GAMA Expo 2025: Lord of the Rings: The Confrontation, KeyForge: Discovery, 18RoyalGorge, and 4 Years to Mars | BoardGameGeek News

by W. Eric Martin

▪️ At Gen Con 2024, Ghost Galaxy had a banner for a new edition of Reiner Knizia‘s Lord of the Rings: The Confrontation, along with an accompanying crowdfunding preview on Gamefound.

The only additional info that I can add to the scant material already out there is that Ghost Galaxy is aiming for a Q4 2025 release. Oh, and here are pics of what Ghost Galaxy showed at GAMA Expo 2025:

In the publisher’s words, “KeyForge: Discovery is a set of more than 300 classic KeyForge cards chosen for their simplicity, intuitiveness, and fun factor. Every unique deck generated from this set provides an easy introduction to the game, with a focus on core game mechanics and only a minimal use of keywords.”

At GAMA Expo 2025, a publisher representative told me that the intent behind KeyForge: Discovery is to keep it in print continually to serve as an introductory point for new players, with them then ideally branching into whichever new set is on the market at that point.

▪️ I covered a couple of Mayfair Games‘ upcoming titles — Kanal and CO₂: Second Chance — in an earlier post, but it has other titles coming as well, such as Simon Weinberg‘s ladder-climbing card game Makoto (covered in a Jan. 2025 post about HUCH!‘s 2025 releases) and a new edition of Asian Tigers: A Story of Prosperity from designers Nuno Bizarro Sentieiro and Paulo Soledade, which PYTHAGORAS debuted in late 2024. This new edition will feature updated graphics, including new art without AI-generated elements, and it will debut at SPIEL Essen 25.

▪️ Mayfair Games will also be a publication partner in a new PYTHAGORAS title — Oliva — a deck-building game with simultaneous play that fits into its Café and Lata line from designers Costa and Rôla.

▪️ Mayfair has also picked up 18RoyalGorge: The Rails of Fremont County and the Royal Gorge Wars, a 2-4 player game from Kayla Ross and Denman Scofield that new publisher 18Wood crowdfunded in late 2024. Mayfair hopes to have this title available in time for Gen Con 2025. Here’s an overview of gameplay:

▪️ Another co-publication project for Mayfair Games is 4 Years to Mars, which designer Sharon Goza crowdfunded in October 2024. Goza worked at NASA’s Johnson Space Center for more than three decades, designing digital NASA outreach games among other work. Here’s an overview of this 1-6 player game that Mayfair hopes to debut at Gen Con 2025:

The space race is heating up once again, and governments have issued their challenge: Develop a viable Mars program in four years. The catch? Your government will supply only a fixed amount of funding per year. The rest of your budget and the success of your mission depend on the success of the projects you fund…but you’re not the only one in this race!

4 Years to Mars is card-based, with individual player boards to track mission objective progress. The game can be played solo, co-operatively or competitively.

In the first of four program years in the competitive game, players spend their “space bucks” (Spucks) on funding research in their four space station experiment bays. In the following years, players fund projects to further their mission objectives and provide additional funding for the next program year. Research topics reduce the cost of corresponding projects. In the base game, action cards can be played to help your program as well. After four years, government funding ceases, then the player with the most points wins, with points being awarded for progress in each of the eight mission objectives. A bonus is given to the first and second players to complete the entire objective.

In the co-operative game, all players work together to complete the eight mission objectives before the end of the four program years. In order to advance a mission objective, players must work together to fund projects that create sets of mission objective icons. For example, to advance your rover mission objective once in a five-player game, you must have a set of five cards with mission objective icons. Unlike sets for the competitive game, cards can be used for multiple icon sets.

In the single player game, the goal is also to complete the eight mission objectives before the end of the four program years, but some cards are removed from the market after every round, so you must plan for the next year.

All of the projects in the game are based on real NASA projects and products.