[Toy Fair 2020] A Final Look at the New York Toy Fair including Boardgaming from Ravensburger, Funko Games, Usaopoly, and Asmodee; and Playmobil and Factory Entertainment

Each year my coverage of companies on the show floor of the New York Toy Fair gets longer and longer. Over the last two or three years board gaming has started to gain a traction with many companies creating games based on beloved movies and licenses. This year at the New York Toy Fair I made sure to cover a few companies I felt would hit the right spot for our members. With so many bespoke boardgames coming out I am hoping there will be a rise in the number of ninjas getting into boardgaming.

Ravensburger

https://www.ravensburger.us/start/index.html
Last year at Toy Fair, after being introduced to Ravensburger through their wildly popular Villainous game, I decided to head over to their booth after learning they were developing two extremely relevant games, Jaws and Horrified. Since those were two very good games I decided to see what was new from them in 2020. On top of games the company produces puzzles, arts & crafts, and science activity kits.

Villainous: Perfectly Wretched
In Villainous players play as one of Disney’s villains with each villain having their own objectives while foiling their fellow outlaws. This is the third expansion to the game which previously saw other Disney Villains including Maleficent, Jafar, Ursula, Evil Queen, Hades, and Scar to name a few. In the new expansion, which can be played either stand alone as well as with mixing previous games, three new villains are introduced Cruella de Vil, Mother Gothel, and Pete.

Marvel Villainous: Infinite Power
Villainous expands in 2020 to Marvel Villainous. The game follows the format of the other Villainous games however because it is set in the Marvel universe and the fate deck is shared you unfortunately can’t mix this game with other Villainous games. So Far announced for the game are Thanos, Hela, Ultron, with two more characters yet to be revealed.

Back to the Future: Dice Through Time
While this game was not quite ready for full display Ravensburger did show off to me their upcoming Back to the Future Game. In this Back to the Future game you play as one of several pairs of Doc and Marty’s from different time periods collecting key items that were scattered throughout past and present Hill Valley by Old Biff after taking the time machine on a joyride. Return items, complete iconic events, and restore temporal order in this cooperative game. Plays 2-4 players with about a 60 minute game time.

Hocus Pocus: The Game
Based on the 1993 cult movie Hocus Pocus lets players work together to stop the Sanderson witches before they create a wicked potion. Unfortunately fans will have to wait a bit as this two to six player game doesn’t release until August this year.

Wonder Woman: Challenge of the Amazons
It’s up to you to defend your home of Themyscira. This cooperative game lets you choose to play as one of five characters (Diana, Philippus, Mala, Nu’bia and Artemis) as you fight against Wonder Woman’s rogue’s gallery of Ares, Circe, or The Cheetah. Each villain has their own unique gameplay adding to the level of replayability. Plays 2-4 players with about a 75 minute game time.

Dog Crimes and Cat Crimes
Cat Crimes is a logic puzzle where you use problem solving to figure out where each cat was sitting and who was responsible for each cat crime such as tangled yarn or a missing bird. This year we get Dog Crimes.

Funko Games

https://www.funko.com/funkoverse
Funko, creators of the Funko Pop!, have gotten themselves into the boardgame market. In 2019 Funko Games was created after Funko’s acquisition of the Seattle-based game design studio With their acquisition of Forrest-Pruzan Creative in 2019 and the launch of the Funkoverse games the Funko Games division was born.

Pop! Funkoverse Strategy Game
[From the Publisher] In the Funkoverse Strategy Game, you combine your favorite characters and go head-to-head in four exciting game scenarios. Use your characters’ unique abilities to gain points and achieve victory!

Each turn, you select one of your characters and perform two actions. Each character has access to basic actions like moving and challenges as well as several unique abilities that may be performed only by spending ability tokens. Funkoverse uses an innovative “cooldown” system — the more powerful the ability, the longer it will take for the ability token to become available again — so players have to spend their ability tokens wisely. Each character in Funkoverse is unique, so players are encouraged to try out different combinations of characters and items in order to discover their favorite synergies and powerful strategies for all four game scenarios.

What’s great about the Funkoverse game is that you can mix-and-match sets thereby having characters that would never meet battling against each other, such as Harry Potter versus the Golden Girls or Jaws versus Jurassic Park. At the Toy Fair last week Funko revealed a few new sets in the Funkoverse line including Jurassic Park, Jaws, Rick and Morty, and Back to the Future. Plays 2 players in about 30 minutes

Pan Am: The Game
For four decades Pan American World Airways (Pan Am) ruled the skies and made travel more accessible. In this worker placement game players take control of their own airline to compete with each other and Pan Am on their way to creating their own empire. Throughout the game you are bidding against your rivals for profitable landing rights, buying planes with longer ranges, and useing insider connections to advance your interests. You can sell your routes to Pan Am to make a profit and continue expanding or invest in Pan Am stock for later in the game. The game includes 52 airplane miniatures from 4 distinct airline eras, distinct art, and so that every game doesn’t play the same every time random, game-altering historical events. Plays 2-4 players with about a 60 minute game time.

Godzilla: Tokyo Clash
Play as one of four fearsome Kaiju monsters (Godzilla, Mothra, King Ghidorah, and Megalon) as you battle to become the most terrifying monster in Japan and with a modular board each game allows you to destroy a unique city and keep gameplay fresh.

