This week is a Far Cry from quiet with big titles and reprints of popular games. This week also sees the long awaited arrival of Last Light a 4x game from The Dice Tower's Roy Cannaday. I think most people will find something to back this week.
If you do back anything, let me know in the comments.
In Far Cry: Beyond, a spinoff series based on Ubisoft's Far Cry universe, you head back to the 1980s for an explosive co-op tabletop adventure.
The Great Wall is a new asymmetric worker/soldier placement game with engine building themes and a twist in form of a constantly attacking AI (Mongolian Horde) that requires players to sometimes cooperate in order to defeat it. This is a new major board game from Awaken Realms.
Players will control ancient clans in China trying to defend against invading Mongolian hordes and build a Great Wall. While every player will want to win (by earning VP = Honor) they also need to sometimes cooperate to defend against the hordes. Each clan will be asymmetric through its chosen Leader (resource production/starting resources/starting workers and units) and this asymmetry will increase as the game progresses (players will hire Advisors with unique skills, often creating unique engines).
In The Great Wall, the players take the role of Generals defending the Wall against the Mongol Horde. The game is played over a series of turns called Years, each divided into 4 parts called Seasons.
During Spring, new barbaric hordes invade the fields in front of the Great Wall and prepare to launch their assault. Summer is the time when generals prepare for the assault and mobilize their forces. During Fall, players take their turns, playing Command cards, resolving their effects and Activating Locations to gain various benefits. In Winter, the last layer of Defense is activated, then, the hordes try to assault the Walls.
During the course of the game, players will create their own unique engines based on their clan strength as well as interact with other players during all phases of the game, trying to get the most Honor points, which can be gained in a lot of different ways.
At the end of the game, the player with the most Honor wins.
Blade Rondo is a card battle game from Domina Games for one or two players.
The game distinguishes itself from other card battle games in several ways. One is the way decks are built - out of the forty "key cards", each player is dealt fifteen and has to choose just seven to use during the match. Stronger cards tend to be single-use, meaning you need to balance longevity and power when making your choices. Additionally the small card set means you can make assumptions about what your opponent might have, though without total certainty.
The game's solo mode isn't just tacked on - 20 cards are included just for use in solo play, and allow you to enjoy the game by yourself. Pawn, the designer, is well known for his previous solo-only releases such as Shephy.
Grab your binoculars and your birding journal because it's time to hit the trails and see some birds. Choose a habitat each round to visit along the western coast of North America, and see what rare birds you can find. Don't forget to keep an eye on what your fellow birders are tracking down — they might just lead you to the bird that finishes your watch list and earns you extra points! Who will outsmart their opponents, spot the most birds, and be the best birder?
In Birds of a Feather: Western North America, you and the other players explore different habitats to spot birds. In the first round, each player chooses and reveals a card from hand, then marks off on their score sheet or the app the bird they played as well as all other birds played in the same habitat. The deck contains cards from five habitats, with some birds being more common than others. In the second round, you each play a card again, then you mark all birds in your current habitat as well as all cards played the previous round in that habitat. Apparently word spread about all the great finds! Remove all cards from the first round, then keep playing additional rounds in the same manner.
When each player has only one card left in hand, the game ends. For each ace bird you've seen in a habitat, you score 2 points; for each other non-common bird you've seen, score 1 point; and if you've seen all seven types of birds in a habitat, score 3 bonus points for a total of 10 points in that habitat. Whoever has the most total points wins.
Birds of a Feather: Western North America differs from Birds of Feather thanks to new graphic design and improved rules for two- and three-player games to make them more strategic.
Welcome player to grim history as seen through the cracked lens of the supernatural…
- Compact play area. - 1 minute set up. - Compact play area - 100 page scenario book. - Challenging tactical combat. - Narrative campaign. - Unique character skills.
HOW TO CHOOSE Escape from Stalingrad Z is a solo/coop campaign game of tactical combat which is set in the horrific zombie plague of World War Two. The year is 1942 and the city is Stalingrad. Your survivors are veteran soldiers fighting to stave off the zombie hordes in a war-torn wasteland while finding a way to escape from the decimated city. They must work together to find the best path, each scenario giving them options on which way to go next.
The player's choices determine the fate of their heroes.
The game plays out over a series of linked scenarios that form a campaign. Each previous scenario in the Campaign will affect the start of the next, creating an ongoing story.
HOW TO SURVIVE Escape from Stalingrad Z will take you to the most brutal battles the world has ever witnessed. Here in this forsaken place, the unquiet dead stalk the battlefields and hunger for fresh bodies to add to their ranks. You are in charge of whether your heroes survive or perish.
Your choices and tactical skills will be tested along with the ingenuity of your survivors. Low ammunition, wounds, lack of food and the bitter cold are your enemies as much as the zombies. The survival of each of your unique combat specialists depends upon your ability to conserve resources and exploit the zombies' weaknesses. You will need to choose your tactics wisely; sometimes stealth is more important than firepower.
You may fail the first try at escape but with experience and proven tactics, each attempt will bring you closer to achieving victory.
HOW TO PLAY Once you have learned the rules, all you need to play is contained within the Scenario book, character sheets and punched tokens.
The book is coil bound so it can lie flat on your table as a physical play surface. With the scenario description on the left and the corresponding map on the right, your game will take less than a minute to set up. You play directly in the book on the right-hand map.
As you open doors, new threats will be revealed. Each scenario has primary and secondary objectives. Your characters have unique specialized skills and will gain experience to advance their abilities and assure success.
Now enter the lands of the undead and prepare to fight for your life.
