by W. Eric Martin
• Let's run through more game preview videos that BGG recorded at the 2018 GAMA Trade Show, starting with the timely
Choose Your Own Adventure: House of Danger from
Prospero Hall and
Z-Man Games, and I say "timely" because 1980s nostalgia seems all the rage these days, so why not transform the hugely popular 1980s
CYOA book series into a $25 MSRP tabletop game?
Funny thing I just discovered while looking into the history of this book series is that the first
CYOA book was actually released in 1979, not the 1980s, but what's more, author Edward Packard
wrote the first title based on this idea— "The Adventures of You on Sugar Cane Island"— in 1970, only to see it rejected by several publishers. He shelved the manuscript for five years, after which he finally convinced someone to publish it, after which that publisher licensed the series to Bantam Books, after which editor Dinah Stevenson came up with the
CYOA title to market the series, after which it became a hugely popular line.
You might conclude from this story that publishers are dumb and don't know a good idea when they see it, but I'm sure publishers could pull out a thousand terrible suggestions that show they were right not to waste their time trying to turn dreck into best-seller material. In the end, no lessons have been learned.
Youtube Video• Speaking of 1980s nostalgia,
Robotech: Attack on the SDF-1 from
Strange Machine Games is a huge tower-defense-style game for 1-6 players, with multiple scenarios in the box based on the episodes in the anime series.
Youtube Video• Feudal Japan in space — that's the basic concept behind
Starship Samurai, coming out from designer
Isaac Vega and publisher
Plaid Hat Games in mid-2018. The giant mechs that give you influence on the game board? Perhaps those resulted from Vega watching
Robotech in the 1980s. I have no idea, but this game seems to have that nostalgic hook, while also being a thoroughly modern game in its presentation.
Youtube Video•
Daniele Tascini was co-designer of the hit games
Tzolk'in: The Mayan Calendar and
The Voyages of Marco Polo, so folks are going to pay attention to what he does next, which in this case is
Teotihuacan: City of Gods, an involved worker placement game with a cocoa-based economy due out in late 2018 from
NSKN Games.
Youtube Video•
Phil Walker-Harding's
Imhotep: A New Dynasty debuted in Germany at the end of 2017, and now
Thames & Kosmos expects to have the English version of this expansion to the Spiel des Jahres-nominated
Imhotep out in August 2018. Find out which new challenge boards await:
Youtube Video
