Van Ryder Games President A.J. Porfirio updated us at Gen Con on their Essen board game release and plans for their hit game Final Girl.

The Essen release will be Garden Guests, a new board game designed by Stephen Glenn with art by Kristena Derrick.  "This is our new abstract strategy game, where players or teams (you can play in teams) are trying to connect the path from one side of the board to the other," Porfirio told us.  "The way you're doing that is you have a hand of cards.  There are sections of flowers on the board, and you're going to play the flowers that you need for each space to connect colonies.  It's bug themed, and the bugs are trying to make their way across; you build colonies and towers; then you connect them.  Once you've connected them, that's locked in.  It's a bit of a chess match, a mental battle of who can basically connect a full line across the board."

Garden Guests is for two to six players, ages 8 and up, and plays in 30 to 40 minutes, regardless of player count.  Release in the U.S. is expected in early November, at a $39.99 MSRP.

We also asked Porfirio about Final Girl, which has been getting a lot of buzz in the wake of the Series 2 release earlier this year (see "Pro: Board and Card Game Sales").

"Final Girl continues to be an amazing hit for us," Porfirio said.  "We are fully stocked for Series 1 and 2. Series 3 is coming to Kickstarter on September 19th and wrapping up on Friday, October the 13th (we are blessed with a Friday the 13th in October this year).  It will have a retailer tier.  We've got some really, really big secrets that I wish I could talk about, but I only have to wait another month and a half.  We've got some really huge things planned."

Final Girl is configured around a Core Box, which must be combined with at least one Feature Film box.  Each Feature Film box features a unique killer and iconic location.  Each Series has five Feature Film boxes.