This week is HUGE! 20 projects all posted to launch in the next 7 days. All of these projects are launching over on Kickstarter or Backerkit. After a few quiet weeks, things are definitely heating up again in the board game space. My personal interest is very high this week and with projects including; The Fox Experiment, Merchant's Cove and Legacy of Yu, I will need to follow my own advice and back with my head, not my heart.
In 1958, Demitri Belyaev and Lyudmila Trut started an experiment on domestication. From a large group of foxes, they selected the ones that reacted to humans with more curiosity and less aggression. In each generation, they selected only the friendliest pups to become parents — hoping to recreate the process that originally led to domestication thousands of years ago. The experiment made stunning progress. Even though the foxes were chosen only for their friendliness, they soon started to get many of the physical traits that we associate with domesticated animals — like spots, floppy ears, and curly tails. As communication opened up, the foxes made major contributions to our understanding of how these traits are expressed. The experiment continues to this day.
In The Fox Experiment, you’ll breed your own domesticated foxes. In each round you'll select a pair of fox parents who have certain traits. You'll gain those specific trait dice, roll them, then try to move them around to make complete trait symbols which you'll then mark off on your pup card. You'll then gain trait tokens depending on how many traits you marked off which you'll use to upgrade tracks on your personal player board.
At the end of the round, the previous generation of foxes will be cleared and all of the new pups will be moved to the kennel — thus becoming candidates to be chosen as parents in the next round. The game ends after 5 rounds and you'll gain points for pleasing patrons (end of game scoring bonuses), studies completed (personal player objectives), if you ever won the friendliest fox award, upgrades on your personal player board, and extra tokens. The player with the most points wins!
Proxy War immerses players in the conflicts of the modern era where angry citizens take up arms against an oppressive government while lurking foreign powers try to beat their rivals through exploiting war for profit. Proxy War is the ultimate 2-8 player game of cooperation and competition where players become dictators, rebels, and greedy foreign powers.
Rebels & the Government are in a bloody struggle to seize land & secure Resources for the war. Resources are funneled out to the global market through ambitious Foreign Powers, eager to outdo their rivals. And Military Equipment is funneled in for a quick profit or to shore up an ally’s success on the battlefield.
Every 2-3 player match has 1 winner. Every 4-8 player match has 2 winners. Different players have different Victory Objectives. Government and Rebel players are trying to eliminate each other and be the last player on the board. Foreign Powers are competing with one another to be the first to gain 10 Victory Points. The game ends when a player meets their Victory Objective, OR if 10 turns have progressed without anyone winning outright.
Proxy War is made up of 10 turns, with each turn having 3 phases: Collection, Negotiation, Action. During the Collection phase, Government and Rebel players collect Resources cards from the tiles they control. In the Negotiation phase, players trade Resources and Equipment, discuss building Factories together, and coordinating their actions for the Action phase. During the Action Phase, players will have a menu of actions but they can only choose three actions per Action phase (Build, Move, Support, Bombard).
Explosion in the Laboratory is a push-your-luck 18 card game where you mix chemicals to create valuable compounds and try not to cause a major explosion!
In Explosion in the Laboratory, you are all chemists mixing compounds in an experimental laboratory. Caution! Being careless could cause disaster. A fire would be unfortunate, as there is a library not too far away...
This is an 18 card game set in the Fire in the Library universe that has the same press your luck and strategy from the base game, but in a small portable science-y version!
During the game players will take turns trying to score points by following a set order of phases: Planning, Mixing Compounds, Scoring Beakers, and triggering Unstable Mixtures.
The planning phase allows players to play 1 time use special ability cards (process cards) that can effect scoring for your turn. Mixing compounds has players laying out chemical cards from the deck to find out what chemicals they must mix based on the fire level in the laboratory (the higher the fire level grows the more volatile the mixtures become). The chemicals mixed can be placed in your available flasks for the turn and the process is repeated until you decide to stop to score or an explosion is triggered by an unstable mixture with certain combos of chemicals in your flasks. The more chemicals you can safely mix the more points you are able to score, but your luck may run short when the wrong chemicals get mixed causing an explosion (and ending your turn without scoring).
Beaker cards sitting in the middle of the table act as a game timer and indicate the fire level and scoring potential of mixtures. As players score beakers and at the end of each round beaker cards rotate changing the point values of the chemicals you've mixed while also moving it closer to the end of the game as once a beaker reaches it's boiling point it will bring an explosive and abrupt end to the game. Whichever player earned the most points throughout the game wins.
