Industrial Waste is now scheduled for release in early January.

Also in early January, Rio Grande expects to have more copies of the award-winning game Carcassonne (compare prices) available. Although the company has run out of the free River expansion for Carcassonne and does not expect to print more, all new copies of the game will contain the extra river tiles that make up the expansion.

Where's Bob's Hat? and Mexica are now scheduled for release in late January, which is also when Landlord! should be back in stock. Puerto Rico will be released in February.

Rio Grande said that several games are now out of print; the company has no current plans to reprint them but may do so in the future: The Black Rose (Mississippi Queen expansion), Medieval Merchant (compare prices), Samarkand, El Caballero, Ricochet Robot (compare prices), Union Pacific (compare prices), Money, Big City, Ta Yu, Princes of Florence (compare prices), and Stephenson's Rocket.

Following are brief descriptions of two Rio Grande releases.

Babel

Mesopotamia was home to many tribes and many golden ages as each tribe had its season in the sun. During its season, a tribe would start new temples or continue working on temples begun by other tribes. Thus, with the help of various tribes, the temples grew more and more beautiful and eventually reached so high they seemed to touch the sky.

The temples of these master builders took people's breath away, but natural and man-made disasters could bring the temples down. When this happened, the craftsmen began anew, moved to work on other temples, or just went home. Even with such setbacks, the temples continued to grow toward the sky as the players worked to complete these monuments. The player who builds the highest and, therefore, most valuable temples wins the game.

$19.95; 2 players, ages 12 and up; length: 45 to 60 minutes; designers: Uwe Rosenberg and Hagen Dorgathen.

Industrial Waste

In Industrial Waste, the players are the owners/managers of companies that are competing in this new world where profit, innovation, and environment must be balanced to be considered successful. The players must decide when and where to invest in innovation: rationalization, raw materials, and waste reduction.

Innovation in rationalization allows a company to produce products with fewer co-workers, innovation in raw materials allows a company to produce products with less raw materials, and innovation in waste reduction allows a company to produce products with less waste. The first two allow a company to be more efficient. The latter allows a company to be more friendly to the environment. Government penalties make focus on environmental concerns important to a company wishing to avoid those penalties.

$29.95; 2 to 4 players; ages 12 and up; 60 minutes; designer: Jurgen Strohm

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