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Last January I played Tessen with designers Chris and Suzanne Zinsli and Belle of the Ball with designer Daniel Solis months before either game went on Kickstarter. Would you like to play preview versions of what could become the next hottest game of 2014 or 2015 with the designer, then tell them face-to-face how to make their game even better? Then figure out a way to get to Dover, Delaware, for the weekend of January 18-19 because Unpub4 is for you. What’s the price of admission to be a play tester for the weekend? $0. That’s right – nothing, nada, zilch, free.

Asmodee announces the release date for Cappuccino, Z-Man Games releases new Pandemic scenario and iSlaytheDragon interviews Adam McIver.

Z-Man Games releases new games just in time for Christmas, Casual Game Insider is reviewed by Today in Board Games, and several new games are looked at.

The inhabitants of the villages surrounding a dormant volcano were happily living in peace until — KABOOM! — the old volcano sprung back to life, unleashing rivers of molten lava in every direction and blasting volcanic rock into the sky.

Here is a list of our favorite crowdfunding projects for December 2013. This month, we're seeing evidence of the growing trend of microgames, a subset of casual games that are intended to be as portable as possible while still maintaining fun and challenging gameplay. There are also several other casual games of a wide variety of themes that seem to be worth checking out.

Stronghold Games is having a December sale, Smash Monster Rampage is available for pre-order, and new "best board game" lists have been released by multiple sources.

A two-way interview between us (Chris and Melanie James of Stratus Games) and Rob Bartel, founder of Famous Games Co., about the history of our companies, the characteristics and importance of casual games, our future production plans, our game design and publishing processes, and much more.

When I think about what “casual” means, I usually envision a T-shirt with some silly pop-culture phrase emblazoned on the front or a nice family restaurant where little geeks standing up on the chairs is considered standard practice. When we consider the term in the context of games, things start to get a little cloudy. The opposite of “casual” is “formal”, but this makes zero sense in the world of tabletop games. You don’t, for example, play games formally, in business attire, in a corporate jet. Although, that would be pretty cool.

Survive: Escape from Atlantis is a delightfully devious game from Stronghold Games in which the goal is to move your survivors from the sinking island of Atlantis to solid ground located at each corner of the board. Each piece has a hidden point value that players do their best to memorize so they can prioritize their moves and maximize their scores, since only a few of the survivors will make it to safety.

Steve Jackson Games has a well established pedigree in the role-playing game market and Zombie Dice is a nice departure from the stat heavy books of their GURPS line.