Batman has been in some tough situations throughout his existence, but, as everyone knows, he always manages to get out of them.  Now it’s your turn to try and create an inescapable trap for the caped crusader in Arkham City: Escape.  An epic two-player game that pits The Dark Knight against his greatest foes (all in the Arkham City game design) inside the titular prison city.  What makes the game interesting is that each assortment of villains is chosen randomly, making every game a new experience.  One player tries to kill the Batman while the other tries to punch baddies in the teeth.

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In the deep, dark reaches of the jungle exists hidden resources of the best coffee beans in the world.  It’s your job to venture forth and find them.  VIVA JAVA!  In this Coffee Game, players compete against each other as they travel across the globe searching for the finest beans the world has to offer.  If the going gets tough, however, you can choose whether or not you will team up with the other players so that you both come out caffeinated.  For all the coffee lovers out there, here’s a fresh cup o’ Viva Java!

In the fourth-quel to the ever more popular Quarriors! dice game series, Quartifacts, a new set of dice known as Quest Dice.  In this expansion, all the mystical relics of the previous Quarriors! games have disappeared, leaving you, the questor, to venture after them.  Quest cards will allow you to unleash your creatures in order to find them.  In addition, five new creatures, two new spells, The Squire basic, and six Quest cards and dice are also included.  Quet quor Quarriors! quon!

A resource management game with a new spin, Saint Malo blends dice games, resource management, and…drawing?  Players roll dice to decide what villagers, buildings, and so forth that they are allotted, then draw them onto the erasable grid board in front of  them.  But be quick about how you arrange your resources because they’re going to need to protect you from the pirates that are invading the city.

The Conquest of Planet Earth continues.  But now it’s the Apocalypse.

The first expansion to the original Flying Frog Productions game that pits Earth against a horde of invading martians kicks the total number of players up to six.  This increase of playablity comes in addition to an entirely new alien faction, including new miniatures like The Cube!  As much of this expansion’s action takes place over the ocean, a Coastal Resistance Deck is included to boost Earth’s defenses.  The invasion has begun, fight to stop the conquest!

Achieving a huge amount of positive response from their initial reprintings of the Dungeons and Dragons Advanced hardcovers, Wizards decided to reprint the 3.5 edition core books.  Now, it’s 2nd edition’s turn, as the three core books, the Player’s Guide, DM’s Guide, and Monster Manual are all reprinted in beautiful embossed hardcover editions, complete with their original artwork and errata-ed material.  Pick them up to collect the classic versions of D&D in total!

 

Life is full of tough questions.  Paper or plastic?  With or without cheese?  Red pill or blue pill?

Pig or dog?

The correct answer to the latter question is actually both.  And, luckily, when you buy a copy of Pick-a-Dog and Pick-a-Pig you get both.  When combined with each other, these games go from 2-5 players to 6-8 players, blending matching and dexterity games together no matter which version you play.  A grid of cards sits in the center of the table, each with five attributes noted on them.  Players also have a single card in their hand.  Once the game has begun, everyone tries to grab a card with at least four similar attributes, adding it to their hand and continuing from there.  The game stops when one player has no more cards to grab.  As one can imagine this game plays well with family members or friends plus a bottle of scotch.

Is your tower protected?

Not exactly a new game, but one we’ve just gotten back in stock, Batt’l Kha’os is a tile laying game with some fighty bits thrown in.  Players attempt to take control of various tower tiles laid across the table by placing their own army tiles around it.  Each tile intersection point is then totaled up for the amount of humans vs. orcs and whoever has the most takes the corner.  Once all four corners around a tower are calculated, whoever has the most corners (orcs or humans) takes control of the tower.  Though it leaves some letters out of its title, Batt’l Kha’os combines the best of Carcassonne and Pocket Battles.

Nathan Fillion has charmed television, comics, and cinema, but now he’s setting his sights on the world of board gaming. Castle:  The Detective Card Game transformers the comedy and mystery of the hit television series into a clue solving card game.  Players take control of a key character from the show in order to piece together the clues and figure out who the murderer is.  Players can choose to compete in episode mode, finding only one killer to win the game, or season mode, playing through a range of episodes and murderers to see who has solved the most by the end.

In the middle of all this complicated gaming hooha, let me throw in a quick shout-out to the newest Data Pack for the Netrunner LCG from Fantasy Flight.  Humanity’s Shadow includes the standard assortment of sixty new cards to be incorporated into the base game.  Download them into your hand right now.

