Great news about some Favorite Board Games
There’s a lot of great stuff happening in the family board game world.
(Of course we think that anything that gets your family together is something great.)
But there are a few things we’ve heard about board games recently that have us really excited.
Forbidden Desert
The first big family board games news we’re super excited about is the announcement from Gamewright about the upcoming release of Forbidden Desert. Forbidden Desert is a sort of sequel to a much-loved Forbidden Island.
As you can tell from so many of our posts, we think Forbidden Island is a terrific family board game. It’s a fun cooperative game that has your family working together to find the treasures and get off the island before it sinks. It’s also a top-notch produced game at a price under $20.
That’s why we’re so excited to see that Gamewright is coming out with another cooperative family board game that’s similar but different. Here’s a portion of the announcement from Gamewright:
“When we launched Forbidden Island back in 2010, we had an inkling that we had hit game on our hands, but never to the point that we’d be prompted to publish a sequel,” says Jason Schneider, Gamewright’s director of product development and marketing. “I’m beyond thrilled to see this vision come to fruition.”
One of the key challenges posed to inventor Matt Leacock was to create a game that would contain familiar elements while offering up a completely different in-game experience. “In addition, we wanted it to be simultaneously approachable to new players while upping the ante for those who felt they had mastered Forbidden Island,” says Schneider. All this resulted in a fresh new game based around an innovative set of mechanics, such as an ever-shifting board, individual resource management, and unique method for locating the flying machine parts.
Forbidden Desertis set to debut at the New York International Toy Fair (February 10-13) and will be available for public release later in spring of 2013.
We can’t wait!
Pandemic Anniversary Edition
The next big announcement that we’re excited about is a new release edition of Pandemic – the cooperative board game that every other cooperative game gets compared against.
Z-Man Games just announced a 5th Anniversary Edition of Pandemic that will be out in stores next month!
After five years of Pandemic, hundreds of thousands of players have been contracted the virus! To celebrate this milestone, Pandemic has been completely re-designed. With new artwork by Chris Quilliams (Clash of Cultures, Merchants & Marauders), Pandemic will now have a more modern look, inside and outside the box. With two new characters: the Contingency Planner and the Quarantine Specialist, face the game in ways you never thought possible. Brand new challenges are waiting for you!
2013 will be the year that you see the infection rate go up a notch! On The Brink will also have an entirely new look! With its three different gameplay options and the bio-terrorist, this expansion is known as a “must have” for the fans of the game. You will find it in stores very soon!
Pandemic has been a huge hit – being translated in 14 languages. And we also agree with the assessment about On The Brink – it is a must have expansion!
Ticket to Ride Ever So Popular
The last news item that we thought was super cool relates to Ticket to Ride. It’s another game that we highly recommend for families around the world. The cool think about Ticket to Ride is that Days of Wondercontinues to publish new Ticket to Ride maps of locations around the world.
At the end of 2012, they published Ticket to Ride Map Collection 3: Heart of Africa – adding a great Africa map with 45 new terrain cards that will add more scoring options. Cool stuff.
But that’s not what caught our attention. What did catch our attention was an article in our local newspaper that stated “As of fourth quarter 2012, Google Trends lists the state of Utah as No. 1 in the nation for searching the phrase ‘Ticket to Ride game’.”
Let’s hear it for more and more families playing Ticket to Ride!
