GAMA Trade Show 2010 Report–Part 6
This Part 6 of my ongoing coverage of the GAMA Trade Show 2010! Check back tomorrow for more or subscribe to the Livingdice.com RSS feed and not miss a single post.
APBA Games
The venerable producer of sports simulations announced their latest re-releases: “APBA Golf” and “APBA Soccer.” Golf hits the stores in the Fall and soccer is a mid-summer release. As it was explained to me, these games are for those that like being the “coach” and creating a team based on statistics. I understand this company started producing games in the 1930s and is still at it! For the curious, APBA originally stood for “American Professional Baseball Association.” The game creators created their own league to run their events and the name was eventually shortened to APBA.
Ovation Productions displayed the “Tower of Mystery” board game. The game requires players to move around in the tower using dice and visit each of the tower’s turrets, while at the same time accumulating cards to spell out the word “TOWER.” There are obstacles and some of the cards allow you to influence how other players move. It looked like a light, family game with a fun theme. If anyone has played this game, I would like to hear about it. Family games are an area I do not really have a lot of knowledge about.
“Those Pesky Humans” is an upcoming release (June) from Minion Games. Rather than playing heroes, the players are annoyed dungeon dwellers hell-bent on defending their own slice of the underworld from invading humans. Reminded me of the old “Dungeon Keeper” game with tiles. Might be good for a warm-up before an RPG session. I also looked at the card game “Nile.” Looks like a resource management/building-style card game. I actually want to give this one a try.
Minion also produces a line of game accessories, including the largest foam d20 I have ever seen.
DBC Sports
Fistarts is a mixed-martial arts themed board/card game. You do battle in five-minute rounds (using the included digital timer) and throw down cards to achieve victory with a variety of martial-arts moves. You have the option of fighting just in your corner or in all four corners at the same time. The mechanics looked very straightforward and the rules simple. I also got a kick out of the bloodstains all over the octagon. Verisimilitude!
This game has an incredibly specific audience; lawyers and law students. The base game costs $69.95 for the board game and it looks and plays much like “Trivial Pursuit.” The main difference is the cards all have legal question ranging from the humorous to the obscure. Interestingly, there is a separate deck of question cards for bar exam studying. The extra deck costs $59.95 and all the questions are from the bar exam! The publisher made a point of telling me they actually paid to license the questions from the official exam, so this game is actually a study aid.
“Warlords of Europe” is a recent release (Feb). Players in “Warlords of Europe” do battle for control of terrain. As the players take more terrain, regions produce income and players buy more units or fortify their positions. Combat is dice-based and unit specific. (You can just make out the combat summary card in the center of the board). I liked the styling of the board a great deal and it comes with a small mountain of miniatures. It is for 2-4 players, with play time at one hour per player. Looked like a great way to kill a Sunday afternoon. Seemed to get a lot of interest at the show as well.
“Zombie Ninja Pirate” is an odd game involving the battle to the death by the respective groups. It is a “magic-like” card game for 2-6 players.
Gozer also had “Collateral Damage” a manga-themed, romantic comedy board game. Not only must you defeat your opponents, you have to fend off admirers! Looked cute, but I did not play it to check out the mechanics.
Ascension: Chronicles of the Godslayer
A non-CCG collectible card game in the vein of “Dominion.” The final game releases in August and supports up to four players with the starter set. There are, of course, non-random supplements for the game. As to game play, it had some interesting twists on the standard “Dominion” model and I would like to get in a few rounds before saying any more. Though, I did think the card art was above average.
Check back tomorrow for more great GTS 2010 exhibitors!
Trask, The Last Tyromancer
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A few minor corrections regarding your comments above:
1.) APBA was released in 1951. It was an adaptation of an earlier game published in 1931 called National Pastime, which folded. Dick Seitz did not “create” APBA but he did develop it, adding pitching and fielding ratings, and he marketed it successfully.
2.)The original A.P.B.A. league used National Pastime. When they could not get cards for their league anymore, they began making their own. Dick Seitz added refinements to the game over the years before he published it in 1951.
3.) APBA Golf is a re-release (the original was first published in the early 60’s); APBA Soccer is a brand new game, and APBA plans to produce Premier league teams as well as MLS teams for it, according to Marc Rinaldi, president of the company, from their Delphi discussion board.
Thank you for the update.