Winner of *Best Overall Game* and *Jury Prize* in the 2021 BGG 54-card contest. Also winner of *Best Art*, *Best Solo Game*, and *Best New Designer*!
For Northwood! Is a solo hand management and precision trick-taking game. Your objective is to peacefully unify the kingdom of Northwood through conversations with their rulers. Over eight rounds, you must visit eight animal fiefs and engage their rulers in dialogue (tricks). Each ruler's suit represents the trump for that fief. Each ruler also requires you to win an exact number of tricks to join your alliance, so the game gets harder as your options dwindle.
You start with four allies, each with an ability that you can use once per visit. These abilities can make you draw, discard, or otherwise manipulate your hand to help you hit the target score. Once you've won a ruler over, you can pull them in to substitute temporarily for one of your allies, if you need a more specific set of abilities to tackle the harder fiefs.
With three difficulty levels and 24 rulers (12 used per game), For Northwood! offers a lot of ability combinations and a new puzzle every time.
Last Light is a fast-paced 4x game with 3D planets and a rotating board in which players playing asymmetrical alien factions simultaneously gather light right before the heat death of the universe.
Each turn, players select an action card, then all players take their actions simultaneously, exploring planets, mining for resources, gaining new technologies, and commanding fleets all while racing to the center of a rotating board to the last known white dwarf star to gather light for their civilization to survive.
The first player to gather 20 light has what they need to overcome their rivals and lay claim to the last light in the universe and win!
The Table Golf Association (TGA) is the first dexterity game that allows you to design and play your own golf course.
Using 25 two-sided wooden terrain tiles, you decide the layout of the course, and make it as easy or difficult as you choose. The game comes with a Tee Box and several different "holes". You complete the course by adding tiles that include roughs, sand hazards, trees, water hazards, and a cliff, as well as the fairway tiles. The game includes four balls that are basically mini-shuffleboard pieces that you must flick from tee box to hole, while trying to avoid the hazards just like in real golf.
If you do hit into the hazards, each one carries its own unique mechanism to replicate the challenges of real golf. For example, hitting into the sand means you must hit your next shot using the thumb of your non-dominant hand. Each hazard also limits the distance you can hit your next shot.
The game also includes a weather die and spinner that must be rolled before each shot to determine the wind speed and direction. Golf pro player cards, which players can choose or deal out randomly, each have a different ability players can use once per hole.
Whoever has the lowest score after the final hole wins.
TGA can be played solo, one-on-one, in teams, or as a league.
"Our newest discovery changes everything! Our paradox engine lets us manipulate paradox particles, the fundamental building blocks of reality. Past, present, and future—none are beyond our grasp, and nobody can stand in our way! Except, that is, maybe the frauds at that rival paradox lab down the street. Quickly, to the control room. Switch off the safeties, there’s renown to be won!”
In The Paradox Initiative, players are mad scientists competing to claim strands of spacetime from worlds all across the multiverse. Who can most efficiently operate their particle-matching "Paradox Engine" to collect strands from the different worlds? Be careful! Every captured strand of spacetime sends ripples throughout existence, collapsing the wormholes that future generations will need to reap the benefits of your reckless experiments.
The Paradox Initiative takes the familiar board game elements of card drafting, set collection, and resource management, then adds a Bejewelled-like grid of discs for each player to manipulate. As a result, The Paradox Initiative is simple to learn, yet challenging to master, with players navigating three interlocking systems to grab as much spacetime as they can to be hailed the greatest scientist in the universe!
One of the many space gates left behind by the ancient aliens only known as the ‘Nameless’, recently activated. The smartest scientific minds in the galaxy have come to the conclusion that once you enter the gate, you only have a limited amount of time before it shuts down again.
You and your opponents are the chosen captains that take their spaceships through the mysterious gate and explore the riches that lay beyond. You can choose to represent the half Robot half insect Hive mind of Tognath, the cunning and ruthless Maheri tribes, the spacefaring tree hugging Sky-Lords of Edda or just be a plain old human of the United Nations Explorer Corps.
Each of you will take up missions to gain Expedition points and win the most prestige with your superiors back home. But you won’t be able to complete the missions on your own. Once through the gate, you will have to befriend the locals and assemble the best crew to overcome the dangers of this unexplored part of space.
Explore, recruit crew members, build embassies, acquire resources and go back through the gate before is closes again.
The game is played over 8 different rounds who ever brings home the most Expedition points at the end will win this space race!
Welcome to New Orleans, Louisiana, circa 1980: a vibrant city of music, food, and magic. Neon lights flicker in dirty puddles up and down Bourbon street; the innovations of the modern world clash with ancient and terrible traditions; and murder is never simple. The Beaumont Agency, staffed with a roster of brilliant, colorful, and ultimately flawed private investigators, specializes in solving cases that no one else can crack.
In The Dark Quarter, a co-operative app-driven adventure game set in a dark, fantastical vision of 1980s New Orleans, players each take control of a Beaumont agent and work alongside one another to solve the worst crimes that New Orleans has to offer. It's a world full of magic, where hexing curses are sold on every street, where voodoo priestesses and creatures of the night are lurking around every corner, and where even the most mundane crimes have a tinge of the supernatural to them.
Through multi-scenario campaigns, the game tells a rich, dynamic story and invites players to make critical decisions that will not only affect their characters, but change the direction and course of the story. The characters are not simply avatars, easily replaceable from scenario to scenario; instead, they are woven into the very fabric of the story itself. Their destiny and the destiny of New Orleans are inextricably linked together.