Those looking forward to Z-Man Games’ new edition of Tales of the Arabian Nights will be interested in this: Universal Head, the proprietor of Headless Hollow, has posted his designs for the upcoming release. He has images of the logo, some cards and the board, all of which look quite nice.

While honestly I’d probably buy it even if they scrawled it with crayon on old paper sacks (well, maybe not), it’s nice to see the level of detail that’s going into this.

[Link]

A rare copy of Zimmer’s Baseball Game was found in a small closet in the Bingham-Wagner estate in Independence, Missouri. The game — only 1 of 10 known to exist — is an early dexterity game and features images of turn of the century ballplayers, including Cy Young and the eponymous Mr. Zimmer. It was published in 1893 by McLoughlin Bros. for the Chicago’s World Fair. While the Baseball Hall of Fame is interested, it appears for now the game will remain in Missouri.

Link (CNN Video)

Oh my stars and garters, it’s another Vintage Gamer! This time I cover the 80s conspiracy game, Illuminati. Lie to your friends, stab them in the back, all to take over the world (sounds like Diplomacy — or a bizarre version of Lifeboats). All this, plus some Vintage Gamer news and feedback!

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Those of you who enjoyed the Chess Variants episode might want to look into this. From Purple Pawn:

Ramsons Kala Pratishtana has organized their second exhibition of traditional Indian board games at the Pratima Gallery, Mysuru. The exhibition runs from 16 - 25 May.

They also started a kick-ass blog on traditional Indian board games.

There are some nice entries and pictures in the blog. The most recent one talks about how to play “Goats and Tigers,” which appears to be an alternate version of Fox and Geese.

Link

And so The Vintage Gamer returns to its regular yet irregular schedule. In this show I spend over an hour talking about one of my secret loves: chess variants. I talk about games of the past, games from other countries, and some other unusual variants. (and this barely scratches the surface). In addition, our new sponsor Bob stops by for a visit. All this, plus unrequested editorial commentary from a groundskeeper and a curious dog.

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[From Purple Pawn] Yet Avalon Hill favorite has been republished. This time it’s Blackbeard, Richard Berg’s pirate game. Players take on a role of a pirate from history, and can also act as British naval vessels hunting (presumably) the other pirates. The new version is redesigned by Richard Berg himself, published by GMT, and features simplified movement and combat, as well as more opportunities when playing as the Royal Navy. Pre-release sample art and rulebook are available on the GMT site.

[Link]

[From Purple Pawn] Mongoose Publishing, current publisher of Paranoia and RuneQuest, has just released a new version of the classic space trading RPG, Traveller. I haven’t taken a look at it myself, but they have previews on their site, including looks at character creation (hopefully you can’t roll a dead character), combat, and world creation. They’re also planning to expand the settings supported to include other space opera, such as Judge Dredd and Starship Troopers.

For those who want to play the original Traveller, QLI/RPGRealms has a single book that reprints the first three “little black books”, plus many other reprints and Classic Traveller-related items. They also have a d20 version of Traveller, but really, why bother…

Link

One thing I forgot to mention in this post, is that you can play the original Infocom Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy game at the BBC website. Try not to let the fish slide down the drain this time…

I somehow missed the official announcement (I got an email in February announcing its imminent release, but not the actual event), but Return to Dark Castle is finally available for purchase and download. You can get it off of the SuperHappyFunFun site. There’s also some information on the ZSculpt site about the level structure for those who want to a head start on designing their own levels.

I’ll be purchasing my own copy tonight and I’ll try not to let it delay the next show any more than it already is.