2006 Italy in Games - my personal report

Here is a kind of report (from my personal point of view) of games in Italy for 2006. I will cover new releases, publishers, events, and everything else that passes through my troubled mind. I'm deeply involved in the Italian game scene since I personally know most of the designers, editors and publishers. I have playtested several games and I have written reviews and articles, but I'm doing everything for fun so you can be sure that I haven't been paid to say what I'm saying—and probably some wish that they would have paid me for not saying what I said and what I’m going to say!

I can say for sure that 2006 was a boom year for Italians in several ways, but first a short statistical report. I was able to track:

Some Stats

• 46 games published in 2006 with one or more Italian designers
  
• 20 Italian publishers released new games/expansions in 2006 (I'm also including in this list self-publishers like Angelo Porazzi)
  
• 4 (at least) non-Italian publishers released games designed by Italians in 2006 (not counting non-Italian editions of Italian games also released by Italian companies)
  
• 2 (at least) Italian publishers released games designed by famous non-Italian designers
  
• 40 Italian designers released games in 2006

I think that this could be enough to say that 2006 has been a great year for Italy; I could agree with gamers observing that quantities and qualities not always are the same, but what is impressive in 2006 was both the quantity and quality of several releases. I think that game world would been better without some of these releases, but also it have been missing others. Anyway that is just the same problem for German or American releases. Before going in details, I want also to include some more stats:

Game Conventions

The two most important game convention in Italy, Lucca Comics and Games and ModCon, both have had a great success: over 4000 gamers in Modena in September and over 80,000 attendees in Lucca in November. Also IdeaG, the most important Italian event for game designer, has got a great success: you can read a full report here on Boardgame News and I'm almost ready to publishe the 2007 report.

Associations and Communities

The most active boardgames community in Italy, La Tana dei Goblin, in 2006 has gone from 2000 to 3500 members, with over 100,000,000 pages visited from 400,000 different IPs and 650 GB transferred. The site also has 1240 new reviews and 514 add-ons/rules translations.

The oldest and largest game association, Club TreEmme, has crossed the quarter of a century mark with more than 500 members.

Designers and Publishers

The most active designers in 2006 were:

• Leo Colovini with 10 games, 4 alone and 6 with others
  
• Dario de Toffoli with 7 games, 2 alone and 5 with others
  
• Zaccariotto with 4 games, all with others
  
• Andrea Angiolino and Pier Giorgio Paglia with 3 games
  

The most active publishers were:

• Dal Negro, with 6 games
  
• Nexus and daVinci, both with 4 games

But 2006 was also the year that saw the birth of GiochiUniti, a new distribution company, that took birth from the joint efforts of Nexus, daVinci, Stupor Mundi (ex Tilsit Italia) and Venice Connection. I think this project could really help the Italian market to grow and gamers to find more games with lower cost. Nexus has also strengthened its agreement with Fantasy Flight Games, and KDS with Days of Wonder.

On the other side, Stratelibri and Raven Distribution are doing well in supporting the gamer community and Italian events. Together with KDS, they are also publishing Game Master Magazine, which reached issue #6 in 2006 and aspires to be something more than an house organ (I hope to abel to make publish an Italian version of this article in one of the next issues).

I'm not always able to report on all of the upcoming products from Italian publishers since not all of them inform me about new releases. I know almost nothing about what is boiling in the Raven Distribution pot, and I also wasn't able to track whether some of the new Stratelibri releases will be available outside Italy. Probably they are too busy, or they don't care too much for non-conventional channels.

A List of (almost) all the 2006 releases

But, as promised, here's an alphabetical list of Italian publishers and their 2006 releases, larded with my personal consideration:

I must start with Angelo Porazzi Games, since 2006 was also the 10th year of life for WarAngel with the 10 years Edition. This is, by far, Angelo's best game and is still well-supported and extended. Angelo Porazzi Games is the emblem of self-publishing in Italy. He also released this year

• WrestAngel
• WarAngel 10 Years Edition

Clementoni, in the middle of other less interesting releases, has also published:

• Fishmarkt: M. Papini
  
• Kakuro challenge: L. Colovini, D. de Toffoli, D. Zaccariotto

I have to spend some words on Cogito Studio, a game design studio born in Modena and quickly joined with Studiogiochi. They have developed two games:

• Walhalla by Alessandro Zucchini and published by Amigo
  
• Graverobbers by Carlo A. Rossi and published by Jolly Rogers Games.
  

