I already described in the last blog article what new products Hasbro will be bringing to the 2016 Toy Fair. But what about other publishers like Pegasus Spiele, Winning Moves, KOSMOS, Ravensburger or the Heidelberger Spieleverlag? Each of these publishers has great board game series, surprises with long-awaited localizations or inspires board gamers with innovative new releases. Since the flood of games would simply overwhelm a single blogger, I chose my "Most Wanted" board games from these game publishers. In the following article you can find out which highlights the “big game publishers” will be presenting to us at the trade fair.
Pegasus Spiele
Pegasus Verlag carries a heavy game package on its swingarm. The family game Yeti sounds particularly exciting to me. Hasbro has already thrown a Yeti board game into the running - so the mythical beasts seem to be pretty popular right now. And yes, yetis have it easy to lure children to the gaming table: They are strong, they are half animals, half monsters and there are countless legends about the snow-loving hairballs. The adventure game Yeti from Pegasus sounds like a lot of fun. 2 to 5 players set out to find the legendary Yeti. Similarities to Hasbro's Yeti game are clearly visible in spite of the snowstorm: Even in the Pegasus title, the Yeti are pretty camera shy and don't like being photographed. The family game round has to climb the heights of the Himalayas and look for the Yeti with the help of a lucky dice hand.
The central game element are dice rolls. Yeti is thus a game with a high luck factor; and that has a special charm for children. The active player rolls the dice and sorts out the dice with the same symbols. This process repeats itself until all the dice have been rolled. The dice symbols stand for various actions that can make it easier or more difficult to stay in the mountains and hunt the Yeti. Mountaineering symbols allow a player to climb higher, tents provide short breaks - snowstorms, on the other hand, are reluctant to see, because they blow away the footprints of the legendary Yeti. An additional element of tension comes into play through the so-called weather tiles.
Visually, Yeti is a blast: the pretty 3D glacier turns the gaming table into an ice-cold mountain range and the illustrations by Dennis Lohausen are sure to make you laugh. Board game enthusiastic families and children should Yeti always keep an eye on - despite snowstorms!
Winning moves
Admittedly, when I was looking through the Winning Moves offer, I came across the Monopoly version of the Geissens, which gave me a real shock. With a chalk-white face and trembling hands, my next way was to the coffee machine to avert worse.
After this moment of shock, I carefully felt my way through the range until I saw two Monopoly variants that touched my PC gamer heart: Monopoly Fallout and Monopoly Sonic Boom. The blue hedgehog will soon be celebrating its 25th anniversary and I can still clearly remember the countless hours of play that I spent with Sonic on the Game Gear. The fact that the Hedgehog has now also made it onto the board game table is certainly a reason to celebrate for fans. Monopoly Fallout caused similar feelings of happiness. Wherever the nicely smiling Pipboy adorns the game packaging, fun has always been guaranteed; and that won't change with the Monopoly offshoot either. A game board in Vault style, typical Fallout illustrations and detailed figures are certainly reason enough for fans of the series to drink one or the other Nuka Cola to celebrate the day.
SciFi lovers and fans of iconic films, on the other hand, are looking forward to Monopoly - Back to the Future. Even the eye-catching packaging design will be a visual highlight on the play shelf. Thank you Winning Moves for so much cult!
Aside from Monoply, there is a rather nerdy Trivial Pursuit - World of Warcraft to be announced. Card players look forward to premium cards from various franchises (Harry Potter, Marvel, DC Comics) or play a round of Top Trumps with the minios.
KOSMOS publishing house
KOSMOS Verlag stands for such top-class board game series as The Legends of Andor or the Settlers of Catan. My highlight for the Spielwarenmesse 2016 in Nuremberg, however, is the innovative KosmoBits experiment kit, which is supposed to teach children programming in a playful way. You only notice how great this idea is when you realize how important electronics are for our everyday life and how little we know about technical processes. After all, we make it pretty easy for ourselves: as long as everything is going well, everything is going well. With KosmoBits, children now have the chance to implement their own electronic projects. The KOSMOS developers rely on decades of experience in the field of educational experimentation. For almost 100 years KOSMOS Verlag has been publishing new editions of the popular experiment kits on a regular basis and I am sure that I also used the chemistry kit to make one or two liters of ink in my childhood.
With KosmoBits, KOSMOS takes experimentation to level 2.0. Valuable knowledge on the topics of computer technology and programming is imparted to children in a playful and targeted manner. The learning process is divided into individual learning steps: Everything starts with an entertainment game on the tablet or smartphone and ends with the design of your own circuit. Wonderfully innovative!
Ravensburger
The Ravensburger The publisher begins its appearance at the 2016 Toy Fair with an economic bang: it recorded a whopping 19,2% increase in sales Ravensburger Group in the past financial year. In addition to puzzles and games, the tiptoi® learning system was also popular with children. And exactly a new variant of this promotional toy is right at the forefront for me at the Ravensburger stand at the Nuremberg trade fair: the tiptoi® Play World Police. Not that there haven't been educational books from the series in question for a long time, but this set makes a lot of things different and, above all, a lot more interactive.
Instead of driving wildly through the books with the learning pen, children between the ages of four and seven must first ensure that the police station comes to life. The set consists of three play figures, a Revell Junior police car that needs to be assembled first, a police station, some small parts from everyday traffic safety and a jewelry store that can be happily robbed in order to be forensically processed afterwards.
The tiptoi® play world police invites children to exciting role-play games and accompanies the play activities with noises and informative facts on the subject of everyday police work. While the children are playing happily, the set of information pieces ensure that the young criminalists also have a lot of knowledge in terms of content.
The game world looks wonderful on the gaming table. The 3D structure is illustrated in detail and the police stories encourage participation. Lift with this set Ravensburger tiptoi® to the next level of play.
Heidelberg game publisher
With the Grimoire des Wahnsinns, the Heidelberger Spieleverlag brings a new deck building game onto the market, in which everything revolves around the arcane arts of young sorcerers' apprentices. Not another deck builder! - Many players might think now. But Grimoire des Wahnsinns offers card game fans a new, exciting feel through a cooperative process. Instead of fights among each other, 2 to 5 players in the deckbuilder from the Heidelbaär rely on targeted cooperation to fight the nasty monsters that arise from the eponymous grimoire of madness. Side by side, the team of players fights against the monster-like madness that hovers like a sword of Damocles over the card table. Of course, each player accesses his own deck of cards, which he can equip with elementary powers according to his wishes. The cooperative play element is the so-called support area. All players can access this support zone to make their spells even more effective. The monsters' curses cause negative vibrations, provided that their effects are not neutralized beforehand and penetrate the team of players. The principle of this deck building game sounds wonderfully refreshing and inflamed (Abracadabra!) the world of card games!
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