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Brettspielwelt has added two games to its already large library of games for online play. Schrille Stille is an older game from 1999 . Tongiaki is an upcoming release by Thomas Rauscher from Uberplay and Schmidt. A rules summary can be found on rec.games.board.

If you're not reading Spielboy, the puckishly irreverent online gaming magazine, you're missing out on some of the funniest stuff ever written for devotees of European-style games. Which is a bit like calling Babe the best talking pig movie of all time, but my love is real. The third issue has just been published, featuring the best year in review article you're likely to read for 2003-- and not just because I'm mentioned.

King's Breakfast (aka King Lui) has become the latest game to become playable online at Brettspielwelt, the leading site for free play of modern board and card games.

Attika, the latest game from Verräter and Meuterer designer Marcel-André Casasola Merkle, is now available for play on Brettspielwelt before its commerical release next week at Essen. English rules can temporarily be found at Casasola's web site.

Brettspielwelt, the leading site for online German games, has added this year's Spiel des Jahres winner Alhambra to its offerings.

Today marks the official debut of a new web site for board game enthusiasts that is completely unlike any other game site. Spielboy serves irreverent humor clad in smoking jacket and slippers. Each issue features a pictorial showcasing a young lady, games, and their (ahem) components. Other features include "Found Porn", a comic session report generator, a gaming version of "Hot or Not?", and plenty more. Spielboy is sure to be a must-visit with every quarterly issue.

If you haven't tried Leo Colovini's SdJ-nominated Clans, now's your chance-- it's just been added to the over 3-dozen free, multiplayer board games on Brettspiel Welt.

I've heard from a number of TGR subscribers who were enthralled by my account of The Game, an over-the-top 36 hour puzzle hunt and road rally held in Las Vegas this past October. The organizers have put together a web site chronicling the event, with photos of many locations, copies of all the puzzles and solutions, behind the scenes information, and loads of other extras. The event, called Shelby Logan's Run, was easily the most exhilirating and flat-out coolest thing I've ever done, and you can get a taste of what it was like by following the chronology and story there.

Online board game juggernaut Brettspielwelt today added yet another title to its roster of online board games. Paris Paris is the newest game from Web of Power designer Michael Schacht. Like that earlier design, Paris Paris is a simple, quick-moving placement game with just the right mix of randomness and strategy. Rules can be found here.

Great news, PR fans! Brettspielwelt has added the Puerto Rico expansion to their online implementation, making an already great game even better. As if I didn't already spend too much time playing PR online...

Brettspieltwelt may be the best-known site for playing German games, but it's not the only one. Check out Gravon for Java versions of Stratego, Tichu (including Trichu, Tichu for 3 players), Twilight, and Carolus Magnus among others.

Game Table Online, a web site offering online multiplayer versions of such games as Drakon, Cosmic Wimpout, Lord of the Fries, and Nuclear War, has entered an open testing phase. Gamers are invited to logon and play for free during this testing phase, before the site opens officially and starts charging a subscription fee.

NPR's Morning Edition aired a report on Mafia, better known in the gaming community as Werewolf. The report focuses on the psychology behind the game's popularity, with some ludicrous opinions offered: "This is a game that puts in a context of play the very anxieties that we struggle with daily as Americans and in America. Given the anxiety about where Al Qaida is for example amongst us, I think this game may well speak to the anxieties people are living with today." Or-- and I'm going out on a limb here-- it could just be fun.

This just in: Brettspielwelt has added Top Race to their ever-growing stable of online games. Top Race is the most recent game to use Wolfgang Kramer's racing system also seen in Detroit/Cleveland Grand Prix and Daytona 500.

From time to time I'll be highlighting messages I find interesting from various discussion groups-- Spielfrieks, rec.games.board, etc-- by reposting them here or pointing to an URL for them. This message from Eric Nielsen on rec.games.board discusses the merits of calling Mayor as the first move in a 5-player game of Puerto Rico.

Spielbox offers up the first pictures from Nürnberg 2003, including photos of the newest edition of Die Siedler von Catan with plastic pieces, and the next entry in Alea's big-box line, Ice Age.