Board gaming has become a staple of my coverage over the years and with many companies producing games based on hugely popular properties it only makes sense to cover some of these games. Walking down the toys section at Target reveals a huge selection of games, not just licensed games but plenty of great original games as well. Let’s take a look at some key companies producing games that may spark some interest for you to get into gaming.
For now I am still leaning into companies that make games based more on licensed content however I do hope to open this up in the future to more gaming companies as there are some amazing games and companies out there.
Ravensburger
https://www.ravensburger.us/start/index.html
First up is a company that I have covered in the past – Ravensburger. Founded in 1883 in Ravensburger Germany this company produces games, arts and crafts, science activity kits, and is a market leader in the jigsaw puzzle market. Fun fact they are one world’s largest producer of jigsaw puzzles with sets that have even reached 40,000 pieces.
I have followed them over the course of a few years through their popular Jaws and Back to the Future games as well as their successful line of Horrified games which started with Universal Monsters and has evolved to a few spinoffs since. They also produce the very popular Villainous game with their regular Disney, Marvel, and Star Wars lines and in 2023 they made waves with the release of the Disney Trading Card Game Lorcana.
So what’s new from them…
Star Wars GraviTrax
https://www.ravensburger.us/en-US/products/gravitrax
For those unfamiliar, like I was, GraviTrax are set of marble run toys that set the standard for creativity, excitement, and educational play. These sets combine creativity and precision engineering that allow children and adults to design their custom tracks. Through modular building systems you can build your custom track and watch as the marbles race, twist, and turn their way through loops, ramps, and obstacles.
Toy fair saw the release of a collaboration with Disney’s Star Wars for the release of the Star Wars – Death Star action set. While non-Star Wars sets can be combined with the set the set is mostly self contained to resemble the Death Star along with Star Destroyers, Tie Fighters, X-Wings, and anti-ship canons. Check out the photos and video below for this exciting new collaboration from GraviTrax.
Villainous
Coming in three varieties (Disney, Marvel, and Star Wars) Villainous is a game where players play as a villains trying to achieve their own winning objectives while foiling their fellow outlaws. The game is generally built where you can mix and match villains within the specific series. So with the expansions in the Marvel line you can mix-and-match the villains to create many unique gameplays however because of the different game mechanics you are unfortunately unable to pair a Marvel villain against a Star Wars villain. There continued to be new expansions in the series with the announcement for a new expansions but no specific news on characters.
Within the world of Villainous there was an announcement of a new stand alone game – Disney Villainous Unstoppable!
In this standalone game players choose one of four characters (Maleficent, Ursula, Hades, or Scar) and move around a shared game board that includes a distinct realm for each villain. As you match action symbols on your card to locations on the board players take actions to upgrade their realm, advance their plan, fate an opponent, defeat a hero, and gain power. To streamline the game and make it more accessible to younger players each player has a goal of collecting four tokens that comprise your evil plan (such as gathering hyenas for Scar) in order to win.
Horrified
In the Horrified cooperative series of games players are pit against monsters using puzzle-like challenges. What started with the original Universal Monsters has evolved into a series of games and a host of different monsters including American Monsters (Bigfoot, the Jersey Devil, Mothman, the Chupacabra, the Ozark Howler, and the Banshee of the Badlands); Greek Monsters (Medusa, Cerberus, Minotaur, Chimera, Siren, and Basilisk); and World of Monsters (Sphinx, Yeti, Jiangshi, and Cthulhu). Also Starting with Greek Monsters players can mix-and-match sets for even more combinations.
The new news at Toy Fair was a reveal for a Dungeons & Dragons Horrified version. No full announcement on the monsters but based on the box on can guess what you may face in the game.
Pac Man Labyrinth
For fans of the classic Labyrinth marble run game Brio has you covered with a Pac Man Version coming soon.
Lorcana Trading Card Game
https://www.disneylorcana.com/en-US/story/
In Lorcana, Illumineers play with a sixty-card deck and produce “ink” which is used to summon cards representing characters, items, and song lyrics. Similar to other trading card games players take turns by generating ink, using ink to summon cards, and then using the actions on cards to face their opponent in an attempt to be the first player to accrue twenty points referred to as lore.
