Crafting a game system so compelling that other designers want to create their own games using it is a rare beast in board gaming. Veteran wargame designer Volko Ruhnke has managed it twice - first with the COIN series, which saw its asymmetric counterinsurgency design influence games including Root, and his Levy and Campaign series, which currently runs to nine volumes of designs by various creators. The former CIA intelligence analyst spoke to BoardGameWire about his continuing drive towards accessibility with new design Hunt for Blackbeard, which is on Kickstarter now, how he's solving the hidden movement mechanics conundrum, and which games have been influencing his own design processes in recent years.
Abstract lightweight tile-laying game Harmonies has powered to the top of the charts for the number of BGG users adding new games to their collections in May.
Innovative hex and counter wargame Downfall: Conquest of the Third Reich has been named Game of the Year at the latest Charles S Roberts Awards, seen by many as the Oscars of wargaming.
Raising $1m in crowdfunding for a board game is no mean feat, even for veteran publishers with multiple campaigns under their belts. But high school sweethearts Dusty and Amy Droz managed just that last year on their first try, after more than 15,000 backers pledged funding to create Victorian-themed flower hunting game Botany. Amid juggling their wedding photograph business and managing their own lavender farm, Dusty spoke to BoardGameWire about how the lessons learned from their crowdfunding debut helped Dux Somnium score its second success in raising $550,000 for follow-up game La Fleur.
Paper Fort Games, a small UK board game design studio with a single game under its belt, could hardly have been more ambitious when it approached video game developer Re-logic with the pitch for its second game - adapting Terraria, one of the biggest-selling video games of all time, to the tabletop.
Economic class warfare simulator Hegemony: Lead Your Class to Victory is looking to add Portugal's game of the year award to its resume in the wake of a powerful showing in the Golden Geek Awards last month.
Game Brewer, the Belgian publisher of board games including Gugong and Paris, is shutting down after struggling to remain profitable amid rising competition.
The word 'meeple', which board gamers around the world will recognise as meaning a stylised human-shaped playing piece, is being trademarked in the US in reaction to Carcassonne's German publisher Hans Im Glueck sending a 'cease and desist' email calling for a crowdfunding project to be taken down.
Board game news website Dicebreaker has made its editor-in-chief Matt Jarvis and senior staff writer Alex Meehan redundant, following three weeks of silence on the website in the wake of its parent company's takeover by IGN.