Tear down your quarantine signs, put aside your rifles, and lay down your machetes, and come out of your reinforced basements because it’s time for the first Zombicide expansion to arrive.  Although, as this expansion, Walk of the Dead (see what they did there?), contains twenty-four additional zombie miniatures, you may still want to guard your brain.  There are also twelve spawn cards include so that these figures can be introduced into the game.  Stay close, lock and load, and make sure to wear a helmet.

Ahoy, maties, it be Catan: Pirates and Explorers!

The newest expansion for the hit Catan game series, Pirates and Explorers, like Cities and Knights, Seafarers, and Traders and Barbarians before it, adds new mechanics to the already popular ones from Settlers of Catan.  Bridging the gap between Catan and Seafarers, Pirates and Explorers starts players out on one island, searching for resources and settlers to build and pilot a sailing vessel to another island.  Once there, players discover a range of new resources to continue building and growing.  This version of the game comes packed with five original scenarios to keep the gameplay fresh and original.

And, because of time and all that stuff, the last three items tonight will be presented in image only.  They do say pictures speak louder than words, right?

Okay, maybe a few words.

There’s Ugg-Tect, a cooperative game where players have to act like cavemen while instructing each other on how to build a prehistoric building.  There are also inflatable clubs included.

Two RPG softcovers also release this weekend.

One, for Call of Cthulhu (Atomic-Age Cthulhu), providing a 50s era setting for Cthulhuian mystery and murder with a nuclear backdrop.

And, two, the newest addition to the Only War Warhammer 40K RPG, Hammer of the Emperor.

 

Restock is the magic word for this week’s New Game Stuff.

Above all else is the return or revenge or attack of the X-Wing miniatures game.  After having been out of print for a limited time, all of the wave two ships are back in stock.  That’s the Tie Infiltrator, the Millennium Falcon, the A-Wing, and the Slave I.  And they’re just in time, too, because this Sunday brings the first Star Wars X-Wing League Play day up at the store.  So choose whether you support the Rebel Alliance or the Empire then come knock some ships out of the stars in some head-to-head battle.  Sign-up will begin at noon and play will commence shortly after.

After selling out swiftly last week, Dixit Quest has returned from whatever magical land this game hails from.  For those who’ve been awaiting the return of Dixit 2, this is your chance.  Dixit Quest is an eighty-four card expansion for the base Dixit game, adding a gallery’s worth of psychedelic, gorgeous artwork to this Apple-to-Apples-esque party game.  If you’re not familiar with Dixit, then allow me to inform you.  Play revolves around players taking turns offering descriptive words, sounds, or phrases, then everyone who didn’t lays down a full-art card which they feel best encompasses the description.  From there, everyone chooses the card they think the person who offered the descriptor laid down.  Points are awarded based on who is correct and incorrect.  An extremely well illustrated game, Dixit is fun for the whole family.

Magazines are supposed to have gone the way of the dodo, but here’s a brand new one in the tradition of Dungeon and Dragon Magazine called Gygax Magazine.  As they say in the forward, the name of the publication was chosen out of respect to the originator of the RPG and as a statement of the traditional approach the magazine is going to take to its content.  The first issue of this nostalgic treat features stories about “The Future of Tabletop Gaming,” “The Cosmology of Role-Playing Games,” and “DMing for Your Toddler.”  A system-neutral play setting is also included, being Gnatdamp a tiny hamlet in the middle of a swamp, full of rowdy cutthroats.  Come reminisce with issue #1 of Gygax Magazine.

And, finally, a moment of Warhammer 40K zen featuring (the late arriving; thanks Games Workshop) the XV88 Tau Broadside Battlesuit.  Soak it up.

 

Tonight’s New Game Stuff will start in traditional card game territory but slowly descend into madness.

You’ve been warned.

For players of traditional card games like Spades and Hearts, Clubs makes an appearance at the store this weekend.  For those who’ve never played these classic card games or are looking for a simple game for the whole family to play, here’s brief, brief, short, limited, minimal, tiny rundown.  Clubs is all about getting rid of cards as fast as possible.  Like how you’d want to get rid of a bag of wet weasels dosed on speed.  This must be balanced with a trick taking (but only on clubs) in order to score points before the end of the game.  It’s simple as simple does.

