▪️ In Q2 2025, <a href="https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgamepublisher/31523/keymaster-games“>Keymaster games will release a second edition of Henry Audubon‘s game PARKS, which debuted in 2019.
Parks (second edition) will feature all 63 U.S. National Parks (instead of the 48 in the original game), new art from Josh Emrich and [person=166408]Lisk Feng[/person], new gameplay elements from Audubon, the camping module from PARKS: Nightfall, and the animal integrations from PARKS: Wildlife.
▪️ Roughly one year after I first wrote of Spanish publisher Ludonova picking upJay Cormier and Sen-Foong Lim‘s 2016 game Junk Art and promising “a new, expanded and revised edition, with new art, which will be available worldwide”, artist Eric Hibbeler has posted this teaser image of the new look:
Ludonova plans to release this edition in mid-2025, with the game featuring an updated scoring system, wood components (as in the original release), and three new “cities”, that is, new game modes.
▪️ In February 2025, French publisher Spiel-ou-face will debut a new edition of Stefano Luperto‘s King Up! at the FIJ game fair in Cannes.
This new edition, Vive le Roi!, now accommodates 2-8 players instead of only 3-6, but the gameplay remains the same as before: Each player has a secret roster of characters that they want to elevate within the castle, ideally landing one of these candidates on the throne. During set-up, players take turns placing characters on the lower four floors of the castle, then on a turn you elevate one character one level, assuming there’s room above as each floor can hold only four characters.
When a character ascends to the throne, all players vote on whether that character should rule. If anyone votes “No”, that character is assassinated and removed from play! Each player has only one “No” vote, however, so a new ruler can’t be denied forever. Once someone claims the throne, you score based on the heights of the characters on your roster, and whoever has the most points after three rounds wins.
▪️ On March 25, 2025, Looney Labs will release Word Fluxx, the latest iteration of Andy Looney‘s nearly three-decade-old card Fluxx. For those not familiar with this game, here’s a general intro, followed by what’s new in this edition:
At the start of the game, each player holds three cards and on a turn a player draws one card, then plays one card. By playing cards, you can put new rules into play that change numerous aspects of the game: how many cards to draw or play, how many cards you can hold in hand or keep on the table in front of you, and (most importantly) how to win the game.
In Word Fluxx, the word-building version of the ever-changing card game, the keepers each feature a letter, and the goals involve making words of various types. With twice the typical number of keepers, you’ll have plenty of letters to build nouns and verbs, palindromes, three-letter acronyms (TLAs), Roman numerals, and more.