Each player gets their own deck of cards unique to the kaiju they control. Unleash devastating attacks, and throw trains, tanks, and battleships at your enemies. However event cards, in ever increasing difficulty, simulate humans fighing back to save their city. Earn energy to gain permanent enhancements to your abilities and dominate Tokyo. Plays 2-4 players with about a 60 minute game time

Back to the Future: Back in Time
Funko Games also revealed their own Back to the Future game. However this game is strictly set in 1955 Hill Valley. In this cooperative game players take on the role of either Marty McFly, Doc Brown, Jennifer Parker, or Einstein as they move through 1955 Hill Valley with the goal of collecting items to get the DeLorean ready for the lightning strike, avoid Biff, and make sure Lorraine and George fall in love all before the photo of the McFly Family fades away. Back in Time brings major movie plot points to life in an exciting race against time against Biff and his gang. The game features a DeLorean Time Machine (non-working) miniature and 7 movie character figures and a 3-D Clock Tower acts as a dice-rolling randomizer. Plays 2-4 players with about a 60 minute game time.

Asmodee

https://store.us.asmodee.com/
Asmodee is one of the big players in the board game world. Half of my game collection comes from their catalog and I urge you if you start getting into tabletop to check out some of the many games they produce including Splendor, Seven Wonders, Dix It, Mysterium, and many many more. At Toy Fair I was excited to see a The Shining game on their shelves for upcoming games unfortunately though the person familiar with the game was not available as I was passing by so I only have the back cover description but let’s take a look anyway.

The Shining
You’ve traveled into the heart of the Rocky Mountains to take charge of the Overlook Hotel while it is closed for the winter — except you aren’t alone. The Hotel’s bloody history has made some of its past guests a permanent addition to the building, and with them come terrifying visions that begin to corrupt your mind. Snowed in, you desperately explore the rooms of the Hotel, attempting to gain enough willpower to withstand the evil influence around you. Worse still, one of you has already succumbed to the terrible forces of the Hotel and secretly acts to keep you here forever and ever… This cooperative game plays 3-5 players with about a 60 minute game time

USAopoly

https://theop.games/
Most of what I want to cover from the OP was under embargo but just want to point out two games from them Harry Potter: House Cup Competition and Harry Potter: Death Eaters Rising

Harry Potter: House Cup Competition
Harry Potter: House Cup Competition is a worker placement strategy game. For those unfamiliar a worker placement games is any game where players place tokens in a specific area of the game to claim the right to do a specific action while no other players can then use that action in a round. In the game players use  gained Knowledge and Magic to learn Lessons and complete Challenges. Players send iconic characters like Harry Potter, Cedric Digory, Cho Chang, and Draco Malfoy out on the game board to enhance their skills. The player to earn the most points for their House will be named the House Cup Champion! Plays 2-4 players with about a 75 minute game time.

Harry Potter™: Death Eaters™ Rising
He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named has returned! Lord Voldemort™ and his Death Eaters are a mounting threat to Hogwarts™. In this cooperative game, players must play together to summon witches and wizards from Dumbledore’s Army, the Order of the Phoenix, and Hogwarts to retaliate against evil Death Eaters and protect the Wizarding World. Plays 2-4 players with about a 60 minute game time

Playmobil

http://www.playmobil.us/
Playmobil producs miniature figures and playsets in both original and licensed properties. At the 2020 Toy Fair they were showing off a display of Scooby-Doo, Back to the Future, and Ghostbusters products

Ghostbusters
For Ghostbusters we have a play-and-go Play Box featuring the inside of the station with the containment box, video recorder, proton pack, and ghost trap. The set also comes with a figure and Slimer.

Scooby-Doo
Scooby Doo has a range of playsets for the Scooby gang as well as a mystery machine and individual sets based on various episodes including Adventure in Egypt, Adventure in the Witch’s Cauldron, and Adventure in the Wild West

Back to the Future
The set on display was the one set you want – The DeLorean. Complete with Marty, Doc Brown, and Einstein the DeLorean was on display in all its glory complete with flux capacitor. A second figure set has Marty and Doc in their 1955 duds.

Factory Entertainment

www.factoryent.com
Factory Entertainment, Inc. is a leading manufacturer and distributor of high-quality licensed toys, collectibles and home goods featuring a wide variety of entertainment properties and pop culture personalities, including Star Trek, Harry Potter, DC Comics, Game Of Thrones, Monty Python, Men in Black, Ghostbusters, Universal Monsters, Jurassic World, Back to the Future, Jaws, Friday the 13th, Nightmare On Elm Street, the Goonies and many others.

The REVOS vinyl figure line, introduced last year, features a self-righting mechanism built into its base, which allows you to spin’em, rock‘em, revolve’em and knock‘em. While the KUZOS line, also introduced last year features detailed die cast metal collectibles 2” figure based on movie and television characters and props.

REVOS

KUZOS

Scaled Replica Props

Lunchboxes

Plushes

Other items – Cane Toppers, Statues, Foam Replica Props, and more

Zing Toys

https://zing.toys/
Zing makes lots of toys for children, but passing along their Stikbot line which are pretty good for those of you who may want to get into some stopmotion.

Hog Wild Toys

https://www.hogwildtoys.com
Hog Wild Toys sells novelty products for older children, just check out this screaming goat based off the wildly popular YouTube video.

Thanks of course go out to all the companies above for welcoming Hi-Def Ninja into their booths and showing us their newest offerings! Looking ahead into the year I am hoping to be able to get my hands on some of the awesome games to provide a more in-depth look!

About the author

Media Journalist | Michael loves all things pop culture and has an opinion about everything whether you ask for it or not. Michael collects steelbooks, posters, convention exclusives, LEGO, Transformers, and everything in between.