Week in Review July 21-27: King of Candy Land

King of New York Sneak Preview

The most popular stories on the Dice Tower News are sometimes easy to predict. For example, we all know that people will be excited about the Dice Tower Game of the Year and the Spiel des Jahres announcements. Other times, small bits of information just pop out of nowhere and make an unexpectedly large splash. Case in point, IELLO sent the Dice Tower a picture of a single King of New York card as a sort of sneak preview. Almost all of the information about the game is still under wraps despite the game being scheduled to be released next month. So, we’re desperate for information because all that has been revealed so far has been three monsters, a few cards, and some ambiguous information from the publisher. The funny thing is that we still don’t know what the side of the dice mean, so these sneak previews may just be creating more questions than answers. At the very least, all of our questions will be answered within the next few weeks as we approach the game’s Gen Con release.

Adam Sandler's Rise to Board Game Fame

Adam Sandler, the comedic actor known for his leading roles in such 90s classics as The Waterboy, Happy Gilmore, and Billy Madison is slated to play a character in a movie based on a classic board game. Adam Sandler will be playing the role of Commander Sargon in the upcoming space epic, Cosmic Encounter: The Movie. Just kidding, he’s actually supposed to be in the film adaption of Candy Land. Or at least he would be in the Candy Land movie if the film actually gets made. The problem is that the Landmark Entertainment Group has sued Hasbro for attempting to film the movie. Landmark originally developed the candy-based characters in the game, and Hasbro allegedly did not ask for permission to use the characters in the movie adaption. With a movie with such potential currently hanging on the line, our news team will keep you updated as new details about the lawsuit are released.

 

What’s New with the Dice Tower?

1) For a moment, try to think back to the early days of the Dice Tower. Think of the days before the Dice Tower Awards, before all of the Dominion expansions came out, and even before slow motion component drops. These were much simpler times. When Tom Vasel started to do video reviews for the Dice Tower, he didn’t just review the latest, most hyped releases. A majority of his reviews were actually children’s games like King Toad, Worm Up, and Arthur Saves the Planet. Over time, something changed and the children’s reviews started to slow down. Maybe it’s because Tom’s daughters became older, or maybe it was because Tom’s own tastes matured. For whatever reason, we had less reviews for kid’s games and it created a void that not even Ryan Metlzer could fill. That was until last week’s Board Game Breakfast where Iain James joined the Dice Tower team. The cool thing about Iain is that he is the youngest member of the team, so he’s probably the most qualified to review children’s games. If you haven’t had the opportunity yet, check out some of his reviews. He has already looked at games like Nacho Loco, Banana Party, and Survive! 2) There are few games that are regularly celebrated by the Dice Tower. For example, when a new Cosmic Encounter expansion is released, the amount of excitement in the review is incomparable to the reviews of any other game. Ticket to Ride is another series the regularly receives a lot of hype. Maybe the hype comes from the annual expansions, or maybe it comes from the fact that the game is awesome. The Ticket to Ride 10th Anniversary Edition has recently been released, leaving a lot of people debating the purchase. On one hand the board and components look fantastic, but on the other hand the price is pretty steep for a game that so many people already own. If you’re still on the fence about buying the Anniversary Edition, check out Tom Vasel and the Game Boy Geek’s reviews of the game.