From High Atop Meeple Mountain We're Seeing Pitch Hitting, Intarsia, and Starmada

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October 24, 2024

Greetings

In a week where a Belgain farmer grew a pumpkin that weighs 2, 539 libs (1,152 kg), or as heavy as a 2007 Honda Civic, where a Polish zoo announced the birth of four critically endangered Sumatran tigers, where German police have arrested a pizzaria owner who was serving pizzas with a side of cocaine, and where Toymaker Mattel has produced a blind Barbie to “allow even more children to find a doll that represents them”, we're still talking board games here on Meeple Mountain.

October 24th, 2024

Pitch Hitting—A Designer’s Experience of Essen Spiel

Andrew spent a day following a game designer around Essen. Step into the harried world of game pitching in this Meeple Mountain article.

October 23rd, 2024

Intarsia Game Review

Justin loved Michael Kiesling’s Azul, so it was a natural fit to review Kiesling’s new pattern-building abstract Intarsia, published in the US by Pegasus Spiele!

This Week's Puzzle

This week's puzzle asks if you can name the board game where the following places are on a map. If you can, send your answers to [email protected] to receive a mention in next week's newsletter.

Tyros Cyrene

Tomis Olisipo

Attalia Sinope

What's New?

This week at Meeple Mountain, our own K. David Ladage wrote up his list for the Top 6 Almost Perfect Games. We asked the rest of the team for the game they'd nominate.

David McMillan
Planta Nubo would be just about perfect if it weren't for the fact that there's only one single player aid provided.

Clayton Schoonover
Gotta go with Kingdom Death: Monster. It has everything, but the sudden turn of events the game can take can get very frustrating. Everything can be going well, but then you pull the wrong event or roll the wrong number, and your settlement's best character goes from god-mode to useless in the matter of one sentence.

Tom Franklin

Mine is Hey, Hey, That's My Fish. It's a great, clever abstract featuring penguins and ice floes. The problem is, it takes longer to set up the board than it does to play the game.

Jesse Fletcher

Power Grid if you were able to use all of the map sections regardless of player count
War of the Ring if the siege combat mechanics were cleaner.

Board Game News

What's going on in the tabletop industry?

Date	Headline
October 23rd	Summit Award reveals 2024 contenders which have best helped draw in players, broaden scope of historical board gaming
October 22nd	BoardGameGeek founder, Magic the Gathering creator among board game industry professionals teaming up to support Kamala Harris presidential campaign
October 17th	No, Mythic Games hasn’t gone into liquidation – but its fate should be decided by the end of the month
October 16th	Matagot stops publishing heavier games like Kemet, Inis, shifts focus to family and children’s titles
October 15th	Nucleum wins Portugal’s game of the year award

News courtesy of BoardGameWire

The Wayback Machine

Meeple Mountain has been publishing content since 2015. Take a look at what we released 5 years ago this week!

October 24th, 2019

SHŌBU Game Review

How do you make a brand new game feel like an ancient tradition? Read our review of SHŌBU to find out.

October 25th, 2019

Cartographers Game Review

Prepare to dull your pencils as you sharpen your wits in Cartographers, the new roll and write style game from Thunderworks Games!

October 27th, 2019

Climbing the Shelf: Walmart Games – Fall 2019

Join Boardgame Brody as he puts on his hiking shoes and climbing ropes to show you what board games might be available at your local Walmart in the fall of 2019.

Board Game Conventions

We maintain a comprehensive list of board game conventions all over the world. Here's what's coming up in the next 2 weeks.

Oct. 31 - Nov. 3, 2024 Detroit, MI, USA YouMaCon Oct. 31 - Nov. 3, 2024 Temple, TX, USA MilleniumCon 2024 Oct. 31 - Nov. 3, 2024 Bellevue, WA, USA Dice Fest Nov. 1-3, 2024 Eastbourne, England LoBsterCon Nov. 1-3, 2024 Clearwater, FL, USA Tampa Nerd Con 2024	Nov. 1-3, 2024 Cherokee, IA, USA Kee Con Nov. 1, 2024 Effingham, IL, USA Effing-Con Nov. 1-3, 2024 Rockford, IL, USA Rock-Con Nov. 1-3, 2024 St. Louis, MO, USA Warfaire Weekend 2024 Nov. 1, 2024 Lincoln, NE, USA Great Plains Game Festival (Harvest)
You can find more upcoming conventions on our Guide To Board Game Conventions.

List your tabletop gaming event

Crowdfunding Roundup

Check out our extensive list of tabletop related Crowdfunding campaigns.

End Date	Campaign
October 24th	Shape Invaders
October 24th	Split the Hoard: A competitive card game for 2-5 players
October 24th	Nature: a standalone board game in the Evolution series
October 25th	Restart
October 25th	Invincible: The Card Game!
October 25th	SPACE INVADERS™: My Play Watch
October 26th	StarDriven: Gateway
October 27th	Potato Party: Mashterworks
October 30th	Dungeon Up + Below Expansion (Print & Play)
October 30th	Era of Atlantis

You can find more campaigns on our Crowdfunding Roundup.

Add your crowdfunding campaign

Coming Up This Week at Meeple Mountain

Here's what's on the calendar for the next several days at Meeple Mountain.

Empyreal: Spells and Steam
Mass Effect
Belratti
Hidden Leaders
Games We Love: Dixit
Stalk Exchange
Krafwagen: Age of Engineering
SETI

www.meeplemountain.com

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