Master Thieves, a beautiful game delivered in a wooden box and based on a lovely wooden jewelry box, has been produced and will be available in September. Because of the high cost of this game, the small size of the print run, and its collectability, it will be available only from Rio Grande Games directly. If you're interested in obtaining a copy, send an email to RioGames@aol.com.
Work is complete on Dawn Under (one of the Spiel des Jahres [Germany's Family Game of the Year award] finaliasts this year), High Bohn Plus, Bohnaparte (a new Bohnanza expansion), Goldbrau, Circus Flohcati, Mall World, Jambo, and Fearsome Floors (the reprint of Friedemann Friese’s Finstere Flure).
Dawn Under and Goldbrau will release in early September. The rest of those games are scheduled for release in October or November.
Rio Grande also is working on a new stand-alone Carcassonne game and a new Carcassonne expansion (details on both are expected later in September) for release in October.
Scheduled for release in November are the re-release of Torres (with new graphics by Franz Vohwinkel), the re-release of Tikal, a new game from Friedemann Friese, an underwater game from Leo Colovini, and a board expansion for Power Grid with maps of Italy and France.
The company has again run out of Halli Galli, Carcassonne, and Maharaja, but will be restocking these games in the near future. Heave Ho! is also out of stock; a decision on whether or not to reprint it has not yet been made.
In Bohnaparte, Bean princes in all parts of the land are trying to conquer foreign villages and cities. They use the profits from their bean sales to finance their attacks. At the end of the game, bean thalers have no value. Instead, players only score the lands they control as victory points. Thus, the most powerful bean prince is crowned Bohnaparte of Beanland. It's for 3 to 6 players, ages 12 and up and takes about 90 minutes. Designers are Hanno Girke and Uwe Rosenberg.
Goldbrau finds players in a beer festival, competing to increase the size of their favorite beer gardens. It's for 3 to 4 players, ages 10 and up, and takes about 60 minutes per game. Designer Franz-Benno Delonge also designed Big City, TransAmerica, Hellas and Dos Rios.
In Dawn Under, vampires are searching for a dark resting place before dawn arrives. Despite the horror theme, it's a memory game designed to be enjoyed by 2 to 6 children and adults. Each game takes about 30 minutes.
In Reiner Knizia's Circus Flohcati, the world-renowned Flohcati Brothers circus is in town, but not with lions and tigers and bears. This is the smallest circus known to man: the flea circus. Players compete to collect the best fleas of each kind. Be the first to collect all ten and you could be the winner! Reiner offers other ways to score along the way, so getting 10 kinds will not guarantee a victory. As always, Reiner offers several ways to score and scratch your way to victory. For 3 to 5 players, ages 7 and up, with games taking about 15 minutes.
High Bohn Plus is an expansion for Bohnanza which contains new game variants and two new bean types, the Cognac bean and the Field bean. With High Bohn, the players may spend their thalers on buildings located in Virginia City. These building have attributes that give the players new tactics for winning. The Plus part of this expansion adds order cards which allow players to earn extra thalers when they can fill very specific orders. This expansion is for 3 to 5 players, ages 12 and up, and takes about 60 minutes to play. Designers are Uwe Rosenberg and Hanno Girke.
