Control Dinosaurs, Fight Aliens, and Organize Squirrels

## Upland & Prairie In May 2026, UK publisher Osprey Games announced that it plans to sell its board and card game line, while still being committed "to release, sell, and license upcoming games according to our existing schedules". One of those upcoming games was revealed near the end of July 2026: Upland & Prairie, a 2-4 player game by Peer Sylvester, who designed the first board game Osprey released in 2015 — The King Is Dead — as well as other titles from Osprey such as The Lost Expedition and Brian Boru: High King of Ireland. _Upland & Prairie_ asks you to repopulate the land, whether Montana's plains or the Scottish Highlands, with appropriate animals — but which animals are appropriate depends on how the game ends. The double-sided landscape tiles and animal tokens allow you to play in either location with nearly identical rules. Sample game layout with the Scottish Highland tiles and animal tokens for a four-player game; art by Hannah Cohen During set-up, each player draws two animal tokens and places them behind their screen; animal tokens come in three types. On a turn, you draw three animal tokens from the bag, then place one behind your screen, another on the game board, and the final one back in the bag. Each space initially holds only one token, but as you draw "rewilding" tokens from the bag, you can place two or three animals of the same type in the same space. Some landscape spaces are off-limits, while others have an "impassable edge" that makes adjacent hexes viewed as non-adjacent. Play continues until one of two conditions takes place: * A continuous line of animals of the same type connects the two paired goals (black and white drops) or the three triple goals (three flower icons). * Fewer than three tokens remain in the bag. In the former situation, whoever has collected the most of this animal type behind their screen wins. In the latter, whoever has the most sets of all three animals wins. Sample game layout on the Montanan prairie for three players; art by Hannah Cohen _Upland & Prairie_ is due out in September 2026 in both the UK and the United States. ## Dino Battle! You'll find very different animals walking the hexagonal lands in Dino Battle!, a new version of 1993's Die Schlacht der Dinosaurier from Stephen Baker and Roger Ford, with Anthony Howgego serving as co-designer on the new release. In this game for 2-4 players, you command a tribe of dinosaur-riding cavemen and are fighting for dominance of the land. You want to seize arcane glyphs scattered across the ravaged landscape to claim their mystical boons for your people. Harness the crackling power of mighty energy crystals to devastate your enemies with relentless speed and ferocity, and hoard precious blood fruit, a rare resource in this cursed wasteland. Mock-up components for __Dino Battle!__ Six dinosaur species are included in the game, with miniatures sculpted directly from artwork by Mihajlo Dimitrievski, a.k.a. The Mico. To win, you want to trample enemies beneath your towering Brachiosaurus, outflank and outnumber your opponents with your ruthless Velociraptors, and control sacred shrines with your powerful T-Rex and hunt your enemies to extinction _._ Publisher Rebellion Unplugged plans to demo _Dino Battle!_ at SPIEL Essen 26, with a crowdfunding campaign scheduled to run on Gamefound. ## XCOM: The Miniatures Game In April 2026, Modiphius Entertainment teased XCOM: The Miniatures Game with a logo and nothing else, but ahead of Gen Con 2026 opening on 30 July, the UK publisher released some info for the game, while opening pre-orders for this design based on Ivan Sorensen's Five Parsecs From Home: Solo Adventure Wargaming. Modiphius writes: The 280-page core rulebook allows players to lead an elite team of XCOM operatives as they fight across different missions to build XCOM and defeat an alien threat. The hardback, full-color standalone core rulebook features tech, research and base-building options, campaign and single-player modes, and 33 mission types, including "terror site", "combat patrol" and "UFO crash". Rules also include the ability to play PVP matches with opposing alien or operative squads, or let one player take control of the aliens in the campaign with "Alien Commander" mode, as well as incorporating content inspired by the XCOM video game's expansions, including advanced tech upgrades, MEC Troopers, and the EXALT faction. Game components available include miniatures of operatives and two sets of aliens, a dice set, a reference card pack, and an acrylic token pack. ****Like this kind of coverage?**** Get Board Game Beat’s free posts by email — original reporting, designer interviews, and industry news, with no tracking, no ads, and no spam. Sign up!

wericmartin.com

«Mira mamá, sin cookies»: una web que revela todo lo que un sitio web que se visita puede saber de ti y además te explica cómo lo hace

