I missed another month. February came and went in a blaze of deadlines, some major good news for the small company where I toil, a brief familial visit, and a general lack of chronological awareness. If this keeps up the Game Cabinet may have to drop back to a bi-monthly schedule. To all the folks that sent me material - translations, reviews, random missives - that didn't make it in to this issue, watch this space. I'll get it in as fast as I can. Your contributions are always appreciated.
Nuremberg, one of the most important commercial toy fairs in Germany, also came and went leaving a large batch of new games behind in its wake. Early reviews have been mixed and few in number since most of the games are being released this month.
Many gamers have expressed concern that the recent changes at Mayfair will halt the flow of European games into the US. There are several strong signs that this will not be the case. Check out the latest Just Say Games catalog. You'll find Take 6 from US Games Systems, which is the American edition of 6 Nimmt! by Abacus, and Hattrick from Amigo. Both of these are excellent card games and are selling in the six buck range. You can't beat that. Frank Branham reports similar good news about Chessex.
Finally, Alan R. Moon has hired on with FX Schmid to head up their US games division. We should see several games from the new division quite soon, including Siggins' latest rave, Take It Easy. Alan tells us all about his future plans in an interview this month.
On the games front, we've been playing a bit of Mythos, the Chaosium's Lovecraftian collectable card game. The Dreamland expansion features really stunning artwork. The game play is quite good and does capture the mood of the books, particularly those stories that were inspired by Lovecraft's work more than the ones actually written by the Great One himself.
Mancala fans should be sure to check out the exhibit on count and capture games on virtual exhibit at the Museum and Archive of Games at the University of Waterloo. The exhibit features images of relevant game boards from around the world.
take care,
ken