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New Game Round-up: Rolling Freight Rolls Out, Québec Is Ludified & More

W. Eric Martin
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A guy takes a couple of days off, and the games spring up everywhere. Let's get to them...

APE Games has launched a Kickstarter funding program for Kevin G. Nunn's Rolling Freight. Said APE's Kevin Brusky when announcing this program: "I've been working for well over a year on APE Games' most ambitious game yet... This will be by far [our] most expensive game to date, and that's why I'm asking for your help." APE Games is hoping to raise $18,000, or the equivalent of 300 preorders. Head to the Kickstarter page for a video from Brusky giving an overview of the game. The (non-final) rulebook is available on APE's Rolling Freight page.

• In other news from APE Games, Order of the Stick Adventure Game: The Shortening – an expansion announced at least as far back as 2009 – is headed to the printer with an expected release date of Q3 2011. The Shortening will be sold on its own, in addition to being packaged in the forthcoming Order of the Stick: Deluxe Edition, also due out Q3 2011.

• Canadian publisher Le Scorpion Masqué is launching its largest game project to date: the release of Québec from Philippe Beaudoin and Pierre Poissant-Marquis at Spiel 2011 in October. Here's a brief description from the publisher:

Quote:
Québec puts players in charge of rich families, whose goal is to brand history with their name by being active participants in the construction of the city throughout its four centuries.

Québec is a true representation of its people: strong European roots and a very American personality. With Québec, players will discover a game rich with European mechanisms as well as strong player interactions and theme, some of the key aspects of American games.

The players' goal is to gain prestige by building 44 historical buildings found in the city of Québec, including the Royal Battery, the Parliement, the Notre-Dame Basilica and of course, the famous Château Frontenac. The players will also want to be recognized as influencial figures in the various zones of power: religion, politics, commerce and culture. Any contribution to the Citadelle will also be well regarded. Québec introduces a brilliant new game mechanism called "cascade"; at the end of each century, the majority player in a zone of power will be able to cascade half of his workers in the next zone, allowing him to score more points and eventually, obtain even more majorities.

Fantasy Flight Games has announced a "new" game from Wilko Manz called Black Gold. I say "new" as the game appears to be the same as the 1999 release Gigaten from Kosmos, with tweaks and variants and a player count of 2-5 instead of 3-4. (Since it's not clear how distinct the two games are, for now BGG will list them separately, merging them in the future should they turn out to be cousins or closer.)

• Fantasy Flight has also announced another expansion for Arkham Horror: Miskatonic Horror, which includes components that can be mixed with all of the previous expansions, in addition to being playable with only the base game.

Steve Jackson Games is shipping two items to stores: the new edition of Give Me the Brain from James Ernest and the Munchkinomicon booster pack, which can be added to any of the many Munchkin games from SJG.

• French site Jeux sur un Plateau has published a video demonstration of Kramer and Kiesling's King Arthur, coming from alea in Q2 2011, that was filmed at Nürnberg 2011. Of note to alea fans is the presence of German, English and French text on the game box and cards. Clearly alea is trying to avoid the lag time between release in Europe and the U.S., which was around six months for both Macao and Glen More, by putting three languages in one box. Bravo!
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Subscribe sub options Tue Feb 22, 2011 8:38 pm
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The Soot Sprite
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Quote:
Of note to alea fans is the presence of German, English and French text on the game box and cards. Clearly alea is trying to avoid the lag time between release in Europe and the U.S., which was around six months for both Macao and Glen More, by putting three languages in one box.


Yay for multi-language rules!
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  • Posted Tue Feb 22, 2011 8:55 pm
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Robert C Branch
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Miskatonic Horror cannot arrive soon enough Thanks for the information Eric!
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  • Posted Tue Feb 22, 2011 9:19 pm
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Curt Carpenter
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APE Games is hoping to raise $18,000, or the equivalent of 300 preorders.
The manufacturing cost for the game is $60???
Although I have to say the maps look great. Although the topography on the western map needs to be muted a bit.

