Bad news and a silver lining for fans of clever, small-box board games. Osprey Games, the Oxford-based publisher behind the brilliant Undaunted series and the cult favourite Cryptid, is winding down its board and card game operation, and its owner Bloomsbury Publishing is hunting for a buyer. The immediate upshot for players: a July sale with up to 70% off while stock lasts.
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Start organising for freeOsprey confirmed the news in a statement, calling it a "difficult decision" tied to a "strategic refocusing" on book publishing. The company will not commission any new board or card games, but it will keep releasing, selling and licensing its existing slate while Bloomsbury looks for a new home for the catalogue and, it hopes, the team behind it.
That catalogue is a proper hall of fame for the thinking gamer. Since launching in 2015, Osprey has put out Peer Sylvester's The King is Dead and The Lost Expedition, Hal Duncan and Ruth Veevers' deduction hit Cryptid, the Undaunted deckbuilding wargames from David Thompson and Trevor Benjamin, and the Imperium civilisation games from Nigel Buckle and Dávid Turczi. Designers reacted with dismay. Sylvester called the sale "a bit of a bombshell", while Thompson, who has worked with Osprey for 14 years, said the team "grew to be like a family to me".
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See how it worksThe sale runs on Osprey's own webstore until midnight on 31 July, covering board games, wargames and RPGs, with only titles released on or after 1 June left out. Highlights include the striking Day of the Dead game Ofrenda, down to around $18. If there's an Osprey game you have been meaning to try, now's the moment. Cryptid and The King is Dead are both modern classics.
Got one of these heading to your table? Rally your group and give a departing gem a proper send-off.
Sources: BoardGameWire | Osprey Games | Wargamer