Like most Trading Card Games players can easily pick up a two starter boxes and get to playing but there are also booster packs that can help augment the starter decks or allow players to build their own decks. Adding to the level of collectability is that similar to other trading card games there are tiers of rarity in the cards and a foil element also adds another layer to that as well. Additionally there are a host of ancillary products also available from themed sleeves and deck boxes to playmats and card portfolios.
Set 7 – Archazia’s Island – is set to release on March 21 but can be found at you FLGS now. Not a lot is currently known but the island plays home to a menagerie of cuddly critters, iconic pets from Disney history and a dark secret for illumineers to discover.
Puzzles
Again Ravensburger is a world leader in the jigsaw puzzle market so they have a tremendous amount of products. Specifically I enjoyed seeing their Hyperspace Star Wars Sets, Disney Castle Collection, Harry Potter 3D puzzles, and a host of other licensed and non-licensed puzzles.
The OP Games
https://theop.games/
What started as a company solely focused on creating custom Monopoly games has turned into a strong brand in the board gaming world. Over the years the company went from just custom versions of Monopoly to expand their portfolio with other custom versions of other popular games including Clue, Munchkin, Trivial Pursuit, Codenames, Life, and more. While they still do produce skinned versions of games company rebranded itself as The OP and has begun to also make original family, party, and hobby games.
Licensed Properties
For games like Monopoly, Clue, Trivial Pursuit, Yahtzee, and more there was no shortage of represented properties including Beetlejuice, Dune, Godzilla, Goosbumps, Hello Kitty, Naruto, The Nightmare Before Christmas, One Piece, Super Mario, Wednesday, What We Do in the Shadows and more.
Original Games
But really what has been great to see from the OP over the years are new original games and The OP has some seriously good original games. Their most recent Flip 7 was a finalist for this year’s Toy of the Year Awards and another recent game of theirs Tapple is another award winner.
Flip 7 is a press-your-luck card game. In it players flip cards over one-by-one while avoiding flipping the same number twice. What makes the game more difficult is that while the cards are numbered one through twelve there is only one 1 card while there are twelve 12’s as well as a few special cards. Players can continue flipping until they get seven unique cards or play it safe and stop without busting and bank their cards.
Tapple is a fast paced word game for the family just tap letters on the portable wheel as you come up with words for various categories before the ten-second timer runs out.
In Tacta players flip, twist, and turn their cards to align and cover their opponents’ shapes with matching squares, triangles, and rectangles.
In 25 Words or Less, based on the hit TV game show, two clue-givers bet on how few words they’ll need to have their teammate(s) guess five secret answers, starting at 25. The lowest bidder takes the card and must beat the challenge within their limited clues–and time! The OP also reskinned this game into a very fun game and box design!
Hues and Cues is a game where players are challenged to make connections to colors with words
A classic Telestrations comes in a few formats.
Tea Witches, which comes out later this year. In it players need to prove they are the best tea brewer at the Teaquinox Faire. The game has two phases and lasts four rounds. In the summoning phase, players simultaneously draw a crowd of witches to their tea hut while in the service phase, players gather toppings and collect tea in order to serve witches waiting at their hut.
In Glyphics players are given words and have to give clues to other players using different shapes and pieces.
The OP also makes two very strong deck building games – Harry Potter and Avatar: The Last Airbender
Asmodee
https://store.us.asmodee.com/
Asmodee is one of the big players in the board game world with one of the largest IP catalog out there. They offer licensed and non-licensed games for a global audience at all levels of play and skill. Once you are ready to explore games outside of games based on movies or TV I encourage you to check out their offerings; some top mentions would include CATAN, Ticket to Ride, Exploding Kittens, Splendor, Seven Wonders, Dix It, Mysterium, Harmonies, Forest Shuffle, and a host more. They also are the parent company to Fantasy Flight Games, makers of the Star Wars X-Wing game and Star Wars Unlimited the Trading Card Games
At Toy Fair they had a large display of games but keeping a bit more focused to those of interest there is still plenty to cover.
LEGO Monkey Palace players work together to rebuild the majestic Monkey Palace, competing to earn the most Banana Points through smart building strategies. Build a staircase for the Palace, count your Monkey Credits, take Monkey Cards and score Banana Points. The longer and taller staircases you build, the more Monkey Credits and the better Monkey Cards you will get. The winner is the player with the most Banana Points!
