Get Village & Village Inn on Wednesday
 
Come live in the  Village and meet us at the  Village Inn , starting this Wednesday, May 11 at your favorite retailer!

It's time to celebrate! Village and Village Inn hit retail this Wednesday!

It's looking more and more like there will be 21 new game releases by Stronghold Games this year.  Fortunately, when the workload gets too heavy here at The Stronghold, we can all meet in the Village at the Village Inn and grab a pint together!
 
Making your way in hobby games takes everything you've got. 
Taking a break from all your worries, sure would help a lot. 
Wouldn't you like to get away...

Sometimes you want to go 
Where everybody knows my games.
And they're always glad you came. 

You wanna be where you can play
Many great Stronghold games. 
You wanna be where everybody knows your games.
 
Community is truly one of the greatest things about our hobby. It brings people together and can create a very unique kind of family. We wanna go where everybody knows our games! Right?

And of course, there's only one thing to say to that ...Cheers!

Here we go everybody -- the 2016 new game season starts now.

Stephen M. Buonocore
President
Stronghold Games LLC
 
P.S. If you're old enough to remember the popular sitcom Cheers  from the 80's and early 90's about a tavern in Boston, you may pretend that the Village Inn characters have a connection to that memorable cast. In the image above: 
Top - Sam, Diane, Coach; Middle - Frasier, Woody; Bottom - Cliff and ...NORM! 
 
The Town Square - Village Gossip 
Things you may have never noticed about Village
 
Since Village earned a degree of notoriety when it was released, you must think you already know everything you need to know about it.  Here are a few things you may know, and some details you may have missed.
 
Worldwide Award Winner
V illage was released in Germany by eggertspiele in 2011 with distribution by Pegasus Spiele.  By the time it was released in the United States in 2012, it was already making a big impression in international tabletop gaming awards. 

Village was nominated for awards all over the world and won the Flemish Game of the Year in Flanders (2012 Goulden Ludo) and  Game of the Year in the Czech Republic (2012 Hra Roku). 

Even as Village was winning big awards in Europe, it showed it's appeal in the United States when it won the Games Magazine Best Advanced Strategy Game of 2013. It's full range of appeal is evident when it was also nominated for Golden Geek awards for Best Family, Best Strategy, and Most Innovative Game of the Year in 2012 on BoardGameGeek.   

The biggest wins for Village, however, came from its home market of Germany, where it remains an archetypal example of the very best in German tabletop gaming. The base game is a modern classic and each expansion takes the game to another level of depth. 
KENNERSPIEL 
DES JAHRES

Village won the  Kennerspiel des Jahres in 2012. The award recognizes excellence in games for more experienced gamers.

DEUTSCHER
SPIELE PREIS

Village won the other big German gaming award in 2012 when it took home the Deutscher Spiele Preis for Best Family / Adult Game.

The Kennerspiel des Jahres and Deutscher Spiele Pries are the two biggest awards in Germany, arguably the world, for gamers' games.

They got more than Their Names on the Cover...
The original idea for Village came from Inka Brand. She thought about a little village, where each player controls a little family of meeples. It would be possible to choose different paths of life for each person and there should be multiple generations.

She and her husband Markus are design partners and have created many successful games together. In this case, they got more than just their names on the Village box cover. You can see that the couple on the cover bares a striking resemblance to Inka and Markus Brand.
The Couple on the Cover
Inka and Markus Brand
That's what you call some serious "Brand" management on your cover!

The Cycle of Life: A Thoughtful Thematic Treatment
The artist for the Village line of games is the very prolific German board game artist Dennis Lohausen. His skill is evident everywhere in the game and small details create a surprising  warmth for a game about several generations of your family aging, working, dying, and being remembered. 

Especially impressive is the subtle visual metaphors of aging and time passing that are worked into each player's farmyard---where players track the passage of time in the game. 
 
It starts in Spring where we see a baby in a mother's arms. As we move through the seasons, we encounter a child with a kite, a couple embracing during Summer, and a man working the harvest in Autumn. Eventually we see an old man standing at the foot of a bridge with ravens on it at the end of Winter. This very thoughtful treatment of death and aging as a natural cycle reflects a deep respect for the themes of the game.
 
A Playful Partner - The eggertspiele Fox
Of course, some of the small details are much more playful. The logo for our partner eggertspiele who developed Village is a fox. You can see the eggertspiele fox frolicking in the bushes next to the Chamber Counsel on the Village board. And the beer barrels added to the game by the Village Inn expansion have a distinctive fox logo on them! 
FOX IN THE BUSHES
FOX IN THE BREWHAUS


2016 Stronghold Calendar
Late breaking news and updates for our Leap Year...

Upcoming Preorders & Street Dates 
We've highlighted recent changes and announcements below. Changes are to be expected, but we work with our distribution partners to create a steady stream and reasonable stagger of new titles. 
 
As you can see, a lot of progress has been made on the Great Designers Series of games. Stay tuned this week for a press release that will feature news on the recent additions to that line of games. Look for that Press Release any day now!


Preorders Closing - Sunday, May 15
The Street Date for these two new games is June 22
 
These new Pocket Line Games are truly a dynamic duo.  For those of you still on the fence about preordering, the last chance get a head start on this season's most exciting game about bear attacks is this Sunday. 
 
PREORDERS - The Dynamic Duo
BEAR VALLEY
Preorders end Sunday, May 15
 
STELLAR CONFLICT
Preorders end Sunday, May 15

Next Preorders - Late May/Early June
What's "on deck" for the next batch of Preorders
 
Both of these hot European titles are preparing to come to the United States this summer. In each case, the games have had improvements made to these new editions published with Stronghold Games. 
 
COMING SOON - Mystery, Intrigue, ...and Happiness!
CITY OF SPIES: 
ESTORIL 1942
THE PURSUIT 
OF  HAPPINESS


Happy Endings are Important
So, what happened to our marriage proposal above?

Do You Take This Game, in sickness and in health...
At the start of this newsletter, we imagined that the gentleman on the Village box cover was proposing marriage to the woman. Since happy endings are important, you probably want to know how it turned out. 

A ll you have to do is look at the Village game board, right in front of the church ...it's the couple from the cover getting married! See, there are lots of cool artistic details in the game. 

Maybe you'd like to impress a special someone in your life with a preorder from our website? For example, you could show someone that you love them by suggesting you'd be "lost in the wilderness" without them ( Bear Valley ). Or you could tell that special person in your life that they are truly "out of this world."( Stellar Conflict ) 

Or you can just keep it simple and remember that n othing says "I love you" quite like saving 30% and getting your games early. Cardboard shows you care.