The Cultists of Cathulhu have gathered: their Great Eldritch Ritual nears its end. There is just one thing left: choose one of them to Ascend and finish the ritual. It’s a simple choice, really. They are all the same — any of them will do! There is just one problem: some Investigators have infiltrated the ritual, pretending to be Cultists. And choosing any of them would ruin it all!
Cult of Cathulhu is a fast-paced hidden role game for 4-11 players. Engage as a Cultist, trying to find trustworthy brethren with your unique skills and solve the lie-filled riddle -- or as an Investigator, trying to sneak you or your comrades in to halt the Cultists’ world-ending plans. Each player has two hidden cards: their alignment (Cultist or Investigator), and a separate skill card. Investigators are in the minority but know each other, while Cultists have to use their otherworldly skills in a search for just one Cultist they all can trust.
The game consists of three phases: Mission briefing, Council, and Voting. Mission briefing lets the Investigators know each other, as well as other Investigators' skills. In Council, players can freely discuss and use their skills. Most skills either give information, e.g., by seeing others' cards, or help other players use their more powerful skills. Investigators can use their skills just like Cultists to fool them, with an extra advantage: they can use skills from any card, not just their own. Skill cards are always discarded after use, face-down. The Council is timed; after the time runs out, Voting begins.
In Voting, all players simultaneously vote for another player. All players with the most votes are chosen to Ascend, and the game ends. If all chosen were Cultists, the ritual succeeds and all Cultists win; if any of them was an Investigator, the Investigators win, instead.
Quodd Heroes is a fast-paced modular, scenario-based adventure board game that plays like a combination of Super Smash Bros., Mario Kart and Legend of Zelda all wrapped into one. Whether it’s a simple point-to-point rally-style race, capture the flag or a quest to uncover hidden secrets each game is filled with unexpected events, lots of player interaction, ever-changing boards and a dash of mayhem.
The core mechanism in Quodd Heroes is something you’ve never seen before. Each player controls a different cube-shaped character miniature and player board. You then assign a different movement skill to five of the six sides of your character (the sixth side has an ability unique to your character). When you begin the movement phase on your turn you “tumble” your character into an adjacent space and perform the movement skill associated with the face-up side of your character. Skills include: Tumble, Jump, Slide, Diagonal Slide, and Dash.
While you work to complete the scenario’s objective(s), either on your own, cooperatively, or against other players, game boards which are laid out in grids present obstacles like walls, raging rivers, chasms, moving platforms, rotating board sections, trap doors, tunnels, teleporters and more. As you navigate the world you create new obstacles and shortcuts while battling your opponents by pushing them into pits, blocking their paths and fouling their plans.
As you explore the world you will find food, runes, items and pets in the form of cards. These cards enhance your abilities, slow your opponents and modify the world around you. If you use your movement skills and cards strategically you'll emerge as the greatest of the Quodd Heroes.
Player Turn Structure:
1. Play cards (power up): Play as many cards as you like from your hand. Power up and alter the board prior to movement.
2. Movement Phase: Perform your natural tumble by turning your hero miniature over into an adjacent space, activate any board elements on that space, then activate the movement skill associated with the side of your character that is now facing up. Move up to your maximum distance with that skill in any direction you like.
3. Play card (recover phase): You many play any additional cards you like during this phase.
4. Exploration phase: draw cards from the lineup of cards or the top of the deck equal to your exploration value
At the end of each round an upkeep phase includes:
- moving board elements and animals - play a world event card that effects all players - Adjust round tracker (in timed scenarios) - all heroes upgrade their hero by selecting an upgrade tile and placing it in their upgrade track. - First player mark passes to the left
10,000 windows, 2,000 doors, and 40 staircases. Truly, the Winchester Mystery House is a marvel of Victorian architecture, and now you too can contribute to Sarah’s evolving Floor Plan!
It is said that Sarah Winchester perpetually added to the house to confuse the ghosts, and now 100 years later, you can continue her legacy. In Floor Plan Winchester Mystery House, you will be challenged to build on 2 different stories and fulfill 6 different building requirements per game in this Roll-N-Write for 1-6 players!
Floor Plan: The Winchester Mystery House is based on the hit game Floor Plan from Deep Water Games and is an officially licensed product.
Gameplay description: Once per turn, players roll two dice in the center of the table and all players use the roll to either draw a new room into their house or draw features in rooms they’ve already drawn.
Every game of Floor Plan: The Winchester Mystery House uses 3 of the 15 scoring cards - all based on real design and architectural elements of the house.
