The summer holidays are starting soon and with July and August being more outdoor months, it is getting quieter regarding board game news. But we are also not too far off from the next two big board game conventions with GenCon in August and Essen later in October. So it is always good to look ahead and see what new games have been announced.

This week’s new pre-order roundup includes a new black-and-white city, a co-op monster island and a deck builder that goes tile-laying:

• MicroMacro: Crime City 3 – All In is part three of the highly successful “Where is Wally meets Crime Solving” game from Pegasus. The release of the English edition is planned for September/October.
• CoraQuest is a dungeon-crawler with amazing artwork for one to four kids and grownups. The game should be available in the UK at the end of October.
• Fire & Stone: Siege of Vienna is an interesting two-player game about the siege of Vienna in 1683 by an Ottoman army. Capstone Games, the publisher, plans a release after Essen in late October.

• Clank! Catacombs is the fourth game in the highly-successful Clank series and for the first time combines deck building and tile-laying. Dire Wolf has taken over the publishing of the Clank! games from Renegade and is planning to release Catacombs before Christmas.
• Encyclopedia: in this new dice-based worker placement game from Eric Dubus and Olivier Melison players try to create the first encyclopedia of natural history. The planned release date is the end of November.
• Uwe Rosenberg is back with Atiwa, a new worker placement game about starting a new community in the Atiwa Range in Ghana. Marked by Lookout Games as “Advanced Level” Atiwa is expected to be available from November.
• King of Monster Island is the third “King of” game from Richard Garfield. Not much is known about it so far, only that it will be a cooperative game. More will be known in the run-up to the release, which is planned for the end of 2022.