Star Trek theme in board games
Ever since its inception 50 years ago, Star Trek has been a hallmark of science fiction, not just for its original medium, TV, but for other mediums too. There are countless movies (OK, 13 of them so far), books, comics, video games and of course board games.
Star Trek family on Board Game Geek lists 450+ items related to Star Trek in their database! That's including expansions, collectibles, promos, etc. According to this geek list, there are 83 Star Trek board games and role playing games.
We have implementations of Catan, Risk, Monopoly... as well as original games like Star Trek: Fleet Captains, Star Trek: Expeditions, Star Trek: Ascendancy and new, not as original, reimplementation of Mage Knight, Star Trek: Frontiers.
Looks like Star Trek will be with us for at least another 50 years and continue to make an influence, not just to the entertainment industry and geek culture, but to technology and science too. Resistance is futile :)
News
Top 25 Anticipated Games of 2017
Rahdo shares his opinionated list of top 25 anticipated games of 2017. You can also check those on his Board Game Geek geeklist that he updates regularly.
Ethnos is coming in April from CMON
Ethnos is the latest game from designer Paolo Mori, the same man who designed Unusual Suspects and the Pocket Battles series. In Ethnos you are trying to take control of the land not through battling and direct war, but through influencing different tribes and peoples in the world to your side.
What's Next Jan 9th through Jan 22nd 2017
Man vs Meeple team talks about the upcoming releases in the weeks of Jan 9th through Jan 22nd, 2017.
Unlock! series announcement
Asmodee brings us a new series of cooperative card-based adventures from Space Cowboys. Each Unlock! game consists of sixty cards depicting objects, maps, and puzzles that can be activated, solved, or combined in an effort to access other cards and areas. Up to six players work cooperatively to solve each of the riddles and get through the deck within sixty minutes.
2017 Anticipation
Yet another list of the most anticipated games in 2017 by Boards and Bees. They also did a retrospection on the previous year expectations.
Game Nite Magazine Issue #13
110 pages! Packed with board game reviews, interviews, puzzles and other stories. You can download it as PDF or read online.
Articles and Videos
Kingdom Death: Monster is the Everest of board games
$12,393,139! Charlie Hall of Polygon writes about his experience playing Kingdom Death: Monster with various gaming groups. He likes it, but some of the people he played with had various complaints, mostly related to the art style, sexual content, etc.
Designer Spotlight: Uwe Rosenberg
The Daily Worker Placement on Uwe Rosenberg. Since 2017 marks the twentieth anniversary of Bohnanza, it seems fitting to look back on the career of its designer, Uwe Rosenberg. He has designed several classic Euro games, and with last year’s A Feast for Odin shows no signs of slowing down.
Choose Your Epic Board Game Challenge
How would you make playing board games even more fun? Make a challenge out of it! Joseph from Art of Boardgaming shares three types of challenges you could set for yourself and your coding group.
LCGs: Is ‘Needing’ Multiple Core Sets Bad Value?
An interesting article on Living Card Games from Whingewood. After recently picking up the Arkham Horror LCG and browsing various forums, I became reacquainted with some of the usual grumbles from players regarding Living Card Games. The main point being raised is ‘needing’ multiple copies of the core set to get the best experience of the game.
Energy Empire - Co-designer Luke Laurie interview - Board Game Spotlight
Druid City Games made an interview with Luke, the co-designer on the new hit game, Manhattan Project: Energy Empire. Luke walks us through the layout of the game and a lot of the mechanics and then dives into strategy and insider info into making the game that is climbing the charts very quickly.
Top 10 of top 10 games lists of 2016
A very meta-like BGG geek list. Marco Boschetto summarized a bunch of top 10 games lists for 2016 to figure out what are the top games according to the critic. There are links to all other lists from the post.
Crowdfunding
Myth: Dark Frontier by MERCS Miniatures
The last, fading light of hope lies behind the walls of Farrenroc, the city on the edge of Darkness.
Get 2 Great Games & Help Save Crash Games!
"Crash Games needs your help! Through this campaign, you can get Fish Frenzy & Backyard Builders Treehouse and help us live on!" Note that this Kickstarter is US only at the moment.
Vanguard of War - Archon Studio by Load Board Game
Vanguard of War is a 1-4 player survival co-op miniature board game focused on protection of the objective.
Sub Terra: a Cooperative Survival Horror Game for 1-6 Cavers by Inside the Box Board Games
You and up to five friends are trapped deep underground. Explore quickly, avoid deadly hazards, run from the darkness. Can you escape?
Alchemical Crystal Quest by MysticalGames
Alchemical Crystal Quest is a cooperative, narrative board game, with fantasy miniatures!
Day Night Z by Creating Games
A survival horror board game and miniatures, full of exploration in a post-apocalyptic open world... Hate the day, fear the night.
Reviews and Playthroughs
Codenames Pictures Review
A review by Play Board Games. Codenames Pictures is the sibling of the award-winning word game Codenames. But instead of words, you are giving clues for pictures.
The Fog of War Review
Game Boy Geek reviews The Fog of War, a 2 player war game set in the World War 2 time frame. There is no men to move as everything is done using a hidden, secret operation wheel.
Pandemic: Reign of Cthulhu Review
Creaking Shelves review of Pandemic: Reign of Cthulhu, a new Pandemic game with a Lovecraftian theme and more or less the same mechanic as the original Pandemic.
TDG: Conan
Short and fun review of Conan board game by Cody of The Discriminating Gamer. Conan is a scenario-based semi-cooperative asymmetric miniatures board game, that picked up $3.3 million in a successful Kickstarter campaign two years ago.
Orcs Must Die! The Board Game Review
Tony Mastrangell reviews the game that was funded on Kickstarter in 2015. In Orcs Must Die!: The Order players must work together to defend the rift tile from increasingly larger waves of enemies.
Influencers
Richard Ham aka Rahdo
Rahdo is a retired video game designer (worked on games like Syphon Filter, Pitfall: The Lost Expedition, The Sims, Fable 2 and Brink) turned into board gamer and one of the most influential board game reviewer. His passionate reviews, which are published on his YouTube channel, were probably most responsible for me purchasing as many games and funding as many Kickstarter campaigns. Beside runthroughs, he also does top 10 videos, interviews, Rahdo Talks Through podcast and manages Rahdo Runs Through BGG guild.
Rahdo can also be found on BGG and Twitter. To learn more about him, check Geek of the Week page or LudiCreations article.