December tends to be a slower month for game announcements, so I want to spend much of the next few weeks covering older new games.

What do I mean by that? I tag game announcements in email, then I dip into that folder to find things to write about, typically having a through line for each post — Knizia, mushrooms, trick-taking, etc. — but far more games are released than I can cover, so these announcements compost over time. I have more than 1,800 messages in that folder dating to 2018, along with 700+ messages in a separate “game industry news” folder, so I thought I’d search for games and topics that might still be of interest while also clearing out the deadwood. Can I start the new year with a clean slate? We’ll see!

Games due out in 2024 and beyond will be included in posts to stay on top of what’s being announced this month, such as:

• Cascadia: Rolling Hills and Cascadia: Rolling Rivers are a pair of flip-and-roll-and-write games from Randy Flynn and Flatout Games that give you new things to do in this ludic version of the Pacific Northwest. The pitch:

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Simultaneously roll dice, collect wildlife, and complete habitat cards to fill in different environments in Cascadia. Use special actions to manipulate your dice, and dynamic completion cards to unlock powerful combos.

Each set contains components for 1-4 players with four maps, so you can combine the two for games with up to eight players. Additionally, each game features a unique “central special die that changes the way each round plays out”, along with a mini-expansion with new gameplay elements.

• House of Cats from William Attia, Kristian Amundsen Østby, and Aporta Games debuted at SPIEL Essen 23, and its main twist on the roll-and-write formula seems to be that each turn you can write anywhere on your player sheet, but what you write has to all be connected.

In more detail, each turn someone rolls four dice, then everyone chooses three of the dice to add to their player sheet. The dice show 2/3/4/5/cat/mouse, and your main goal is to make number groups the size of the number in the group, i.e., a group of three 3s, four 4s, etc. Each time you do this, you gain the ability to use an action that was randomly assigned to this group size at the start of play, such as write one number not adjacent to the others or add or subtract 1 from a number that you’re writing. Additionally, you score points for each group you create.

Image: Ilya Ushakov

House of Cats includes four map layouts, each with their own rules for how to score cats and mice, as well as twists on how to play.

• In September 2023, designer Arif Nezih Savi of Turkish publisher Keepers of Fun crowdfunded Pioneers of Mars, a roll-and-write game in which two players duel on the same sheet of paper to claim and colonize different regions of Mars. In more detail:

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Pioneers of Mars is still available via the Keepers of Fun Patreon account.

• In April 2023, designer/artist Torben Ratzlaff of Shapes and Dreams released Tiny Travels: Seoul, a roll-and-write game for up to ten players:

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Visit amazing sights, taste a variety of foods, and bring home great souvenirs in Tiny Travels: Seoul. Whoever experiences the most within seven days wins!

Each round, one player rolls four dice and chooses two of them to pursue activities at twelve different locations. All other players get the remaining two dice. For each die, you cross off one matching number box of an activity at your current location. If you cross off all boxes of an activity, you get the activity symbols associated with it. Activity symbols are your main source of points. You can also choose to move to an adjacent location once per turn and use one or both dice there.

Lastly, the player who rolled the dice has to recommend an activity they pursued for the other players to follow.

The game ends after 21 rounds have been played. The final score is calculated, and the player with the most points had the most fulfilling journey.

Tiny Travels: Seoul is available both in a published form and as a print-and-play game on the Shapes and Dreams website.

• March 2023 saw the release of Colour Square from Patrick Katona and SPIEL DAS! Verlag, a roll-and-write in the vein of Qwixx, with all players participating at the same time and everyone racing to complete fields first:

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Each turn, the active player rolls five dice colored, red, green, blue, yellow, and white. They choose two of the non-white dice, then write the value on each die in an empty space on their player sheet matching the color of the die. (The player sheet shows scoring blocks made of four colored squares; each block has a value in the center, e.g. 6, 14, or 20.) All other players write the value on the white die in any empty space on their player sheet.

If you fill the four colored squares of a block, and the sum of the numbers you wrote matches the value at the center of that block, circle that value; you’ll earn that many points at game’s end. All other players must X out this block and no longer write in it. If you fill a block and the numbers sum higher than the value, cross out the value; you’ll lose 10 points for this block at game’s end, but other players can continue to try to score it.

If you complete and score adjacent blocks, mark out the bridge that connects these blocks. Each marked bridge is worth 5 points. Twice during play, you can discard a number instead of writing, but you lose points equal to the discarded numbers.

When a player has no more open blocks, each other player takes one final turn rolling solely for themselves, then they cross out the value for all blocks with open spaces, losing 10 points for each one. Whoever has the highest score wins.

Colour Square includes two types of player sheets with different values and slightly different rules.

I think this post covers all of the take-and-make games in my folder, but I’ll know for sure only in the weeks ahead…