Sin una sola cookie, esta demo captura 166 señales de tu perfil digital a partir del navegador y logra huellas casi únicas. Qué tranquilidad la de la internet moderna.

microsiervos.com

Board Game Beat Is Six Months Old

Six months ago today, I said goodbye to BoardGameGeek after fifteen years and officially launched Board Game Beat, an independent publication devoted to the craft, culture, and business of tabletop games. At that time, I knew what I wanted to publish: game announcements and industry news, previews and reviews, convention reports, interviews, essays, videos, and other explorations of how games are designed, published, played, and experienced. I also knew what I did _not_ want to create: an enormous content machine that would require me to be online at all hours, chase algorithms, or publish simply because the calendar said I should. The goal was to create something smaller, more personal, and more sustainable. Six months in, Board Game Beat has published **200+ posts** and reaches **44,000+ unique visitors** each month. More than **2,000 people** have signed up as members, including approximately**300 paid members**. Those numbers feel somewhat unreal to me. Board Game Beat exists because readers were willing to follow me somewhere new — and because many more of you have discovered the site since its launch. Thank you! ## Six Months in Review During these first six months, I've written about games from publishers around the world, both large and small, familiar and obscure. I've covered new releases, awards, crowdfunding projects, industry changes, and random appearances by games in other media. I've reported from Spielwarenmesse, Toy Fair NY, GAMA Expo, and Origins Game Fair, previewing games and reflecting on the conventions themselves — and I'm proud to continue publishing Saigo's translations of Takuya Ono's reports (part 1 & part 2) from Game Market, giving you a direct peek into the Japanese indie scene. I've featured creators talking about their work, including Inka and Markus Brand discussing ten years of _EXIT: The Game_ , R. Eric Reuss detailing the future of _Spirit Island_ , and Thomas Sing explaining how he re-designed _The Crew_ to invite players on a _Journey to the Ends of the Earth_. I've written about the increasingly blurry boundary between games and puzzles, how and why people use BoardGameGeek, factors affecting tabletop game distribution, how to complain about games productively, and whatever else has seemed worth examining. The precise shape of Board Game Beat has evolved along the way, and it will continue to evolve. Some ideas work differently in practice than they did in my head, some subjects demand more attention than I had anticipated, and sometimes I slip down a rabbit hole when tracking a game or publisher's back story. That flexibility is one of the reasons I wanted to work independently. ## Behind the Beat Over the past six months, my wife Linda and I have continued to work on the systems that allow Board Game Beat to operate as a tiny independent business. Readers can receive posts individually or in a digest, follow the site through RSS and federated social platforms, participate in member surveys, and comment without surrendering their privacy to a large social-media platform. We avoid tracking scripts and the sale or exploitation of reader data. The site carries only a small number of directly-sold advertisements, with no behavioral targeting, ad networks, or rotating clusters of banners. Most recently, we launched an automated advertising system through which publishers can see available dates and current prices, reserve one of those limited placements, upload their assets, and receive an invoice without requiring a long chain of emails. That system should make advertising easier for publishers while reducing the administrative work required on our end. That last part matters as I want Board Game Beat to be sustainable personally as well as financially. I want to keep doing this work — and keep enjoying it. ## What Membership Makes Possible Advertising can cover part of the cost of operating Board Game Beat, but we deliberately limit the number of ads on the site. Paid memberships provide a steadier foundation and allow us to keep the great majority of the site freely available to everyone. Membership helps cover the technology required to run the publication, original reporting and research, convention coverage, outside contributions, and the less visible work involved in maintaining and improving the site. Paid memberships begin at **$2 per month** , with higher tiers for readers who want to contribute more or receive additional member features. You can upgrade, downgrade, or cancel at any time, so here is our entire six-month membership drive: **If you regularly read Board Game Beat and value what we are doing, please consider becoming a paid member.** I'm not going to turn this into a week of countdowns and repeated appeals. This post is the drive. If you already support Board Game Beat as a paid member, this is **not** a request to upgrade. You are already helping to make the publication possible, and I am deeply grateful. If a paid membership is not right for you, no problem! Reading the site, subscribing for free, sharing an article with someone who might appreciate it, or simply sending a kind note all help Board Game Beat find its place in the tabletop world. ## What's Next Over the next six months, I will continue to cover new games and industry developments, talk with people who create and publish games, and explore aspects of the game industry. I'll be at Gen Con 2026 in a few days, and I'll see what other travel is possible, as well. While the site features have changed since launch, the goal remains the same: Help people find games they might love, while celebrating the creators who make these games possible. Thank you for reading, subscribing, supporting, commenting, correcting, sharing, and joining us during Board Game Beat's first six months. ****Like this kind of game news coverage?**** Get Board Game Beat’s free posts by email — original reporting, designer interviews, and industry news, with no tracking, no ads, and no spam. Sign up!