If your design matches a scoring goal, you add the listed points on your sheet. The game ends when a player has completed 5 goals, then the player with the most points wins. Earn extra points at the end of the game from Spirit bonuses and the upper and lower floor layout goals.
The Mediterranean Sea in ancient times. Images of magnificent coasts to be explored and legendary civilizations that rose to power come to mind.
The game series History of the Ancient Seas is the ultimate journey through these exciting times. Build new fleets in your city to explore unknown lands, conquer islands and build a great empire.
In HELLAS, the first instalment in the History of the Ancient Seas game series, you will lead one of the great City States - Athens or Sparta.
Your goal is to become the leading empire in known world. To achieve this, you will need to build armies and fleets to increase your military might, expand trade routes, conquer islands and provinces, develop your military skills, economic efficiency and culture, while always keeping an eye on the wealth, happiness and stability of your people. The game is played in highly interactive micro-impulses. The heart of the game system is the action cycle: The players choose one of the eight possible actions. Actions chosen by a player can’t be chosen subsequently by the next player. The number of possible actions is limited each turn.
War or peace: That is your decision! You can expand your empire by leading your people to war! But war is costly and the outcome is uncertain. You can lead your empire to the golden age of civilization by keeping the peace and bringing stability and wealth to your people without following the path of war. Offer terms to aggressive enemies to distract or delay them, but always be prepared to defend your empire.
You will move your 3D wooden playing pieces (representing fleets and legions) across the beautifully illustrated map from the center of the Hellenistic world to the shores of Persia in the east and the sandy beaches of Sicily in the west to expand your trade network and increase your trading status.
Tales of War is a competitive tactical board game for two players, which places you in the roles of army generals in the conflict for the Cross of Eternity, an ancient artefact holding the key to immortality!
The game board represents an open book filled with ever-changing terrain and mighty heroes leading their armies of medieval troops and fantasy creatures into battle. Each time you play the game, you write a new tale. It is your very own tale of war!
Key gameplay features:
- Skill-based combat. Players take turns activating one unit at a time and either move it to another position or attack an opponent´s unit. Tales of War doesn’t use dice, nor cards to resolve combat. Instead defeating enemy units is as simple as either moving your melee unit onto a square occupied by them or positioning your ranged units in the line of fire and range.
Each unit has different equipment, which defines its special rules. For example, units equipped with spears will automatically repel a direct cavalry charge and archers cannot make a frontal assault on units armed with shields. A player can still use the cavalry to outmanoeuvre a unit equipped with spears and devastate it with a flank or rear charge, just as archers may trap a shielded enemy by attacking at an angle.
There are 21 unit types and each has unique abilities, strengths and weaknesses. As the campaign progresses, your initially small force expands to include units, such as Elves, Dwarves, Fire and Ice Sorceresses, Giants, Hydras, Fire Elementals or even Vampires!
- RPG-like sense of progression and a constant arms race. Both armies evolve from one battle to the next, and your heroes learn new skills making them more dangerous on the battlefield;
- Replay ability. Tales of War offers new, unique challenges and strategic/tactical possibilities each time you play. Each battle has its own victory conditions and is played on unique terrain. You will face a different, custom-built army each battle, just as your own army will have been re-equipped and re-organised.
- Fast setup and quick turns. Tales of War takes under 5 minutes to set up and tear down. Watching your opponents moves is as exciting as making your own as it always has an impact on the situation on the board;
- Ease of saving campaign progress. Simply put your units and their cards into your army box and that's it. You can pick up where you left off in the next session.
On the 9th of November, 1918, the cold autumn air in Berlin is full of tension. The workers are planning to strike and since the city is full of troops, they do not know if they will survive that day. Three hours later, the German monarchy does not exist anymore, and the first German democracy is born.
Weimar: The Fight for Democracy is a game about the major actors in the spectrum of the new Republic. The Social Democrats and the Conservatives are trying to defend the democracy. Communists and Nationalists are looking to overthrow the government and install their own regime. Will this infant Republic survive? Or will Germany — as in history — fall to the Nazis and become a lawless state? Or will there be a Union of Socialist German Republics?
Weimar includes two major "battlefields": In public opinion, the parties struggle to influence the important political issues like the economy, the media, or foreign affairs. Winning these issues scores points and allows them to take significant decisions. At the same time, the parties try to control the streets and position their followers in the major cities of Germany for demonstrations, street fights, and actions taken by the paramilitary organizations.
