At Toy Fair 2015, ICv2 spoke with Bezier Games, makers of the popular Castles of Mad King Ludwig, to find out about their upcoming releases for 2015: Favor of the Pharaoh and the new Suburbia: 5 Star expansion.

Favor of the Pharaoh is dice-rolling game designed by Tom Lehmann (Race for the Galaxy, 1846), with re-development help from Ted Alspach.  The game is a reimplementation of Lehmann’s 2006 game To Court The King. Players seek to impress the Pharaoh, and attempt to advance in Egyptian society by making contacts and gaining influence. New contacts mean more dice to roll, or special powers to tweak dice rolls.  The game is planned for release at Spielin Essen 2015, and MSRP is $59.95.

The Suburbia: 5 Star expansion is the second expansion for the 2013 MENSA Select award winning tile placement game Suburbia designed by Ted Alspach (Castles of Mad King Ludwig, Ultimate Werewolf).  The expansion adds 15 unique tourist-drawing building tiles to the game, as well as a fifth player option.  The fifth player option also introduces a variable turn order for every round.  Release is planned for Gen Con in August.  MSRP is $29.95.  As an expansion, it requires the base game to play.

Castles of Mad King Ludwig is a tile placement game where players are contractors competing to build an extravagant castle for King Ludwig II of Bavaria.  Each round, a player takes the role of Master Builder, setting prices for a set of rooms that can be purchased by the other players.  Each completed room is worth castle points, depending on the size, type, and location of placement.  The king’s demands change with the game, so bonus points are available based on a variety of conditions.  The player with the most castle points at the end of the game is the victor. MSRP is $59.95.  The game was mentioned frequently as a surprise hit during ICv2’s most recent survey of retailers and distributors for Internal Correspondence (see "Six Straight Growth Years in Hobby Games").