UltraPro Continues Gaming Expansion – In the last year, collectibles supplies manufacturer, UltraPro, has made a series of aggressive moves to expand their product portfolio. The company is now producing a wide variety of games including tabletop board games, deck building games and more. They fall under the recently formed UltraPro Entertainment division.
In August, the company announced that it had acquired the rights to Stone Blade Entertainment’s product portfolio. SBE is well known for their Ascension deck building game and online app.
“I am very excited to bring our tabletop games to Ultra PRO,” said Justin Gary, CEO of Stone Blade Entertainment. “This partnership allows us to centralize our efforts on designing great games, while utilizing Ultra PRO’s huge market presence to reach additional players and grow our existing brands.”
“Having such a talented team from Stone Blade Entertainment, with Justin Gary at the helm designing industry-leading brands such as Ascension, is the exact fit for Ultra PRO’s recently formed Entertainment Division,” said Sean Lashgari, Senior Director Entertainment Division, Ultra PRO. “Ultra PRO’s name has been synonymous with quality, innovation and being the world’s leading game accessories manufacturer; the opportunity to leverage this, along with our vast distribution network, to build on an already great portfolio of tabletop games will be tremendous.”
This strategic transaction comes on the heels of a move a year earlier, in August of 2015, when UltraPro acquired strategy tabletop game company, Jolly Roger.
“We are very excited for the opportunity to work with Jim who founded Jolly Roger almost a decade ago and will continue to lead Jolly Roger as a division of ours under his new title as Director of Jolly Roger Games. Jim has found success publishing games with themes and topics that are educational, fun, social and very unique, and our goal is to support Jim with our manufacturing and logistical resources so he can continue doing what he does best and expands the Jolly Roger library of board games.” comments Jay Kuo, Senior Vice President of Ultra PRO.
One of UltraPro Entertainment’s recent releases is the fast-action, historical based 13 Days – The Cuban Missile Crisis. For Thirteen Days in 1962 the world stood at the brink of atomic destruction as the United States and Soviet Union faced off over missiles which had been placed in Cuba. Would the USSR back down and remove the missiles? Would the US push forward with a full invasion or send bombers towards targets withing the Soviet Union? Who would blink first?
13 Days is a game recreating the tension of those two weeks as players play cards which shape political events around the world and can be played in 45 minutes. Great introductory product for card-driven games. Includes a full-game example with commentary, as well as historical notes.
UltraPro’s Entertainment division has several gaming releases planned for the fourth quarter of 2016, including:
A follow-up to the aforementioned 13 Days the Cuban Missile Crisis, this time 13 
Minutes – The Cuban Missile Crisis. 13 Minutes is described as a card-driven micro game with tough decision. Playing either President Kennedy or Khrushchev, your aim is to exit the Cuban Missile Crisis as the most powerful superpower. During the game you will play five Strategy cards that you use to place Influence cubes on battlegrounds to score majorities, or to manipulate battlegrounds. Played cards turn into new battlegrounds so the world map is ever changing. Be careful, because each decision is important and you may trigger global nuclear war.
Other planned game releases include:
Dia De Las Muertos – A trick-taking game for 3-6 players which lasts 10-15 minutes. Beautiful, illustrated original art pieces that are visually stunning and reflect the Mexican Holiday – Dia Los Muertos. Non-linguistic, numeric & symbol based with rules in English & Spanish!
Overkill: Halloween Slasher Party Game – Overkill is a card game where you compete to come up with the most ridiculous or creative horror movie-themed kill. Players take on the roles of various monsters from horror movie lore, and compete for the most prized victims – when the sun rises, the player with the most total point’s worth of victims wins!
Road Hog – Life on the road means relying on quick wits, mad skills, and a bit of luck to get there in one piece. Turnpike captures the rolling shark tank that is our modern highway system where complete strangers shamelessly compete with each other in a race. Can you be the first player to drive your car from the beginning to the end of the highway and exit to win?
Zircles – The Mangnetic Travel Game – Zircles is a fun ‘strategy’ game where you lay different geometric shapes & sizes that are magnetic onto a ‘grid’ play board. Each piece has ‘part of a circle’ on it’s angle, try to connect pieces on the board that form a “Zircle” (circle) to score with your marker on top. Game ends when a player runs out of their geometric shaped pieces. Sound easy? Be careful, any piece left in your hand at the end of the game counts against your score! See if you can score the most points, Zircles, to win!
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