Weimar is a tense and exciting card-driven game (CDG) on a most interesting topic. Cards may be played for the event, for public opinion, or for actions in the street.
In each of the six game turns, the parties play one agenda that defines their strategy for the turn (e.g., modifying their twelve-card play deck, defining issues, getting advantages in the streets). The goals of the parties are asymmetrical and contradictory. While the democratic parties score for stabilizing the state and removing poverty, the non-democratic parties score for coups and unrest.
Rivet Wars: Reloaded is a Diesel punk inspired, tactical miniatures board game created by Ted Terranova.
Each player takes on the role of the commander of a Rivet army, representing one of the opposing Blight and Allied factions, and battle it out in the world of Rivet. This alternate history is set loosely around the First World War and is populated by walking mechs, unicycled vehicles, and other mad pieces of anachronistic technology.
Strategic decision making is key to success and players have a choice of new options each turn so they can adjust their play and tactics by reacting to what is unfolding during the game. Players can spend deployment points on any units and heroes they have available, so picking the right units at the right time is absolutely crucial.
Players score victory points by taking control of strategic objectives with their units, with each scenario demonstrating how many points are required to win.
The premise is simple but there is a lot of tactical nuance involved. Players are not stuck to a single strategy and can switch up tactics mid-game by playing game-changing action cards.
It’s an incredibly fun, fast and frantic experience!
During the reign of Emperor Yao, the people of ancient China were constantly plagued by deadly floods along the Yellow River. Eager to put an end to the devastation, Yao selected Gun, one of his officials, to devise a plan. After nine years of failed attempts using dams and dikes, Gun's employment came to a questionable end. After his passing, Yu inherited his father's work. Learning from Gun's failures, Yu set out to construct a series of canals to direct the surging river into nearby fields and smaller waterways.
Legacy of Yu is a solo-only, fully-resettable, nonlinear campaign game in which you step into the role of the legendary hero of the Xia Dynasty, Yu the Great. It will be your job to build the canals ahead of the impending flood, while also defending your growing village against neighbouring barbarian tribes. With each game, stories will be shared and new gameplay elements added. The campaign features a self-balancing system which adapts to how well you are doing. The campaign ends once you either win or lose seven games.
Welcome back ashore! Merchants Cove: Master Craft is a big-box expansion for the critically acclaimed Merchants Cove.
Contained in this treasure trove of content is a new expansion (The Faction Festival), new modular content (new Rogues, Townsfolk), as well as four new expert Merchants.
In addition to the new Merchants, the Faction Festival also expands the game in a substantial way. A new board is connected to the bottom of the main board adding tracks for each of the Factions, and brand new mechanisms for each Faction to use. The Wizards will enchant your goods to make them worth more - while the Rogues will help you frame the other players, letting you get rid of corruption by pinning it on your opponents.
That’s not all! Enjoy a new Faction Hall (The Paladins), new Adventurers (Paladins), new Townsfolk, Rogues, and more.
Kingmaker simulates the Wars of the Roses, the period of sporadic Civil War in England between 1450 and 1490. Ruled by a weak and mentally unstable king, Henry VI, demoralized by the defeat in France at the end of the Hundred Years War, and encouraged by the ambitions of Richard, Duke of York, and his sons; the country's Noble families used their large private armies in attempts to gain control of the government.
The game is based on the premise that the powerful Noble families used the Lancastrian and Yorkist princes as pawns in a greater game of gaining control of England. Players control factions using their military and political power to control and influence the royal heirs, supporting the heir in their control as king while trying to take down all of the other heirs.
For untold eons, the mortal races lived in separate planes, unaware of other worlds beyond their own. But now the dragon god Azema forges a new world by opening rifts to other planes…
Dawn of Ulos is an economic tile-laying game for 1-5 players set in the world of Roll Player and Cartographers. You compete in a game among gods of the planarverse, wagering on and manipulating the rise and fall of mortals.
Control the fate of Ulos! Develop a new world, invest in your favourite factions, and pit armies against each other. Choose wisely when to exert your influence. As factions rise and fall, will you earn the most favour with the world creator?
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/magicalfriends/magical-friends-and-how-to-summon-them-relaunch?
In Magical Friends and how to summon them you'll be one of 5 powerful wizards who will try to win the Midsummer contest by bringing the most friends to the tavern after 8 rounds.
Since your colleagues, the other wizards, are your biggest competitors, you'll have to cheat your way through the competition by using magical powers to sneak in some extra friends, which the others will do. In each round, you'll choose one of the available summon cards and summon a magical creature that will pretend to be your friend.
