Valley Games is proud to announce the printing of BUGS,  by designer Keith Meyers, has now started! Check the link below for the game description and pictures. Rules to be posted shortly.

http://valleygames.ca/our-games/card-games/bugs/

Check out Livingdice.com for the article on the history of Valley Games, Part 1…

Valley Games – a history

Some of you may have noticed that a few things are changing on our website, hey you’re right! We are just moving some things around and updating pages.

The reason I am advising this right now is that there were a few folks distraught that Big City was no longer showing on our site and it’s only because we are updating our content.

We didn’t mean to alarm anyone and we should have everything back to normal in a few days here.

Torben

I know you are all dying to meet us, so we should tell you where you can find us and we will be more than happy to sign autographs and take pictures with you. Who are we kidding…but seriously we are going to be at a few conventions this year and we would be very happy to see you there.

Origins – Columbus, Ohio USA   June 23-27, 2010

Our booth number is 641 and we will have some special guests there. Aaron Lauster, the designer of Days of Steam, will be there along with Max Michael of Stratamax Games to show you anything and everything about Days of Steam. We will be having a contest that will be announced at the show and on our website when the show starts, so come by the booth and check it out.

World Board Game Championships – Lancaster, PA USA   Jul 31- Aug 8, 2010

We are very excited to be going to the WBC again. This year we are sponsoring 4 different events: Titan, Republic of Rome, Beep! Beep! and Hannibal:Rome vs Carthage. Check the events calendar here.

FallCon – Calgary, AB Canada  Oct 15-17, 2010

This is a great convention dedicated to local gamers in Calgary and surrounding areas. There is a great team of guys that run this event and we are always honored to attend. This will be the 23rd anniversary of the event, hats go off to Steve Zanini and Brent Lloyd even though their families do all the hard work at the con You can check it out here.

SPIEL – Essen, Germany   Oct 21-24, 2010

This is a mainstay for Valley Games to attend every year. We won’t disappoint with the titles we are bringing this year but you will have to wait for that . We will once again be located in Hall 5, our booth number has not been given to us yet but as soon as we have that information we will pass it on.

This list might expand in 2011 depending on scheduling, please feel free to come by and say hello at any of these events, we are always happy to answer questions and talk about games of all sorts. Heck, we even get to play some every now and then.

Regards,

Torben

Happy Easter!

This is the first newsletter of 2010 and we have been pretty busy since the last update. We have 4 titles printed and out on store shelves, we have been to a couple of conventions in North America, and our Canadian Olympic team won a couple gold medals for us. All in all a good start to the year!

Let’s start with the games new to store shelves, first we have Republic of Rome, a great game from the Avalon Hill days about politics and war and power struggles and deceit. A great game to play with friends! We had a couple of glitches there but those are being worked out right now. From the feedback out there, the game is really striking a chord with those that have been waiting for it and they love the new production.

Republic of Rome

Days of Steam, some of you saw this one at Essen and picked up a copy. What a great game that bridges the hardcore train game with a lighter tile laying design. It has all of the facets of those games in a game that can be played in under an hour. The reviews that we are receiving on this title are all excellent and that this game will appeal to a wide audience. Congratulations to Aaron Lauster on this design and word has it he is working on some other ideas at the moment, so stay tuned.

Days of Steam

Beep! Beep! and Habitat have made their return finally after some production delays caused us to move to different printers. The new redesigned layouts of the games are a really nice touch from the first editions. Both of these titles are now available through our distribution channels and you should see them on store shelves everywhere. Habitat has a new ruleset that has been refined to make the game easier and quicker to pick up and play, and the artwork is unbelieveable.

Beep1 Beep!

Habitat – The North Woods

We just got home from Las Vegas where we showed a number of games that are due out this year. Master Builder is finally ready to go and will be printing here shortly. The folks that saw the game at GAMA and got to play it were very happy with game and excited to see another Wolfgang Kramer game due out on store shelves. Players take the roles of building contractors recruited by a small medieval town to costruct the buildings and walls of the small hamlet. Players bid on contracts, hire employees and erect the actual structures by building components and putting them together. It’s not that easy because your employees all have personalities and events can happen where some might get sick or the Count may need some of your people to help with a personal project. This can delay your projects and increase your costs! At the end, you have this quaint little town on your table, smiles on everyone’s faces and all under an hour for play time.

We also debuted the first game from local designer Rob Bartel in Two by Two, this is a wonderful title of collecting animals along the storyline of Noah and his Ark. Players move their boats around a steadily deteriorating landscape, matching pairs to rescue stranded animals. The goal is to find matching pairs of animals and bring them onto your ark before your opponents raise the waters. There are six animals of every type, except for the unicorns, of which there are only two. The game has two variants for play, for the younger crowd a simple matching and collecting method, where the more advanced version adds different scoring options that makes the game competitive right from the beginning! The artwork is fantastic and vibrant and the game plays in under an hour which is a must for every game shelf out there. Nice work Rob!

