Imagine you can control the forces of a noble family, guild, or religious order on a barren planet which is the only source for the most valuable substance in the known universe. Imagine you can rewrite the script for one of the most famous science fiction books of all time. Welcome to the acclaimed 40-year-old … Read more
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The Imomushi silkworms can live only in the cold peaks of the Akaishi Mountains, and they produce the most delicate and expensive silk in the world. Very few people can withstand the hardships of the lonesome life a shepherd of giant silkworms leads. It is a solitary existence that requires great dedication and strength of character to bear the pressures that stem from competing with the few other shepherds who fight over the scarce but desirable feeding grounds, while keeping the fearsome ookamy at bay.
Silk is a gateway game into area control and worker placement systems. Players have to move their silkworms to the optimal spaces so they can feed on the best grass available, while pushing the other players’ pieces into less desirable feeding grounds. In this game, players roll dice in order to determine which actions they are allowed to perform during their turn. There are six types of actions available: breeding more silkworms, moving the shepherd or their mastiff, building fences or farms, moving the ookami monster around the board, and — most importantly — getting your silkworms to feed. When silkworms feed, they generate a number of silk points, depending on the type of terrain they are standing on at that moment. These points can be used to modify the outcome of a dice roll, all while keeping in mind that the player with the most silk points at the end of the game wins!
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Alone is a sci-fi survival horror / dungeon crawler game that will pit a single, stranded hero against 1-3 evil masterminds who will do their best to stop the hero from completing a quest to discover the truth and save his companions. The Evil players always have the full map of the scenario in front … Read more
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In the quiet village of Ravenswood Bluff, a demon walks amongst you… During a hellish thunderstorm, on the stroke of midnight, there echoes a bone-chilling scream. The townsfolk rush to investigate and find the town storyteller murdered, their body impaled on the hands of the clocktower, blood dripping onto the cobblestones below. A Demon is … Read more
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A traveler wanders through the South American highlands and brings the inhabitants new ideas from his travels. Anyone who meets him can take advantage of these assets. A public trading point makes it possible to obtain rare goods in exchange for opals. And a variety of fortunes adds even more diversity to life among the mountain ranges in Bolivia and Peru.
With Altiplano: The Traveler, the planning of moves in Altiplano becomes more important and accessibility to resources becomes more interactive. Above all, the assets that may be purchased from the traveller open up completely new ways to increase one’s own wealth. But unforeseen fortunes sometimes demand spontaneous decisions which influence planning.
Thus, the drive for success in this inhospitable region turns into a completely new challenge! Who’s prepared for this?
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Altiplano, a bag-building game along the lines of Orléans set in the South American highlands of the Andes — the Altiplano — is not a simple game, presenting players with new challenges time and again. There are various ways to reach the goal, so the game remains appealing to try out new options and strategies, but success or failure also depends on whether your opponents let you do as you like or thwart the strategy you are pursuing. The competition for the individual types of goods is considerable — as is the fun in snatching a coveted extension card from under another player’s nose!
At the start of the game, players have access only to certain resources and goods, due to the different role tiles that each player receives that provide them. At the market, however, a player can acquire additional production sites that give new options. The numerous goods — such as fish, alpaca, cacao, silver, or corn — all have their own characteristics and places where they can be used. Whereas silver makes you rich, fish can be exchanged for other goods, and alpaca give you wool that you can then make into cloth.
Aside from building up an effective production, you must deliver the right goods at the right time, develop the road in good time, and store your goods cleverly enough to fill the most valuable rows with them. Often, a good warehouseperson is more relevant in the end than the best producer.
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Betrayal Legacy marries the concept of Betrayal at House on the Hill — exploring a haunted mansion — with the permanency and multi-game storytelling exhibited by Daviau’s Risk Legacy and other legacy games that followed. Betrayal Legacy consists of a prologue and a thirteen-chapter story that takes place over decades. Players represent families, with specific members of a family participating in one story, then perhaps an older version of those characters (assuming they lived) or their descendants showing up in later stories.
Why would people keep exploring a haunted mansion for decade after decade, especially when horrible things happen there? Curiosity, I suppose, or perhaps an ignorant boldness that comes from the belief that we know better than those who have come before. Look at all that we’ve learned, marvel at the tools we have at hand! Surely we’ll all exit safely this time…
As with other Betrayal titles, the game is narratively-driven, with elements that record the history of your specific games. The tools mentioned earlier, for example, become attached to specific families. This isn’t just a bucket; it’s my bucket, the one my grandpappy used to feed his family’s pigs when he was a boy, and while you can certainly use that bucket, I know how to wield it best from the time he spent teaching me how to slop. Yes, it’s an heirloom bucket, and when kept in the family, I get a bonus for using it.
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Kill Team is the game of skirmish combat in the 41st Millennium.
Set in the same universe and using the same miniatures ranges as Warhammer 40,000 but with a different rules set, it allows you to play a game of fast-paced tactical skirmish combat in games of 2-4 players, in less time and with a fraction of the models you’d need to play a full game of Warhammer 40,000.
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In Lowlands, you carve your farm out of this unforgiving land, gathering and spending resource cards to transform your farmyard into pastures that allow you to profit from breeding sheep. Adding expansions to your farm will unlock new options and score you victory points, but helping to build the dike that collectively protects all players is also rewarded. No matter what, the tide will rise and, if the dike isn’t high enough, it could rush in and sweep away your hard-earned profits. Will you sacrifice your own farm for the good of the community, or will you pursue your own agenda? The choice is yours.
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Fallout is a post-nuclear adventure board game for one to four players. Based on the hit video game series by Bethesda Softworks, each Fallout scenario is inspired by a familiar story from the franchise. Survivors begin the game on the edge of an unexplored landscape, uncertain of what awaits them in this unfamiliar world. With just one objective to guide them from the very beginning, each player must explore the hidden map, fight ferocious enemies, and build the skills of their survivor as they attempt to complete challenging quests and balance feuding factions within the game.
As they advance their survivors’ stories, players come across new quests and individual targets, leading them to gain influence. Who comes out ahead depends on how keenly and aggressively each player ventures through the game; however, if a single faction is pushed to power too quickly, the wasteland will be taken for their own, and the survivors conquered along with it.
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