Rio Grande Games Fall 2003 Releases

Rio Grande Games has announced its schedule for late 2003, and it's packed with games like Carcassonne: the Castle, Chicken Cha Cha Cha and O Zoo le Mio.

The upcoming months look like this:

Late September 2003
Lord of the Rings: the Duel
Vampire
Secret of the Tombs

October 2003
Mu & More
Coloretto (Michael Schacht)
Dracula
Chicken Cha Cha Cha
Yinsh (Kris Burm)
Crocodile Pool Party (Rudi Hoffmann)
O Zoo le Mio (Corne van Moorsel)
Trias
Igloo Pop (Heinz Meister and Klaus Zoch)

November 2003
Magna Grecia (Michael Schacht and Leo Colovini)
Carcassonne: the Castle (Reiner Knizia and Klaus-Jurgen Wrede)
Carcassonne: King and Scout (Klaus-Jurgen Wrede)
Corsari
Alexander
Attika

No Date Announced
Circus Flohcati
The Bohnanza Expansion

Early 2004
San Juan, the Puerto Rico card game

Some details on a few of these games:

Lord of the Rings: the Duel

Gandalf encounters the Balrog in the under mountain Caves of Moria. The result is a fantastic duel of their magical powers on a small bridge over a deep chasm. Here, players replay that duel with the help of cards, which have magical symbols on the left and right, representing the strength of the adversaries. The symbols on the cards represent the offensive (right) and defensive (left) strengths of the adversaries: each unblocked symbol is lost energy for that player.

$19.95; 2 players; ages 10 and up; 30 minutes; designer: Peter Neugebauer

Dracula

Count Dracula has left his home in Transylvania to travel by ship to London, where he plans to hunt for innocent victims. The famous Dr. van Helsing got wind of Dracula's plans and immediately caught the next carriage to London. It is a race against time! Van Helsing tries to find and destroy all of the vampire's coffins, while the count tries to find five victims. Will the horror end tonight or will the count's reign of terror continue? $19.95; 2 players; ages 12 and up; 30 minutes; designer: Michael Rieneck

Vampire

This is a 3D, multi-lingual game from Ravensburger. Rio Grande is distributing it in the U.S. The players are vampire hunters attending a vampire party. The player who gets the most vampires is the winner.

$34.95; 2 to 4 players, ages 8 and up; 30 minutes

Secret of the Tombs

Players enter the tombs searching for treasure, but must avoid the mummy. The player who takes away the most treasure will win this exciting game.

$34.95; 3 to 5 players, ages 8 and up; 60 minutes; designer: Martin Wallace

Mu & More

This classic from the creative minds of Doris and Frank will finally be available in English. The game is a straightforward trick-taking game with a twist: the cards are in 5 suits ranging from 0-9, with duplicates of 1s and 7s. Players display cards to bid and can bid even after passing. When all bidders pass, the highest bidder (most cards displayed) is the head of the offensive partnership and the second-highest bidder (next most cards displayed, with ties broken by highest ranking card played) is the head of the defensive partnership. The second-high bidder chooses the undertrump, either a suit or a number.

Then, the leader of the offense selects the overtrump. Then he selects a partner from the three players who were not the top two bidders. After cards are played and all tricks taken, the players score their tricks by counting the small triangles on them (0, 1, or 2). Small numbers have the most triangles; large numbers the fewest.

$14.95; 4 to 6 players, ages 12 and up; 30 minutes; designers: Doris and Frank

Chicken Cha Cha Cha

Today, there is chaos in the chicken yard! Today's practice for the chicken cha cha olympics is feather stealing. Each chicken cha chas to catch each of their opponents without being caught themself. Their reward for catching another chicken is tail feathers. The first chicken to collect all available tail feathers is the winner! But only a chicken who knows what is in the chicken yard will be able to catch the others and win the game. A chicken with a leaky memory will find himself standing bare-rumped when the prizes are distributed.

$34.95; 2 to 4 players, ages 4 and up; 20 minutes; designer: Klaus Zoch

Carcassonne: King & Scout

This is a $5.00 expansion for Carcassonne and Carcassonne: Hunters & Gatherers.