Toy Fair 2004 – page 3

Pevans reports on the new board games at the UK event

Newbies

Battle Command is the first game from Armada Scale Replicas, based in Dublin. This is a strategic Second World War wargame using model tanks. Each player has one of a set of objectives, depending on which nation they are playing. Battles are fought on the tactical, battle board using the models. The strategic game includes elements of logistics - keeping your troops supplied. The game should be available from March, with distribution through Esdevium and Hobbygames.

Treasure Island poster

Treasure Island was designed by Paul Burley and is published by Burley Games. As the title suggests, the game is about collecting treasure from an island. The various treasure chests around the island are represented on a separate board, with treasure cards dealt into the space for each chest. Players find the treasure by expanding their tokens across the board from the various landings on the coast according to the roll of the dice. At first glance, it looks like there's an interesting, if fairly abstract, game at the centre of this. However, there also seems to be a strong luck element, with lots of dice-rolling.

Games for Fun is re-launching its football game in a new version: The Euro. This is intended as a simulation of football tournaments and is timed for Euro 2004. Each player gets a number of teams and tries to get their teams through the tournament. Matches are resolved fairly simply using dice, modified by a seeding handicap. In the case of a tie, there are golden goal dice and even penalty shoot-outs. The game is being distributed through Hobbygames and there is also a tie-in to a charity to support the treatment of sports injuries in children (and particularly Osgood Schlatter's Disease). The World Cup version of the game has trivia questions as well.

Beat the Traffic Warden comes from Gladstone Design. It was first produced at the end of 2003 and got into a few shops for Christmas. The game has a basic roll-the-dice-and-move-the-dobber mechanism. The players are drivers, running foul of various penalties as they move round the board. However, some cards allow you to give the traffic warden back the ticket! A straightforward family game that looks quite fun.

Grab a Pig logo

Prospecting in Gold is an interesting name for a company. The name of their game is just as interesting: Grab a Pig. It was launched last year and was well-received in shops in East Anglia (the company is based in Thetford). The game has some great model pigs plus cards representing six farmyard animals. Players start with a hand of cards dealt at random. Everybody passes one card to their left. And again. And again. Until someone has a full set of the animals and grabs one of the pigs. Then everybody else has to grab one - except that there is one less than the number of players. So one player is out, you reduce the number of pigs by one and play another hand. It's played quickly, it's very silly and it's good fun.

Despite what I took to be an Irish name, Shannon Boardgames comes from Glasgow. The company has two games, Crazy Circles and Tycoon, which were both designed by founder Ewan Shannon. The first is a clever numerical version of Snakes and Ladders. The board has a grid of interlocking circles and players roll dice to move around it - where you end up depends on the die roll, but you do have some decisions to make. It's aimed at children and families.

Tycoon has a board that shows city blocks and streets, but turns out to be a Monopoly variant. Players move around the streets by die roll, having the opportunity to buy property they land on - or paying rent if the property's already owned (and paying more if the same player owns the whole block). The winner is the player who drives all their opponents into bankruptcy. However, some neat mechanisms make the game stand out. For a start, the streets give players a lot of scope for where they move, allowing them to avoid already-owned buildings and get to property that's still available. Buying property is on a hidden bid system, which is only resolved at set points. By which time other players may have put bids in for the property you want! It looks an interesting challenge.

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Round-up

Having finished wandering around this year's show, I reckoned there were fewer games companies than last year. So I did a quick totting-up of the stands I'd visited: 25 versus last year's 32. But re:creation had some dozen publishers on their stand, so there's a strong argument that there were actually more games companies present this year!

A few people were definitely missing, though. First of these was Cheatwell Games, who have a large range of fun family games. A quick look at their website suggests that they have half a dozen new games for 2004, so the company seems to be in good health. Also missing was David Westnedge, a distributor of classic games (Chess, Backgammon, Go etc) and playing cards. I'd guess that the show is no longer particularly useful for them

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