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Classic Stefan Feld games Bruges and Macao are being re-released, with more to come

City escapes.

Relive board game classics by Stefan Feld with the The Stefan Feld Cities Collection - re-releases of the designer’s seminal titles, beginning with Bruges and Macao.

Hamburg is a revision of Feld’s Bruges, in which players compete to make their city districts appear the most attractive during the 19th century. Bruges - which was nominated for the prestigious Kennerspiel des Jahres award in 2013 - saw players assuming the roles of merchants during the 15th century. The new edition alters the game’s setting and premise whilst maintaining the overall gameplay of the original.

A tableau-building game, Hamburg tasks players with placing cards to represent the different buildings they are constructing in their district, as well as the surrounding walls - all whilst preparing for potential threats that may lead to the destruction of their beautiful developments.

Hamburg board game layout

Alongside a new name, setting and artwork, Hamburg updates Bruges’ rules by streamlining the upcoming game to fit into exactly eight rounds and introducing a brand new wild threat colour to provide a greater challenge. Hamburg will include all the expansions for Bruges, such as Bruges: City on the Zwin.

Amsterdam is a re-release of 2009’s Macao and sees players becoming 20th-century merchants attempting to deliver goods across the city. The original Macao was instead set in the 17th century in a Portuguese-controlled port city off the coast of China, with players becoming explorers in search of products to bring back to Europe. Besides the change in setting, Amsterdam differs from Macao by providing revised cards with new special abilities and a decreased distance between warehouses - previously ports - visited by players.

Despite the changes, Amsterdam is said to provide much the same gameplay experience as Macao, with players using different coloured cubes to perform a variety of actions each turn in order to gather the most points possible.

Amsterdam board game layout

Following Hamburg and Amsterdam will be a re-release of Feld’s other classic city-themed game, Rialto, and an entirely new title called Marrakesh. Instead of being set in the romantic city of Venice, the upcoming revision of Rialto will be themed around New York, with the city lending the upcoming game its name. Alternatively, Marrakesh is set to be a new entry in the cities series designed by Feld, and will use a cube tower in its gameplay.

Queen Games is the publisher responsible for the Stefan Feld Cities Collection, previously known for releasing titles such as classic city-builder Alhambra and fast-paced board game Escape: The Curse of the Temple.

As well as Bruges and Macao, Feld created acclaimed board game The Castles of Burgundy, which is set to receive a sequel called The Castles of Tuscany. Based on the game’s recently-released rulebook, Castles of Tuscany will be a more straightforward and fast-paced version of the original game.

The Kickstarter campaign for Hamburg and Amsterdam is live until September 9th, with a pledge of $65 (£50) getting backers a copy of either Hamburg or Amsterdam. According to Queen Games, the Kickstarter campaigns for New York and Marrakesh are expected to launch sometime in the next two years.

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Alex Meehan avatar
Alex Meehan: After writing for Kotaku UK, Waypoint and Official Xbox Magazine, Alex became a member of the Dicebreaker editorial family. Having been producing news, features, previews and opinion pieces for Dicebreaker for the past three years, Alex has had plenty of opportunity to indulge in her love of meaty strategy board games and gothic RPGS. Besides writing, Alex appears in Dicebreaker’s D&D actual play series Storybreakers and haunts the occasional stream on the Dicebreaker YouTube channel.
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