Stronghold games has created The Great Designer Series to highlight some of the best board game designers. So far games like 504 by Friedemann Friese, Porta Nigra by Wolfgang Kramer and Michael Kiesling, and The Dragon and Flagon from the Engelstein family have been a part of the series. Today Stronghold has announced their next game in The Great Designer Series in partnership with Spielworxx, Sola Fide: The Reformation.
Stronghold Games and Spielworxx are proud to announce jointly the publication of Sola Fide: The Reformation, a game designed by the renowned game design team of Jason Matthews and Christian Leonhard.
In Sola Fide: The Reformation, one player takes on the role of the Protestant movement, while the other plays the Catholic establishment. Players attempt to install Reformation in the Holy Roman Empire or try to prevent it, battling the Holy Roman Empire’s Imperial Circles. The game does not have a game board per say, but rather has 10 board tiles, each representing one of the Imperial Circles. Via card play, the two players try to win these ten Imperial Circles, each of which are worth 5 or 7 points. The game is for 2-players, ages 12+, and plays in 45 minutes.
Sola Fide: The Reformation faithfully tracks the Reformation, which Martin Luther started in 1517 with his “Ninety-Five Theses”. Luther criticized the selling of indulgences and that the Catholic doctrine of the merits of the saints had no foundation in the gospel. The “Protestants” soon incorporated doctrinal changes such as Sola Scriptura (“by scripture alone”) and Sola Fide (“by faith alone”).
The changes were not only theological, but also other factors played a role in The Reformation: the rise of nationalism, the Western Schism that eroded people’s faith in the Papacy, the perceived corruption of the Roman Curia, the impact of humanism, and the new learning of the Renaissance that questioned much of traditional thought. The Roman Catholic Church responded with a Counter-Reformation initiated by the Council of Trent.
The release of Sola Fide: The Reformation is timed with the 500th Anniversary in 2017 of The Reformation. Stronghold Games and Spielworxx commissioned the great game design team of Jason Matthews and Christian Leonhard to work specifically on this project. Matthews and Leonhard are foremost game design experts on historical games, previously designing 1960: The Making of the President, Founding Fathers, and Campaign Manager 2008. Jason Matthews also co-designed the critically acclaimed 1989: Dawn of Freedom, as well as Twilight Struggle, which is the #2 ranked game on Board Game Geek.
The release of Sola Fide: The Reformation continues the strategic partnership between Stronghold Games and Spielworxx, which was announced in December 2014, whereby Stronghold Games and Spielworxx would partner on select game releases.
Sola Fide: The Reformation is scheduled for release to the general public in late October/November 2016. The MSRP for this game has not been set at this time. The game will make its debut at the Essen Spiel in Germany in October 2016.
Stronghold Games will release Sola Fide: The Reformation as the sixth game in its “The Great Designers Series,” which highlights games from the best game designers in the world.
“Placing a title in my catalog by the great design team of Jason Matthews and Christian Leonhard, and one based on a significant historic event, has been a dream of mine since the first days of Stronghold Games”, said Stephen Buonocore, President of Stronghold Games. “Publishing this game with my good friend and industry giant, Uli Blennemann, makes this also a personal historic occasion.”
“I’m very proud to see a game by Jason and Chris under the Spielworxx logo – in my opinion this is an all-star-duo”, said Uli Blennemann, President of Spielworxx. “It is also a pleasure & honor to work again with Stephen – with him it is an all-star-trio.”
It’s definitely an interesting theme to bring to a board game, but the timing is perfect. With a debut at Spiel in Germany it should be a hit, especially considering the location. Be on the lookout for this late in the year.
While not working as a Database Administrator, Keith Schleicher has been associated with Gaming Trend since 2003. While his love of video games started with the Telestar Alpha (a pong console with four different games), he trule started playing video games when he received the ill-fated TI-99/4A. While the Speech Synthesizer seemed to be the height of gaming, eventually a 286 AT computer running at 8/12 Hz and a CGA monitor would be his outlet for a while. Eventually he’d graduate to 386, 486, Pentium, and Athlon systems, building some of those systems while doing some hardware reviews and attending Comdex. With the release of the Dreamcast that started his conversion to the console world. Since then he has acquired an NES, SNES, PS2, PS3, PSP, GBA-SP, DS, Xbox, Xbox 360, Xbox One S, Gamecube, Wii, Switch, and Oculus Quest 2. While not playing video games he enjoys bowling, reading, playing board games, listening to music, and watching movies and TV. He originally hails from Wisconsin but is now living in Michigan with his wife and sons.
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