Great news about Black Gold!
 
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  • Edited Tue Feb 22, 2011 9:35 pm
  • Posted Tue Feb 22, 2011 9:34 pm
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Lee Fisher
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curtc wrote:
Quote:
APE Games is hoping to raise $18,000, or the equivalent of 300 preorders.
The manufacturing cost for the game is $60???
Although I have to say the maps look great. Although the topography on the western map needs to be muted a bit.



How do you conclude that is the manufacturing cost?
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  • Posted Tue Feb 22, 2011 10:01 pm
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Anye Mercy
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curtc wrote:
Quote:
APE Games is hoping to raise $18,000, or the equivalent of 300 preorders.
The manufacturing cost for the game is $60???
Although I have to say the maps look great. Although the topography on the western map needs to be muted a bit.

Great news about Black Gold!


It doesn't say the manufacturing cost is $60. It says that $18k is the equivalent of 300 pre-orders, pre-orders are generally taken at retail cost. A retail cost of $60 for a big board game with a lot of bits (and this game has a lot of bits) is not abnormal.

Seeing as I doubt his print run will be only 300, he still stands to lose money if he doesn't sell out a print run - 300 hundred pre-orders will probably not be sufficient to cover 100% of the printing costs though depending on his calculations it may come close. The off-the-cuff calculation for what to price a game vs. the production cost is 8-10 times. If Kevin B. uses that same calculation then I would guestimate the production cost at $6-8 per unit. Since a print run really can't be economical at less than 2k or 3k units (many printers won't even do fewer than 3k) this would maybe scrape him by. If he doesn't use the same estimate the production cost could be much higher. Plus he does have staff and other expenses and what we're discussing here is purely the manufacturing cost.

So ... I see nothing out of the ordinary here.
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  • Posted Tue Feb 22, 2011 10:02 pm
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Quote:
Of note to alea fans is the presence of German, English and French text on the game box and cards. Clearly alea is trying to avoid the lag time between release in Europe and the U.S., which was around six months for both Macao and Glen More, by putting three languages in one box.


This new behavior is started with Burgund, which also has rules in english and french in the german box!
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  • Posted Tue Feb 22, 2011 10:41 pm
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Curt Carpenter
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dietevil wrote:
It doesn't say the manufacturing cost is $60. It says that $18k is the equivalent of 300 pre-orders, pre-orders are generally taken at retail cost.

Yes, realize now I mis-interpreted that sentence to mean "raise money to satisfy 300 pre-orders", rather than "raise money (for additoinal copies) through 300 pre-orders". My bad.
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  • Posted Tue Feb 22, 2011 11:33 pm
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I guess that Alea is also trying to avoid mistranslation of the cards/rules that plagued many RGG conversions to English.

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  • Posted Wed Feb 23, 2011 1:05 am
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San Antonio, OKC, Miami, and Boston..who will win out?
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Cyberian wrote:
Quote:
Of note to alea fans is the presence of German, English and French text on the game box and cards. Clearly alea is trying to avoid the lag time between release in Europe and the U.S., which was around six months for both Macao and Glen More, by putting three languages in one box.

This new behavior is started with Burgund, which also has rules in english and french in the german box!

Excellent. I'll almost certainly pick up Castles of Burgundy when it comes out, but may adopt a "wait and see" attitude with King Arthur.

Quote:
I guess that Alea is also trying to avoid mistranslation of the cards/rules that plagued many RGG conversions to English.

Excellent again, assuming that Alea's translations are good ones. As we've seen, that's far from a given.

But overall, praiseworthy behavior from Alea.
 
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  • Posted Wed Feb 23, 2011 1:23 am
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Patrick Korner
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Well, I'm the English translator for the alea games, so I certainly hope the translations are decent quality.

