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Andrea Ligabue
Italy
Modena
Italy
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Soccer is probably the most supported sport in the world – in Italy this is absolutely true – so the existence of so many soccer games is understandable given that potential audience.
In 2006 Randy Thompson released Soccer Tactics World, a simple but absorbing soccer game. Now he has a new soccer game from a new company that will debut at Spiel 2011: StrikerZ.
A much simpler game than Soccer Tactics World, StrikerZ is a dice game in which each player has a team of five dice, with dice having numbers from 2 to 11 on them as well as special icons. Each turn, both players roll their dice, then the player with the highest sum rolls the special green die to shoot for a goal. In addition to a "Goal" icon, the green die has faces showing "Stop" and "Corner kick"; in the latter case, the attacker rolls three dice against the opponent's two dice to see who comes out on top.
The special icons on the dice add flavor to the game: Whistles make you lose points on your roll, the manager icon lets you change a die to a higher value, and the offside flag gives the opponent a chance to shoot no matter what the totals. If your sum is more than ten higher than the opponent's, he receives a yellow card; a second yellow card costs him his lowest die.
During the final stage of the match, you might receive a chance to substitute one die for a "fresh player" with higher values than what you had at the start of the game.
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