C.B. Canga, the artist who worked with game publisher Gamewright and game designer Matt Leacock on the upcoming cooperative board game Forbidden Island, has posted some of his work online. The art is spectacular, making the island seem not only forbidden but also mysterious and dangerous.

Game designer Matt Leacock is on a streak. His cooperative board game Pandemic, in which players work together to eradicate four diseases, was my pick as the best board game of 2008. Leacock's 2009 release, Roll Through the Ages, is a brilliant dice game and it was my pick as the #2 board game of 2009.

The next Leacock game scheduled to be published is Forbidden Island, another cooperative game -- but this one designed for family play. Forbidden Island is scheduled to be available from game publisher Gamewright in the spring of 2010. Learn more about Forbidden Island in this interview with Leacock.

^{Image courtesy of Gamewright}

Game publisher Wizards of the Coast, a subsidiary of Hasbro, has decided not to renew its Star Wars license, impacting both the Star Wars Miniatures game and the Star Wars Roleplaying Game. "After a lengthy evaluation, Wizards of the Coast has decided not to renew the Star Wars license with Lucasfilm," Greg Yahn, Wizards' director of marketing, said in a post on the company's discussion boards. "We've had a long and fantastic run, but with the economic downturn, we have made the tough decision to discontinue our Star Wars lines."

The license officially ends in May this year, Yahn said. Wizards has several releases still coming out over the next several months. In the Star Wars Miniatures line, The Dark Times minis were recently released, and Masters of the Force minis are due out in April. In the Star Wars RPG line, the Galaxy of Intrigue RPG was recently released, with The Unknown Regions RPG due out in April.

^{Image courtesy of Wizards of the Coast}

Mystery fans probably know the Orient Express railway best from Agatha Christie's classic Murder on the Orient Express, and that murerous theme is being picked up in a new deduction game, Mystery Express, scheduled to be available in April. Game publisher Days of Wonder says Mystery Express (designed by Antoine Bauza and Serge Laget) "reward(s) a logical and more precise approach to solving the crime."

In the game, which is for 3 to 5 players, everyone boards the famous Orient Express in Paris just as a murder occurs. The rest of the trip -- all the way to Istanbul -- is all about determining five things: who, what, when, where and why. Each player is a different character and has a special deductive power. The winner is the one who correctly identifies the most elements of the crime by the time the train reaches Istanbul.