To decide who will go first in each round, you will offer powerful artefacts to determine the turn order. Higher value artefacts will let you play and also pick a summoning card before your opponents, while lower value artefacts will provide additional options during your turn.
When you choose a summon card, you can place the corresponding creature standee on the board. It also tells you how many and how far your creatures can move this turn. Each of the 50 unique creatures has its own ability and interacts differently with the other creatures. Very quickly, the board will be filled with creatures and it will be difficult to guide your friends through the different paths to the tavern.
These paths are double-sided and can be combined in many different ways. But be aware, more dangerous than the paths are the creatures of your opponents. Don't worry, if one of your friends gets slain or poisoned in all the chaos, nothing will happen to you. For every friend you lose, you'll get pity power to speed up one of your other buddies. So stay in the lead or win the game from behind, both are possible.
It’s a hot summer and you see a new family just moved in across the street and you know what that means, boxes! You round up your friends and a giant bag of water balloons. You quickly split into teams, start stacking boxes, and fill your water balloons because everyone knows its time to Fortify!
Use the variety of boxes (Cards) to create a closed wall around your Base. The larger you make it the more friends can fit inside. The more friends you have the faster you can build or the more water balloons (Dice) you can toss at your opponent’s fort. Roll well and land your water balloons on boxes, rival friends, and ultimately their base to claim the day and the pride of the neighbourhood!
USC Reach is a competitive turn-based space journey game for 2 to 4 players, where you discover the marvels of the universe, rescue rookie space travelers, scavenge resources, and improve your Crew and ship, by using deck building, hand management, and variable phase order mechanics.
Your goal is to secure a safe landing on the new planet and collect the most points to win the game. To do that, gather your crew and allocate them strategically to your ship departments to overcome the challenges of space before others while keeping an eye on your landing requirements.
This game is set in Atlas Lost, a world ruined by AI warfare. Players try to unearth lost technology and take control of a new world. Where will you go, what will you focus on, and what kind of world will you aim for?
Atlas Lost: Rise of the New Sovereigns is a tech-tree, resource management, and civilization game that can be played by 2-4 players. In the game set-up, you play a combination of three of the five available techs. Each of these techs employs different board game mechanisms. You must use cards, collect resources, and employ unearthed tech to build up your own troops and gather fame faster than the players around you. Whoever first scores 30 points wins.
Far from the galactic core, Thyrria and its moons have been strip-mined and left for dead. Abandoned workers huddle together in makeshift settlements, struggling to survive in a world of scarce resources and lawlessness. Native nomads and bizarre creatures resurface to take back the wasteland. Factions and adventurers rise and fall, but only the greatest will be remembered in legend.
Forsaken is an immersive sandbox adventure game where you take the role of a character looking to leave their mark in the harshest of worlds. Every character has a personalized branching story, with every path uniquely-tailored to the choices you make along the way. How will you change the face of Thyrria, and how will Thyrria change you?
Your goal is to secure your place as a legend in any way you can, but there are many ways to become a legend. Navigating through personal and public story objectives, doing odd jobs, hunting down bounties, fulfilling prophecies, and even gambling at the Cantina can all advance your legend tracker. Finding the right opportunities to upgrade your gear, weapons, and skills can help you along the way. Once a player reaches the end of the track, the player with the greatest legend wins.
At the end of your turn, you may trigger an event or encounter, which allows you an opportunity to permanently change the game and the emergent story based on the decisions you make. These changes can determine your character’s motives and goals personally, or guide the shared stories to impact the world itself. The more you change about the world, the bigger the mark you make and the greater your legend will be.
Rise & Fall is a full control strategic game. Each player controls a civilization trying to expand and progress in a fantasy world. This world displays a unique landscape where glaciers live on islands and huge cliffs are common barriers and challenges to overcome.
In this gorgeous land each player starts with a small tribe including a village, a citizen and a ship and will grow to a full civilization with more of the pre-mentioned units but also temples, merchants and the precious highlanders, the only ones able to pass those astonishing cliffs.
Rise & Fall is a very immersive and addictive game, easy to understand, with no luck or randomness involved. The initial creation of the world by itself is a real pleasure and each game brings a different map to the table.
The new players will enjoy the game for its “easy access” aspect. Since all the actions you can do are displayed on the six cards of a player’s deck, this makes the game really accessible right from the start.
The more exigent strategist players will love the game for its full control aspect and the fact that the learning curve seems to be a constant line of progression.