Dal Negro released six games (I'm considering only the games that could be of some interest for BGN readers), mostly from the Studiogiochi staff:

• Kakuro: L. Colovini, D. de Toffoli, D. Zaccariotto
  
• Nebraska: L. Colovini, D. de Toffoli
  
• Poker Cinese: D. de Toffoli
  
• Savana: A. Nove Veronesi, L. Colovini
  
• Sudoku Travel: L. Colovini, D. de Toffoli, D. Zaccariotto
  
• Tamplaria: Bertagna e Gambi

daVinci Games was another great surprise in 2006 since they have released

• Leonardo da Vinci by Acchittocca
  

that is a real gamers game with also a big box and nice materials. We all hope it will be the first of a long serie of such games from daVinci. The Italian publisher was also able to get published

• Figaro by R. Knizi<

The materials and arts was great but, IMHO, unluckily the game was not so good (at least not one of the Knizia best). As usual, daVinci also released some expansions for his games (a multi-expansion for Leonardo da Vinci, Palatinus and Fredericus was prepared for Essen), and a couple of “Bonsai games” – games on one single card, as “Look-Ka!” (by Luigi Saggese), released for the Lucca Comics & Games convention.

Finally they also released (but only Italian version)

• F.A.T.A by Martina Mealli and Gabriele Rabbini (in cooperation with Lucca Comics & Games)
  
• Lupus in Giocando
  

a themed version of the game Lupus in Tabula, produced for the National Broadcasting radio (in cooperation with RadioDue RAI and Tana dei Goblin) and

• Archeogame by Silvano Sorrentino and Lucio Fioretti
  

a game for a national archeological convention

Editrice Giochi, in the middel of not so much interesting for gamers releases has published:

• SPQRisico by S.Albertarelli

The last part of 2006 has seen the birth of

• Esagek by Claudio Gerosa
  

an interesting abstract game with lot of possibilities also available in a pre-release format at Essen 2006.

I must point out the really good

• All is Lost Save the Honour by Contardi for the publisher Europa Simulazioni.
  

A real nice and well done game for addicted operational wargames and, for sure, not for eurogamers.

Ghenos Games signed an agreement in 2006 that will see

• Bolide published by Rio Grande Games
  

and it has also released the first expansion,

• Tracks #1 by Alfredo Genovese.
  

Emanuele Ornella (Mind the Move) has confirmed his talent and his new release,

• Hermagor
  

has been appreciated by several gamers and also published by Rio Grande Games.

After the great success of War of the Ring, Nexus Games persevered in publishing great games:

• Marvel Heroes, by Marco Maggi and Francesco Nepitello, has been another end of 2006 hit
  
• The expansion War of the Ring: Battles of the Third Age by Marco Maggi, Francesco Nepitello and Roberto di Meglio has got great consent and is also a nominee in the 2006 International Gamers Awards
  
• Wings of War is still having great success, and Andrea Angiolino and Pier Giorgio Paglia have developed two new booster packs in 2006: Top Fighter and Recon Patrol; new releases are also ready for 2007

After the not-so-good Bausquitmiao, PS Giochi has released

• High Voltage by Giacomo Sartoretti

which is a real improvement both in term of game play, arts and materials. (Scribabs took care of graphics and arts.) We hope to see this small company keep growing and improving over the next years.

At the end of 2006, another new company, Red Glove, started to release board/card games.

• Koala by L. Moretti and M. Cortini

was also published by Amigo.

Rose & Poison has finally decided to put a big effort outside the RPG world, and its 2006 release

• Canossa by Walt Castagno
  
• Faerie Tales by Christophe Boelinger
  
• Stardust by Angiolino e Paglia
  

are all better games than their past not-so good titles. It's a real improvement for this small company, and we hope it can continue investing in the boardgames area.

Paolo Vallerga at Scribabs has released

• Hystericoach by Walter Obert

a nice soccer party game and he also took care of graphics and art for High Voltage, by PS Giochi.

Some small publishers have also had new releases: Battaglie by Falsini for Safer Giochi and Sgrauso by Virag.

Stratelibri released

• Si Oscuro Signore 2, by C. Ferlito, M. Enrico, F. Bonifacio

and two new expansions for Minimonfa are close to being published.

