Friday July 10, 2009
Mayfair Games plans to release three major board games in August. The trio includes Martian Rails, Rise of Empires, and Witch of Salem. Martian Rails is an extraterrestrial expansion of the Empire Builder franchise to the Red Planet, while Rise of Empires is a co-production with Phalanx Games, and Witch of Salem is licensed from another leading publisher of sophisticated Euro board games, the German company Kosmos Verlag.

Martian Rails (MSRP $42) is a railroad-building game set on the Red Planet, which is depicted with great geographical accuracy on the markable game board. Designed by M. Robert Stribula and the Empire Builder Design Team, Martian Rails, which ships August 13th, is designed for 2-6 players ages 10 and up. The playing time for this deluxe board game, which includes 180 colourful cards, 94 color load chips, a pack of money, a pack of crayons, six train pawns, and a full-color rules sheet, can run anywhere from 2 to 4 hours.

Produced in cooperation with Germany’s Phalanx Games, Rise of Empires (MSRP $55) is a sophisticated “civilization” game designed by Martin Wallace that allows 2-5 players ages 12 and up to guide history as they balance gold and food, war and agriculture, territory and technology to forge an empire that is destined to rise above all other nations. The deluxe game, which takes about 3 hours to play, includes a large game board, a tiles display, 40 resource discs, 150 player cubes in 5 colors, 8 empire tiles, 20 territory tiles, 48 progress tiles, 36 city tiles, 104 gold markers, 5 alliance pieces, 5 player aid cards, and 1 rule booklet with an illustrated example of the play.

In contrast to the serious sophistication of Rise of Empires, Witch of Salem (MSRP $49), which should ship in late August or early September, is a casual, social game for 2-4 players, ages 12 and up, which can be played in just 60 minutes. The game is designed by Michael Rieneck and based on Wolfgang Hohlbein’s Lovecraft-inspired tales of Arkham and the struggles against Cthulhu. The deluxe Witch of Salem board game includes a game board, 4 game figures, 1 witch figure, 1 Necron stone, 1 battle die, 26 creature cards, 6 Great Old Ones cards, 12 event cards, 6 overview/turn cards, 32 minor location cards, 4 player boards, 34 item markers, 4 sanity markers, 6 artifact markers, 8 portal tiles, a cloth bag, and game rules.