Celebrate Betrayal at Yuletide, and Brace Yourself for the Rise of the Floodborn

by W. Eric Martin

In the run-up to SPIEL Essen 23, I placed a lot of non-SPIEL games in a folder to get back to them later. Time to dip into that folder now…

• Nothing screams Christmas like horse skulls decorated with flaming candles. At least that’s the approach that Avalon Hill is taking for Betrayal: The Yuletide Tale – Evil Reigns in the Wynter’s Pale, an expansion for the third edition of Betrayal at House on the Hill due out on November 1, 2023 that includes two new characters (Jingleklaws and Elf), two room tiles, two haunt books, a story prologue book, four game cards, a scenario card, and four clips.

• In a more traditional, i.e., more commercial, approach to the holiday season, Funko Games will release a six-pack of IP-based games in October and November 2023:

— Coca-Cola: Polar Rollers Game

— Disney The Muppet Christmas Carol: Spirit of Giving Game

— Disney Winnie the Pooh: Snow Parade Game

— Nickelodeon Rugrats: The Meanie of Chanukah

— Peanuts Charlie Brown: Trim the Tree Game

— Rudolph the Red-Nose Reindeer: Snowstorm Scramble Game

I’m both amused and disturbed by the brand requirement to title games in specific ways such as “Peanuts Charlie Brown”. Steve Jackson’s Munchkin Presents Batman was another game along these lines, with the title on the box looking like Munchkin: Batman, but the legal title being the more convoluted form above.

• Speaking of Disney, in September 2023 Ravensburger announced the second set of cards for its Disney Lorcana trading card game: Rise of the Floodborn. (Note that the first link is for the TCG as a whole, and the second link is for that specific set of cards.)

This set will debut with two starter decks, an Illumineer’s Trove, booster packs, playmats, and sleeves in hobby stores on November 17, 2023, with a mass market release on December 1.

Ravensburger will also release a fancy Disney Lorcana: Disney100 Edition box that will contain four booster packs of Rise of the Floodborn, along with six alternate art cards that each feature “an exclusive Disney100 frame design, a satin holographic foil finish, and a copy of the animator’s signature prominently displayed”. Price: US$50, and with booster packs selling for US$6 that means half of what you’re paying for is the foil cards.

And Ravensburger plans to make Disney Lorcana available in ten new countries — Spain, Portugal, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, and Mexico — as of the first half of 2024 to coincide with the release of the game’s third set. Note that cards available in these countries will likely be in English given that the publisher notes that the game will become available in Italian as of this same third set. (To date, cards have been published only in English, French and German.)

The publisher has also promised a reprint of “The First Chapter”, the game’s first set: “The reprint will also include the second set of the game, Rise of the Floodborn, and is expected to be available for the 2023 Holiday season in North America and by January 2024 in Europe.”