Tenkigames released two new games from Piero Cioni:

• SnakeLake
  
• Krumble
  

They both are quite good, with a real maniacal attention to graphics and materials. Tenkigames is one of nicest new companies in Italian market, and it's planning to keep growing and improving. The 2006 releases were mostly aimed at young players, but you need to check out the 2007 releases that as far as I know are really, really interesting also for gamers.

For boat race lovers, I must point out

• Velagiochiamo by S. Robberto and D. Troia

which is a really big game. (The box is 1 meter wide!) The game is quite nice, with good materials, but still far away from eurogamers standard in term of how the rules are wrote. I hope they will soon be able to write a new set of rules.

What's Your Game? is still working in publishing gamers games. Their 2006 top release was

• Ur by Paolo Mori

This abstract game is really nice and won the Best of Show in the boardgames category at Lucca Comics and Games. But this is one of the companies I have not easy task to get informations about.

Zugames, the Mario Papini company, has released

• Mamma

a card game. This is not as good as previous Mario releases (Siena and Feudo), but it's still interesting with really some nice ideas and mechanics.

Finally, a list of games designed by Italians and published from foreign companies:

• Justinian, by A. Saragosa, L. Colovini from Phalanx
  
• Happy Birthday by D. de Toffoli from Piatnik
  
• Sfida al Quadrato by Dario De Toffoli and D.Zaccariotto from Sperling & Kupfer
  
• Cartagena II, L. Colovini
  
• Dschingis Khan, L. Colovini
  
• Terra Nova, G. Evola, R. Leocata
  
• SPQRisko by Spartaco Albertarelli from Editrice Giochi
  
• PowHow by Spartaco Albertarelli from Ravensburger
  
• Masons by Leo Colovini from Hans Im Gluck
  
• Mauerbauer by Leo Colovini from Hans Im Gluck

I think all this data is enough to say that 2006 was a great year for Italy, and we are looking forward to 2007 with great expectations!

and what about 2007 ?

So, what we could exepct in 2007 ? I hope that small companies (and some self publishing designers) could join their efforts providing better standard games like was the case of PS Giochi and Scribabs (High Voltage). I agree that self publishing companies sometimes bring us small pearl but I'm also sure that real pubblishers and editors could help better new designers in bringing us real quality games.

We are just in the beginning of the year and so it is not too much what I can say and most of the projected realeases will appear at Nuremberg.

Angelo Porazzi told me that he is working on the 11th generation for WarAngel and we hope it will be released in 2007. He is also investing most of his energies on kids/party-games so probably his LovePigs will be ready for MiniMod (April).

daVinci has several interesting things scheduled: the international release of F.A.T.A., the great awaited BANG! deluxe and also Lupusburg.

I know (I'm so lucky to have playtested it!) Mario Papini is working on a great project, a gamers game with a great setting, but I can't say more.

KDS distribution is working on Frontier, a game from Andrea Chiarvesio and Luca Iennaco that aim to be a major release and a very good title.

TenkiGames ha several interesting game: Jungle, the sequel of Krumble (but it is a game on his alone), Chang Cheng from Walter Obert and also a party game from Piero Cioni.

I'm quite sure Emanule Ornella will have something ready for Essen, but I have no real news about.

Cogito Studio and Studiogiochi are working on several titles: Savana by A. Nove Veronesi and Leo Colovini and Poker Cinese by Dario de Tofoli will be realeased by Dal Negro and I hope to be able to say something more in the following weeks; Kakuro (A. Nove Veronesi), Alchemist (Carlo A. Rossi), Volle Wolle (Alessando Zucchini) and Trovanime (Leo Colovini, De Tofoli and Zacariotto) probably will be all presented in Nuremberg.

Scribabs will present a new Walter Obert game in Nuremberg: Star System and from the same designer also Kragmortha from Stratelibri.

About the major events I'll post soon the IdeaG 2007 report. ModCon will be in the end of September in Modena and about Lucca Comics and Games here few world form Emanuele Vietina, the Chief Coordinator:

“Lucca Comics & Games will be held again in the historical heart of the ancient town after the huge success of the 40th Anniversary Edition. The new area has allowed to have more space to play, to read and to live better the convention between the incomparable setting of a Renaissance and Medieval buildings. The Show will run from the 1st of November to the 4th, with great guests, super events and exciting previews! As usually, the first press release about the Program will come out on next July. Stay tuned!”

I will soon post a IdeaG 2007 Report by Paolo Mori.

good play and I hope you could enjoy this report. I'm Italian, I love my country and my games but I have tried to be as much objective as possibile.

Liga