And finally, we signed another game…Stronghold, yes the famous title from Essen 2009, and it will be reprinted by the end of 2010!

This is a great game that has really not been done before in this way. The game is about a siege, Humans defending a castle, Orc Invaders storming the walls with all sorts of war machines and dark magic. The epic battle of good versus evil, the odds of survival is low but the story is absolutely glorious. How long can the defenders hold out? Is there no end to the horde attacking? I can’t wait to read this story!

The game has settings for 2, 3 or 4 players and each variant has multiple scenarios possible that make the game very dynamic and gives it great replayability. Players take the role of either Invader or Defender. The Defenders are fortified in the castle, waiting, the Invaders start off the board but move in quickly. Each side builds war machines and calls for divine intervention and blessings that offer bonuses to their respective side. There are ways to sabotage your opponent by sending spys in muck up the works in the castle or scouts out to mess with war machines. Traps and cauldrons of oil or war banners and ladders, there are so many different things that the game brings to the table that whether you be the attacker or the defender you are making choices on the fly and hoping your opponent doesn’t have an answer. Each turn glory from the story book is being earned by the defender holding out the Invaders, but if the Invader can breach the walls quick enough, victory is theirs.

We have modified and refined the rules from the first print run of this title and it will be available to all once they are complete. From there we are gunning for later this year to have it reprinted and out on store shelves.

The game is currently out of print, there may be a few more copies drifting around but the first print run is sold out to our knowledge in North America.

Stronghold

From there we are looking at a few more titles to be released this year and we will announce them as we know more. Once again, we thank all of our supporters out there and we are really excited about 2010 and the great things that will happen. We will be travelling to some other conventions this year and we look forward to meeting some of you at those shows. Until then, we’ll keep bringing great games out and we just ask you have fun playing them.

Regards,

Torben Sherwood and Rik Falch

Hello again,

Our shipping people have now gotten a response from FedEx and they have reversed all charges that were sent out to the Canadian folks. Please disregard the letters you have received.

For those of you that have paid these charges already, I have your names from FedEx and will be contacting you to arrange a method to repay you for those.

Sorry for the surprise, it was for us as well and I’m glad it is now resolved.

Regards,

Torben

Greetings,

It seems FedEx decided all you nice people in Canada should have to pay more for your copies of Republic of Rome. Well we’re not good with that.

All GST and duties were supposed to be billed to Valley Games, at least that’s how it is usually done when we have things shipped to people. In this case, no, it didn’t happen. So we are having this investigated, and we will get it resolved very quickly here.

What I need from you, if you have received a letter from FedEx, is to email me give me the details of your letter. A scan would be better of the FIRST page only please, that way I can advise the account number or invoice number for FedEx to reference. Then I can get the charges placed onto our account and we will get this out of the way.

The shipping folks are also working on just getting the charges reversed so none of us have to deal with it, but we still need to know who has received them so that we don’t miss anyone. So please let me know, and send me the details and we can get this sorted out.

Regards,

Torben

Hello again everyone,

Habitat the Second Edition is now on store shelves everywhere! This wonderful title has been rereleased with new rules, refined and simplified from the original making the game much easier to pick up and play for the first time.

While the first print run was relatively small, we are excited to see this game back in print and you will see it on your local game store shelves right away.

Enjoy!

http://valleygames.ca/our-games/card-games/habitat-the-north-woods/

Hi there,

Some of you have probably already seen some of the errata posts on BGG but some of you may not have. Here is a link to the Republic of Rome page on our website and there I have the links for the errata info.

http://valleygames.ca/our-games/classic-line/republic-of-rome/

First, there is a document with all the misprints that were in the rulebook, next you will see Zero tokens that didn’t get printed on the backs of the 9’s. Then I have another summary sheet there for you to print off as there were supposed to be 2 in the game and not 3 as the contents say.

http://files.boardgamegeek.com/file/download/5ni0v2exwi/Cheat_Sheet_V2.pdf

These minor glitches should not affect your enjoyment of the game and the beauty of it in it’s newest version.

Thank you once again for all of your kind comments and if there are any ammendments to the rules that still have not been mentioned, please advise.

Torben

Hi there,

There is a small delay at the border we are advised where the documentation sent from the shipping folks in the USA is not what the new border security wants. So the shipping people are working with FedEx on what needs to be issued so the packages go through. This should be rectified very quickly and you should receive your game.

Sorry for the inconvenience but it will be solved very quickly.

Torben