Go Incognito in a Hat, Trade for Cows Billiantly, and Look for Signs of The Druids of Edora

by W. Eric Martin

In November 2024, I covered several new games coming from Ravensburger in 2025, but with the Spielwarenmesse trade fair now over, the publisher has revealed additional titles, along with graphics for previously announced games.

▪️ That's Not a Hat: Incognito is the newest iteration of Kasper Lapp's 2023 game That's Not a Hat, with this 3-8 player game being co-designed by Yohan Servais and being somewhat more challenging as the information being passed from player to player is open to interpretation:

As before, players pass cards around a table, but now you're trying to keep track of personalities and remember who is who at every moment.

Each card features an abstract representation of a personality: a traffic cone with a crown, with a beard, or disguised as an animal. Whoever gets the card decides who it represents, then that card will be passed to others. If you aren't sure who you are, bluff convincingly enough…or announce a new character that combines the criteria of several cards to confuse your opponents! The latter can either believe you and accept it — or refuse by saying that you are lying about your personality at the risk of being wrong and being penalized.

That's Not a Hat: Incognito includes an "extreme" variant as well a new direction symbol on the back of some cards.

▪️ The co-operative echoes series from Dave Neale and Matthew Dunstan continues with the March 2025 release of echoes: Die Titanic-Affäre in which players must solve the mystery of a young steward who worked on the ship under a false name.

▪️ Designer Ralf zur Linde has two new titles from Ravensburger in early 2025. Brilliant is a 1-6 player roll-and-write game in which you want to fill the fields on your sheet with numbers quicker than anyone else.

On a turn, write one of two numbers rolled next to a number you've previously entered. The grid is divided into different colored areas for which different rules apply for entering numbers. The faster you complete an area, the more points you earn. The player with the most points at the end of the game wins.

▪️ The other zur Linde title is Keksekästchen (Cookie Box), another roll-and-write game, with players wanting to draw walls on their individual player board to box in biscuits.

▪️ As is often the case, Ravensburger has special editions or licensed versions of existing titles, such as a fortieth anniversary edition of Rüdiger Koltze's bluffing card game Kuhhandel, a 100th anniversary edition of the card game Elfer raus!, Naruto Shippuden: PUSH, and Minecraft Labyrinth, which features gameplay as in the original Labyrinth, but with players each getting a pickaxe that can let them knock through a closed wall once during play. So thematic!

▪️ Ravensburger will release the German-language edition of HUTAN: Life in the Rainforest, a design by Asger Harding Granerud and Daniel Skjold Pedersen, under the name HUTAN: Ein Wald Voller Leben in February 2025.

▪️ Gloomies is a Filippo Landini design in which players first sow flowers in a field, then harvest them.

▪️ The Sandcastles of Burgundy is a children's game from Stefan and Susanne Feld based on The Castles of Burgundy in which players roll two dice on their turn in a quest for decorations for Queen Crab's beach party.

▪️ And speaking of Stefan Feld, Ravensburger's alea brand will release a new Feld title: The Druids of Edora. Neither the German nor the English branches of Ravensburger have released info about this title so far, other than the U.S. branch giving me an October 2025 release date.

Image: brettspielpoesie

Author Of article : W Eric Martin

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