This October will see the release of the official the Golden Compass board game, produced under license from New Line Cinema. The game comes to us from the award-winning Lord of the Rings game inventor/designers Francesco Nepitello and Marco Maggi, with art taken straight from the eagerly awaited forthcoming film. Sophisticated Games, specialists in literature-based board games, have been confirmed to be producing the game for distributors in Germany, Spain, and Greece, and the United Kingdom.

As far as the game play goes, the game features an alethiometer with moving hands as its centre piece, but also involves cards and tokens which help to influence Lyra’s progress through the story. The makers assure us that the game looks stunning, and that while movie-based games “don’t always push the quality envelope,” they have tried their hardest to make The Golden Compass board game several cuts above the average film-derived game.

You can view the boardgame’s box and the board itself below – click for larger.