wericmartin.com

Neuromancer — Official Teaser | Apple TV

YouTube video by Apple TV

youtube.com

What just happened to TheNumbers.com should worry us all

If you work in or around the film industry, there is a decent chance you have used the work of The Numbers this month, whether you realise it or not.

stephenfollows.com

TTGDA: Please Credit Designers for Their Work

On July 23, 2026, the Tabletop Game Designers Association issued a press release pleading for recognition of game designers in the publication of their work: > **TTGDA CALLS ON AWARDS, CONTENT CREATORS, AND PUBLISHERS TO ATTRIBUTE GAME AUTHORSHIP FULLY AND ACCURATELY** > Several recent announcements in the tabletop games industry have failed to identify creators of the games being discussed or described those games as being "by" their publishers, without naming the individual designers. The TTGDA finds this practice unacceptable and calls on awards organizations, content creators, publishers, and sales platforms to accurately identify designers when discussing games. "You would never recommend The Widow as the latest book by Doubleday. It's by John Grisham." said TTGDA Treasurer Elizabeth Hargrave. "The same > should go for tabletop games." > **Common Ways Designers Are Not Properly Credited** > ● Designers not receiving clear and specific credit in published products. > ● Publishers failing to name designers in solicitations and marketing text. > ● Sales platforms not including designers in their listings for products. > ● Awards not promoting creators as prominently as publishers in ceremonies and PR. > ● Influencers and games journalists covering a work's publisher but not also its creators. > ● Publishers identifying themselves as "creators" in marketing text or as "authors" or "designers" on sales platform listings. > ● Derivative products not identifying individual designers and source works. > Specific examples of these issues exist across our market. TTGDA has been actively working with both GAMA on the Origins Awards and Mensa on their Select winners to correct problems with their promotions, which have failed to include designers across multiple years. TTGDA has also had success working with Barnes & Noble to add designer names to their listings. Amazon, on the other hand, has resisted calls to properly make designers part of their listings, even though they have the ability to identify musicians and book authors in ways that make them > searchable and connect them to their creations. > TTGDA would also like to emphasize that while we see many instances where designers are not properly or accurately credited, there is also widespread support for designers in the industry. Some recent examples include the designer-focused Spiel de Jahres [sic] awards and the BoardGameGeek convention preview (such as the currently active Gen Con and Spiele [sic] lists). ## An Aside on Barnes & Noble TTGDA launched in May 2024, and on October 4, 2024, its second press release (PDF) highlighted efforts by the organization to work with the Barnes & Noble retail bookstore chain to have game designers credited on its website. From that press release: "Starting today, visitors to the Barnes & Noble website will see the names of game designers prominently displayed alongside game titles. TTGDA is using the resources at the BoardGameGeek website to assist Barnes & Noble in the ongoing process of adding designers to their large catalog of games, enabling this information to be available for both new releases and existing games." Looking at the B&N website, you'll see that the company took the "names alongside titles" pledge literally. Here's a sample book listing: Psst, read this book! But don't read anything about it first! And a sample game listing: Those two are not the same. Click on "Michel Faber", and you'll see other works written by him or including his writing. No such link exists for "Elizabeth Hargrave", but one does exist for "Stonemaier Games". And not all game listings on the Barnes & Noble website include a designer name: ## And a Similar Aside about the Origins Awards After the winners of the 2024 Origins Awards were announced in mid-2025, I recall seeing a note by TTGDA president Geoff Engelstein that objected to those awards mentioning only the publishers of those winning games, not their creators. The winners of the 2025 Origins Awards do have their designers listed on the Origins website, albeit after the publishers, but if you look at the list of finalists for the 2025 Origins Awards that published on March 18, 2026, that list credits only the publishers, not the designers. Looking at the listings for winners from 2010 to 2024, none of them include designer credits...which seems especially odd given that The Academy of Adventure Gaming Arts & Design, which runs the Origins Awards, also maintains a Hall of Fame for notable people and products. Want to know which creations by Hall of Famer Eric M. Lang have won Origins Awards, if any? Good luck as no links exist between the Hall of Fame and Origins Award winners. ## And Now One for Mensa Select The Mensa Mind Games website lists game creators for the awards given out in 2025 and 2026, but not for earlier years at least as far back as 2010. An additional oddity is that Mensa credits each game to a "manufacturer", not a publisher — and in many cases the "manufacturer" listed isn't even the publisher, but a distributor of the game in question, or a licensee of that game, not its originator. At a minimum, the credit should read "Publisher: Gigamic", but ideally it would read "Designer: Jules Messaud" with perhaps a secondary line for the publisher • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Let's return to the interrupted press release: > **Games Are Created by Designers** > While games can follow many paths before reaching the public, the most common one is for a designer to have an idea that they work on for months or years before pitching it to a publisher or deciding to self-publish. The polishing and product design work a publisher does — while important — does not override the designer's authorship of the game. Even for works that are created by an employee of a publisher, the designer is not the publisher itself but the individual doing the actual creative labor. They deserve to be credited by name. > "Accurate and prominent name credit should be a given in all aspects of game publishing and promotion," notes TTGDA Board Member James Lowder, an author and RPG designer with more than 35 years' experience. "Those credits have clear commercial and personal value for every creator. The industry must do a better job acknowledging the people who imagine the works and worlds that underpin everything we do." > **Designers' Names Are Readily Available** > In 1988, a group of board game designers organized by Reinhold Wittig banded together and signed a proclamation stating, "None of us gives a game to a company if our name is not written on the box cover!" Even for people outside a publisher's circles, game designers' names are now readily available not only on the covers of some games themselves, but in online resources like BoardGameGeek.com. 💡 For background info on this "Beer Coaster Proclamation" and details on ****how designer Reinhold Wittig contributed to the game industry**** , read this memorial post I wrote in April 2026. > "The games industry has largely agreed that designers' names belong on their games for over 30 years. Now we are calling on the industry to carry that over into how we talk about games," said TTGDA President Geoff Engelstein. > **Best Practices** > TTGDA recommends these best practices for talking about tabletop games: > ● If you mention the publisher, also mention the designers. This doesn't mean every person working on a multi-designer project needs to be listed every time, but at least mention the leads. When notable elements, such as innovative mechanisms, are promoted for multi-author works, credit the creators. If art is used in the PR, credit the artist. > ● Words matter: A game is "by" its designer or designers, and "published by" or "presented by" the publisher. The "creator" of a game is the designer, not the publisher. > ● If you don't want to take the time in a video or awards ceremony to read a list of names, consider a text overlay. This gives the opportunity to also highlight key facts in your presentation such as play time and player count. > ● Consent matters: Publishers, awards, and events should coordinate with designers on the use and presentation of their names. If a designer doesn't wish to be connected to something, they should be able to remove their name. As a best practice, this encourages designers to participate more actively in promotions where their name appears by consent. > ● Integrate clear designer credits and consent for name use into all game publishing contracts. > The Tabletop Game Designers Association is committed to working with any publisher, influencer, news platform, awards organization, and sales platform to encourage these best practices and continue to stress that fair treatment of creators is both the right thing to do and good for long-term business. I try my best to credit a game's author(s) whenever I write about it, but I typically don't include the creators with every _mention_ of a game, as when I didn't name check Larry Harris, Jr. following the appearance of Axis & Allies 1941. In the past month, I've started adding artist credits to images of game covers and components. Not sure why I didn't do this previously and why I started when I did — it just felt right suddenly. I am a stickler for mentioning the originating publisher of a game when it wins an award, as in my cover of the 2026 Spiel des Jahres winners, and if I write about publisher X releasing a game that debuted from publisher Y, I will typically work in a reference to publisher Y. After all, publisher Y brought the designer's work to its final form, so why should publisher X get all the credit? In addition, if someone likes game Z, they would benefit from knowing that they might want to check out other releases from publisher Y. P.S. Ironically(?), this press release from TTGDA had no credited author. • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Like what you read? Leave a tip to support independent board game journalism! Leave a tip

wericmartin.com

Get more from No Pun Included on Patreon

Get more from No Pun Included on Patreon. Join for free or become a member for just £4/month. Hello! We are Elaine and Efka of No Pun Included, and if…

patreon.com