As Wizards of the Coast continues to reprint its entire library of Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 hardcovers, they have made it to the tome of all wizardry might, the Spell Compendium.  Say you wish to melt off the face of your guild’s resident Baird.  SPELL COMPENDIUM!  Or maybe turn an owl-bear into a poodle.  SPELL COMPENDIUM!  Or maybe just warm up a pot of tea.  Probably use a fire pit for that last one, but otherwise SPELL COMPENDIUM!!  Ultimately, the point here is that the Spell Compendium has every important magic whatzamahoozit in all of D&D, now wrapped in an errata’d hardcover edition.

All seemed peaceful in the world of Vigil.  The villains were dispersed.  War had ended.  And crystals rained from the sky.  But it was only when it was too late that these seemingly ordained gifts turned out to be omens of danger.  Such is the state of Ascension‘s newest edition, Rise of Vigil.  Continuing to make it easy for new players to get into the popular deck building card game designed by Magic the Gathering players, Rise of Vigil is another standalone version of the game.  If you do have any of the previous editions, however, you can combine them with Rise of Vigil for up to six player combat.  This new edition includes nearly 260 cards, a fair portion of which are new heroes and constructs.

Now for the insanity.

First off, look at the picture to the right.  Apologies for the racier content, but that’s seriously the art for the game.  And, yes, the, um, “proportions” are bit unrealistic.

Oh, by the way, the game is called Kanzume Goddess.  Created by the Japanese, in the fashion of every awkward anime you’ve ever seen, Kanzume Goddess is a tin can containing all the most famous Greek and Norse gods.  As you might imagine, having that many gods stuck in a cramped space leads to some fisticuffs.  That’s where you come in.  Each player takes on a specific god in order to battle against their legendary opponents, building their decks by calling upon other warriors and disciples to aid in the fight.  So, do as the game suggests and “Release them from the can!”

 

Funnel cakes.  Corndogs.  Turkey legs.  Dragon’s toes.  To enjoy these fair delicacies you’re going to have to stop by Dungeon Lords: Festival Season.

This new standalone version of the popular dungeon construction game adds a number of extra elements not in the original.  This time around the game progresses over five rounds, being each of the seasons as well as a special Festival Season.  Having the extra round is both beneficial and complicating as players have time to prepare their dungeon as well as for the adventurers to assemble their posse.  New traps, monsters, rooms, and spells are also included in this edition of the game, along with The New Paladins expansion.  Just don’t jump on the tilt-a-whirl after eating three of those dragon’s toes.  Barf city.

The goblins have gotten restless.

Gosu Tactics 2 returns you to the worn torn reaches of space and the greatest goblin war of all time.  This deck building game takes the mechanics of Dominion and applies it to the hard fought task of assembling goblin armies.  Tactics is an updated augmented version of the original game, gaining sleeker play options and alongside the lose of cumbersome redundancies.  These alterations include the removal of activation tokens and card text, the latter in order to make the game entirely multilingual.  In place of rule text, the game now utilizes symbols which indicate each goblin’s two power levels.

Insert coin for more Super Dungeon Explorer!

Press start for two new Super Dungeon miniature expansions.  These include a the dreaded Vonn Drakk Manor family and their wicked sorcery.  This massive expansion four new heroes, like Sister of Light and Van Wilding, along with new bosses like Death Spectre and Baron Von Drakk.  Also included are nearly thirty monster miniatures.  Alongside this release comes the special promo level boss, Succubus Vandella.  Rather than straight-up bite your face off like other vampire monsters, Vandella likes to confuse and distract her opponents.

IT’S OVER 9000!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!***********!!!!!!!!!!!!

Smash Up gets smashier with Smash Up Awesome Level 9000!

Since ninjas, zombies, and pirates are so last year, this expansion adds four new factions including Killer Plants, Steampunks, Ghosts, and Bear Cavalry.  You read that last one right, by the way.  Bears you can ride.  With cossack riders.  The idea is you and another player (or up to four if you combine the base with the expansion) slam two entirely unrelated character classes together for one deck of utterly confusing destruction!

If you missed out on the limited run on Kickstarter, Sentinels of the Multiverse just dropped a dump truck of promo decks and expansions on our doorstep today.  The promo decks released today include two special location decks, one, Silver Gultch, is a western ghost town and the other, The Final Wasteland, a futuristic desert populated by beasties fit right into the time traveling expansion also released today, Shattered Timelines.  Shattered Timelines itself introduces two original time jumping hero characters as well as four equally non-linear Big Bads for them and other heroes to battle.  A hero deck and a villain deck also join these expansions, introducing Miss Information (a secretarial nasty) and The Scholar (scientific superhero).  Finally, a special pack of oversized villain cards rounds out the plethora of SotM product flooding the store today.

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