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This week, a piece of visual media makes a move into the board gaming world, while a board game moves the other way. Can either work?
Hasbro are releasing Stranger Things Eggo… Uno?
If you haven’t seen Stranger Things yet, finish this news page quickly and then get onto Netflix for one of the best light horror shows in recent memory. If you have, you might be interested to know there’s a Stranger Things themed Monopoly coming out, but we’d wager you’d be more interested in the quite frankly bizarre Stranger Things Eggo game.
Yes, they’ve themed a game after Eggo waffles. The cards are shaped like Eggos, the gameplay is like a hybrid of Uno with characters from the show, the ability to go into the upside down and… okay no one is quite convinced this is the best use of the licence, but hey, the box looks like an Eggo box so at the minimum you have a cool prop and there’s a chance to might be able to save Barb.
No word on a UK release for Stranger Things as of yet but it’ll only be $15 in America.
Legend of the Five Rings is going to be weekly
The Fantasy Flight Living Card Game schedule was pretty set in stone: sets coming once a month for six months. But with the launch of Legend of the Five Rings, Fantasy Flight (FF) are making sure the game gets traction and hits hard by releasing one pack every week for six weeks.
There’s been some push backs against this, as that’s $90 over six weeks, but when you consider that each pack broadens the story of this world we can see why establishing the game early and often is a good idea. There’s no suggestion everything on the FF roster is going to warp speed, just this.
Eldritch Horror meets Cthulhu Gaming Royalty
Chaosium’s Call of Cthulhu is the standard by which all Lovecraftian RPGs are judged, and Masks of Nyarlathotep is a legendary scenario for it. Now Fantasy Flight have done a deal with Chaosium to bring the adventure to Eldritch Horror, with a new release coming in early 2018, the same time as a revamped and expanded re-release of the RPG original.
It’s the kind of gaming synergy we rarely see, and marks the reborn Chaosium’s fun and pragmatic approach bearing fruit.
Settlers of Catan: The Movie
So we opened with a TV show turned into a game, and now we have a game turned into a movie… hang on, what game? Settlers of Catan, aka Catan, is definitely one of the all-time classic board games, but how turns into a Hollywood movie is anyone’s guess.
However, producer Gail Katz has the rights, the inspiration and is working with Sony to get a film going. The proposed script writer has worked on a Playmobil movie and that is in no way reassuring, but some of the rumoured other producers have worked on the new version of IT that broke records for horror films and the Lego Movie, which was clever and fantastic.
Hillarys have created a gaming carpet for all your giant gaming needs
Often a gaming session will involve a game set out across the floor, but ever wondered what would happen if the floor was the board? Well, okay, yes, anyone who’s seen giant garden chess sets, but what if there was a way to do that and keep dry? Hillarys have combined carpets with LED lights to produce a carpet which can display games, and have worked with app developers for chess, draughts and snakes / shuts and ladders to be controlled by mobile and visible on the carpet.
Yes, it sounds expensive, but the idea is the system could be used by other developers for a wide range of games. Carpet Catan anyone? (Tied into the cinema release obviously). It’s a concept now, so time will tell.
Someone is Kickstarting a Biker Mouse RPG
The RPG we’re going to talk about has a four word title. After the first three words, Heavy Metal Thunder, you might be imagining Vikings or Black Sabbath, but after the fourth word, Mouse, you might be going ‘sorry, what?’. But yes, Heavy Metal Thunder Mouse is an RPG about biker gangs made up of mice. Sons of Anarchy with cheese.
So… yeah we’re fascinated. It’s built around the FATE engine, with design by Derek Kamal, and has some cracking art at the very least. Also, there are cats on bikes…