I'm always terrified of something stupid creeping in there (I still have nightmares about mixing round up with round down for the Name of the Rose tiebreak) but I'm pretty happy with these. Stefan Bruck and I have gone back and forth 3+ times for each ruleset, and I've been able to proof both rough and final drafts, so nothing too odd should have crept in.

Oh, and both sound quite interesting. King Arthur is more abstract, but Burgundy is vintage Feld.

pk
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  • Posted Wed Feb 23, 2011 3:25 am
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Glad to hear you'll be doing the translations, Patrick. Now I'm really looking forward to both games, particularly Burgundy.
 
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  • Posted Wed Feb 23, 2011 4:38 am
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I'd like to make a quick comment about Rolling Freight - if you like a train game with good, decent weight but is still finishable in 3ish hours should take a look at this one. It hits that sweet spot between density and reasonable play time beautifully, and manages to be a damn good game while it's doing it. I've played it a bunch in playtest, and I'm really looking forward to seeing it get published. Thumbs up recommended - give it a look.

James
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  • Posted Sat Feb 26, 2011 1:20 am
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Lee Fisher
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Rannous wrote:
I'd like to make a quick comment about Rolling Freight - if you like a train game with good, decent weight but is still finishable in 3ish hours should take a look at this one. It hits that sweet spot between density and reasonable play time beautifully, and manages to be a damn good game while it's doing it. I've played it a bunch in playtest, and I'm really looking forward to seeing it get published. Thumbs up recommended - give it a look.

James


2-5 Players | Ages 13+ | 90 minutes+

Are you saying 90+ is actually more like 150-180?
 
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  • Posted Sat Feb 26, 2011 2:50 am
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Nope, sorry, that would need some clarification.

The game comes with two boards - the California board typically plays faster, and clocks in at about 90-120 once people have a good feel for it, assuming 3-4 players. The southern US board is designed for more players, is more involved, and takes a little longer - maybe averaging around 120 to 150 minutes. A good rule of thumb on this one is about 30 minutes per player, with California supporting 2-4 and Southern US for 3-5.

I really like the Southern US board with 5 players, so I'm used to playing the longer version. It's still playable in what I would consider a reasonable amount of time. California is easily dust off-able in the 90 minute time frame, if you want a faster game.

So, yes and no.

James
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  • Edited Sat Feb 26, 2011 5:19 am
  • Posted Sat Feb 26, 2011 5:15 am
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Thanks, James.
 
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  • Posted Sat Feb 26, 2011 5:29 am
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dietevil wrote:
curtc wrote:
Quote:
APE Games is hoping to raise $18,000, or the equivalent of 300 preorders.
The manufacturing cost for the game is $60???
Although I have to say the maps look great. Although the topography on the western map needs to be muted a bit.

Great news about Black Gold!


It doesn't say the manufacturing cost is $60. It says that $18k is the equivalent of 300 pre-orders, pre-orders are generally taken at retail cost. A retail cost of $60 for a big board game with a lot of bits (and this game has a lot of bits) is not abnormal.

Seeing as I doubt his print run will be only 300, he still stands to lose money if he doesn't sell out a print run - 300 hundred pre-orders will probably not be sufficient to cover 100% of the printing costs though depending on his calculations it may come close. The off-the-cuff calculation for what to price a game vs. the production cost is 8-10 times. If Kevin B. uses that same calculation then I would guestimate the production cost at $6-8 per unit. Since a print run really can't be economical at less than 2k or 3k units (many printers won't even do fewer than 3k) this would maybe scrape him by. If he doesn't use the same estimate the production cost could be much higher. Plus he does have staff and other expenses and what we're discussing here is purely the manufacturing cost.

So ... I see nothing out of the ordinary here.


I want to add that the $18K will cover approximately 50% of the cost to publish the game. I'm printing way more than 300 copies.
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  • Posted Sun Feb 27, 2011 1:31 am
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