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The unveiling of the next game in Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed franchise didn't exactly go as planned. Early leaks of the game's poster and nautical plot hook -- along with some earnest hand wringing by gaming media outlets -- lessened the impact of the reveal, but that doesn't mean the game is any less intriguing.

Ubisoft has now formally pulled back the curtain on Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, due out October 29. The new game takes the popular franchise in a different direction, this time turning gamers into pirate assassins rampaging on the high seas. While there will be plenty of dry dock skullduggery to perform, developers say roughly 40 percent of the game will be spent sailing the ocean blue.

By Jason Keyser, Associated Press

CHICAGO (AP) — As a kid rooting around in the attic of his boyhood home, Allan Calhamer stumbled across an old book of maps and became entranced by faraway places that no longer existed, such as the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian empires.

Allan CalhamerThat discovery and a brewing fascination with world politics and international affairs were the genesis of "Diplomacy," the board game he would create years later as a history student at Harvard University in the 1950s. After its commercial release in 1959, the game earned a loyal legion of fans in the U.S. and elsewhere that reportedly included President John F. Kennedy, Henry Kissinger and Walter Cronkite, among others.

Calhamer died Monday at a hospital in the western Chicago suburbs where he grew up, his daughter Selenne Calhamer-Boling said. He was 81.

Ravi Fernando (left) with a few chums on the Stanford University campus. (Credit: Humans of Stanford)A multitasking Stanford University math student gets the Web buzzing by solving a Rubik's Cube like you've probably never seen before.

By Christopher MacManus, CNET

When you're a Rubik's Cube aficionado, sometimes you have to think outside the box -- err, cube -- to really challenge yourself.

In an amazing video, 21-year-old Ravi Fernando appears to juggle a Rubik's Cube and two hacky sacks while simultaneously solving the complex puzzle.

BioShock Infinite (Credit: 2K Games)Flu season might be over and done with, but don’t be surprised if your gaming co-workers suddenly come down with a month-long cold in March.

A glut of the year’s biggest games all arrive in the next four weeks, turning what’s typically a sleepy month into a nonstop video game party. It’s all by accident, of course: game publishers don’t exactly relish retail competition.

So what happened? Blame that on the volatility of game release dates. Several of the month’s biggest hitters were initially planned for release during the higher profile holiday season of 2012, but for various reasons got pushed back into the third month of 2013. What’s bad for Christmas is great for spring-- and downright awesome for gamers. Polish up your ATM card and check out what the month has in store.

Danny Kitchen (Credit: BBC)Danny Kitchen likes the iPad game Zombies vs. Ninja. No, strike that. Danny Kitchen LOVES Zombies vs. Ninja.

Danny's father Greg, on the other hand, isn't quite so fond of it.

The five-year old boy from Bristol in the U.K. cemented his Zombies vs. Ninja fan status recently by inadvertently running up £1,700 ($2,500) in in-app purchases after convincing his father to give up his password for the family iPad.

Battle Pirates (Credit: Kixeye)Since the days of the Atari 2600, the video game industry has stuck to the same formula: Consumers buy console hardware, then purchase each game separately – at prices ranging from $20 in the 1970s to $60 today.

But the changing nature of the industry has made some question that model. Increasingly, players are balking at the high price of titles, opening the door for the mobile market to grow. That sort of defection isn't especially surprising with casual players (who have always tended to chase bargains) -- but with core players beginning to rethink their buying habits, the industry is being forced to evolve.

(Credit: Alex Wong/Getty Images News)Quaker extortionists and Monopoly? The Civil War and The Game of Life? We usually associate board gaming with family time, but several of the most popular games out there have some not-so-family-friendly origins.

So if you're looking to spark some interesting conversations next time you gather 'round the table for an evening of dice and fake money, here are a few of the lesser known tales of history's biggest board games.

EA's Dead Space 3 featured microtransactions (Credit: EA)Microtransactions can be a lucrative source of income for game publishers, though they're largely limited to free-to-play games and mobile apps right now.

Electronic Arts has a broader vision for the concept, however, and it's not exactly thrilling gamers.

Speaking at Morgan Stanley's Technology Media & Telecom Conference this week, the publisher's CFO Blake Jorgensen said EA plans to include microtransactions in all of its upcoming games.