LEGO Brick Like This! Is an upcoming game where teams work to build shapes. A clue giver describes the bricks and shapes needed to earn points. As the difficulty increases the shapes get harder to make and describe.
A new 6th Edition of Catan was announced. Compete with 2-3 opponents to expand your settlements and cities while managing resources and avoiding the robber. Use brick, wood, wheat, ore, and sheep to construct roads, settlements, and cities in your race to 10 victory points.
Star Wars UNLOCK! Is a 60 minute escape room adventure in a box. As rebels, smugglers, or imperial agents, search locations, combine items, use ships, weapons, interact with droids and machines in these adventures. There are three adventure in this game which uses the Unlock! game system.
The Lord of the Rings: Duel for Middle-Earth is a two player game based on Seven Wonder Duel and played over three chapters, using cards and High Places to expand your influence, rally allies, and progress in your quest. Choose either the Fellowship to destroy the One Ring or as Sauron to conquer the land and play until one side wins the Quest for the Ring, forming alliances with six Peoples, or dominating Middle-earth.
The Fellowship of the Ring: Trick-Taking Game was actually a game that release a few months ago and one I picked up at PAX Unplugged but it is worth mentioning here. In this cooperative trick-tacking game follow the narrative of the beloved novel in a unique gameplay experience, meeting new characters and completing quests as you progress. The game which is beautifully illustrated plays through 18 chapters and has been loads of fun.
Star War Unlimited
https://starwarsunlimited.com/
While not technically new, since there was no Toy Fair since 2023 I had not been able to make a post about the new Star Wars Trading Card Game.
In this fast-paced, easy-to-learn trading card game (TCG), you and your opponent face off in exciting head-to-head battles featuring tons of iconic Star Wars characters. Whether you’re a Star Wars fan, a card game fan, or both, Star Wars: Unlimited is a game that anyone can enjoy.
In the game players go back and forth taking a single action at a time. The player with the initiative counter takes the first action, then their opponent acts, and so on until both players have passed. The actions available to each player are play a card, attack with a unit, use an action ability, take the initiative,and pass. Rounds continue until one player defeats their opponent.
As in most TCGs players can easily pick up a two starter boxes and get to playing but there is also an Intro Battle Hoth Learn to Play box as well as booster packs that can help augment the starter decks or allow players to build their own decks. As in most TCGs there are tiers of rarity in the cards and a foil element also adds another layer to that as well. Additionally there are a host of ancillary products also available from themed sleeves and deck boxes to playmats and card portfolios.
They are currently up to the fourth set – Jump to Lightspeed – featuring characters and content from across multiple eras of the Star Wars galaxy, with a particular focus on starships, pilots, and epic space battles.
Exploding Kittens
https://www.explodingkittens.com/
While Exploding Kittens started as a successful Kickstarter project by Matthew Inman of The Oatmeal webcomic, Elan Lee and Shane Small the company has since gone on to create a multitude of games and expansions including Throw Throw Burrito, Poetry for Neanderthals, and Really Loud Librarians, Horrible Therapist, Survivor, and Anarchy Pancakes.
The newest games shown off at Toy Fair were the Exploding Kittens board game. The game celebrates the 10 year anniversary of the game. While playing with a mostly standard deck the goal of the game is to maneuver from one side of the board to the other. However it’s certainly not that simple as the game board is actually double sided and making accomplishing that goal much more difficult.
Goliath Games
https://www.goliathgames.us/
Founded in ounded in 1980, Goliath Games is a family-owned global toy and game companies. They create, manufacture, and distribute an extremely wide array of games. Some of their brands include The Floor is Lava, Wahu, NexCube, Sequence, Phlat Ball, Triominos, Gator Golf, Pop the Pig, Doggie Doo, Gooey Looey, and Let’s Go Fishin’.
While there was not as much licensed content I did want to call out the Chucky matching game. This simple game basically uses a card matching mechanic in order to find weapons to attack Chucky, but pick up enough fear and Chucky might just get you.
Goliath also seems to have a few of Funko Games games along with Sequence and Cash Trap.
While not a game Goliath Games did add a new blue bladed saber to their Power Saber line. I did previously cover the release of the Power Saber here but as a recap the Power Saber is the first-ever saber that fully auto-extends and retracts fully into the hilt of the blade. The saber once powered up extends up to 35”, has an in-hilt LED, features 9 motion- based sound FX, and has a flash on clash feature.
