Author: T3d-1978

Potion Explosion

| T3d-1978
Potion Explosion

Potion Explosion

Dear students, it’s time for the final exams of the Potions class! The rules are always the same: Take an ingredient marble from the dispenser and watch the others fall. If you connect marbles of the same color, they explode and you can take them, too! Complete your potions using the marbles you collect, and drink them to unleash their magical power. Remember, though, that to win the Student of the Year award, being quick won’t be enough: you’ll also need to brew the most valuable potions in Potion Explosion!

Game Mechanics:

  • Pattern Recognition
  • Puzzle
  • Set Collection
  • Take That

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 30 – 45 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.76

Port Royal: Big Box

| T3d-1978
Port Royal: Big Box

Port Royal: Big Box

The merchant players in Port Royal, which won the Austrian Game Designers Competition under the title Händler der Karibik, are trying to earn as much as they can out of the Caribbean Sea, but if they set their goals too high, they might take home nothing for the day.

The 120-card deck depicts a coin on the back of each card — with players earning and paying coins throughout the game — and different items on the card fronts. On a turn, a player can first draw as many cards as he likes, one at a time from the deck, placing them in the harbor (an area near the deck). Each card shows one of the following:

  • Person, who stays in a face-up row next to deck.
  • Ship, which the player can attack immediately if he has enough swords on his people cards, after which the ship is discarded; otherwise, the ship stays in the harbor.
  • Expedition, which remains above the harbor until a player fulfills it by discarding people who have the items required for the expedition.
  • Tax Increase, which forces everyone with twelve or more coins to discard half their money, after which the card is discarded.

If the player draws a ship with the same name as a ship already in the harbor, he’s spent too much time dilly-dallying and his turn ends (after using the ship to attack, if possible), with all the cards in the harbor being discarded. Otherwise, the player can stop whenever he likes, then use/acquire one card if three or fewer ships are in the harbor, two cards if four ships are present, and three cards if five ships are present. Players rob ships, collecting the number of coins shown on them, then discarding the card, while they hire people, paying the number of coins depicted. After the active player takes his 1-3 cards, each other player may pay the active player one coin in order to take one card in the same way.

When one player has at least twelve influence points — which are on both people and expedition cards — the game is played to the end of the round, giving everyone the same number of turns, then the player with the most influence points wins.

Game Mechanics:

  • Economic
  • Move Through Deck
  • Open Drafting
  • Push Your Luck
  • Set Collection

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 5 Players
  • 20 – 50 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.67

Planted

| T3d-1978
Planted

Planted

In this game of nature & nurture, make your house beautiful by caring for your very own collection of houseplants! In this easy-to-learn board game, collect your favorite plants and they try to feed them every round with the right combination of light, water, and plant food.

Planted features 42 varieties of popular and exotic houseplants, each with their own requirements to grow. Discover various planting tools and decorations to help you raise beautiful, thriving plants, and score bonus points. The player, or plant parent, that ends up scoring the most points from growing their plants is declared the game’s biggest green thumb – and winner!

Some features:

  • Easy to learn mechanics for all ages strategy
  • Collect resource tokens to care for your nursery (water drop, sun chip, plant food, etc.)
  • Features 42 popular and various plant varieties for all levels of plant parents including the fiddle leaf fig, philodendron, ZZ plant, monstera, croton, and more!
  • Created by famed game designer Phil Walker-Harding

Game Mechanics:

  • Closed Drafting
  • Hand Management
  • Set Collection

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 5 Players
  • 20 – 30 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.61

Planet

| T3d-1978
Planet

Planet

The spark of life is about to jump from your hands to spread out in the world. Deploy your mountain ranges and your deserts, spread out your oceans and your glaciers. Handle wisely your continents to form environments suitable for the apparition of animal life and maybe you’ll manage to create the most densely populated planet!

In Planet, each player receives a planet core without anything on it. Each turn, players choose a tile with mountain/ice/forest/desert on it and place it on the planet. Then the player who fulfills the most conditions for the appearance of certain animals gains its card.

Game Mechanics:

  • Open Drafting
  • Puzzle
  • Tile Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 30 – 45 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.57

Phantom Ink

| T3d-1978
Phantom Ink

Phantom Ink

Renowned mediums are competing to figure out a secret object and prove they can connect with the “World Beyond”. The first team to figure out the secret object wins!

To set up Phantom Ink, divide players so that the Sun team and the Moon team each have one Spirit and up to three Mediums. The mediums on a team share a hand of seven question cards, and the spirits begin the game by choosing one of the five objects on a card as the secret object. On a turn, the mediums pass two question cards to their spirit, with sample questions like “What color is it most commonly?”, “What fictional character has it or uses it?”, and “If it were a musical instrument, what would it be?”

The spirit discards one question card face up, then returns the question card it’s going to answer to their mediums, then slowly writes the answer one letter at a time for all to see. As soon as the mediums think they know what this clue word is, they yell “Silencio”, and the spirit stops writing. The other team of mediums might see only the letter “Y”, but if you know the question is “What color is it?”, then you know the clue must be “yellow”. To end your turn, draw two new question cards.

On a turn, instead of handing over question cards, you can attempt to guess the answer — and to do so you write like the spirits, one letter at a time. If you write an incorrect letter, the spirits will stop you, marking out your error, with your partial guess giving the other team more information. If you guess the entire word correctly, you win!

Game Mechanics:

  • Deduction
  • Limited Communication
  • Party Game
  • Puzzle
  • Targeted Clues
  • Team Based
  • Word Game

Game Specifications:

  • 4 – 8 Players
  • 10 – 15 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.33

Parcheesi: Vintage Game Collection

| T3d-1978
Parcheesi: Vintage Game Collection

Parcheesi: Vintage Game Collection

Pachisi, the national game of India, dates back to 4 AD and remains popular today. Each player has a set of pawns that start in his or her corner of the board. The goal is to move the pawns around the board to the “home” section. Movement is controlled by dice. All players move around the same board, so they may capture each others pawns. Captured pawns are returned to their player’s corner and must start their journey over. The winner is the first player to move all pawns “home”.

Game Mechanics:

  • Dice Rolling
  • Racing
  • Take That
  • Team Based

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 6 Players
  • ~30 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.20

Paranormal Detectives

| T3d-1978
Paranormal Detectives

Paranormal Detectives

You open your eyes to discover the most horrible truth of a lifetime… It has just come to an end and you are a ghost, floating in the air! Terrified, you look at your own body. A group of strange individuals have gathered around your mortal remains, watching it closely with sparks of fascination in their eyes. They want to communicate with you to discover how your life ended. You need to talk to them and reveal the truth so the culprit can be judged!

Paranormal Detectives is a deduction party game. One player takes the role of a Ghost. All other players work as Paranormal Detectives and need to discover how the victim died. Using paranormal abilities they will communicate with the Ghost, asking open questions about the details of the crime. The Ghost answers in a variety of ghostly ways – by arranging a hangman’s knot, playing chosen tarot cards, creating a word puzzle on a talking board, drawing by holding the hand of a detective and many more!

Game Mechanics:

  • Acting
  • Deduction
  • Hand Management
  • Line Drawing
  • Party Game
  • Pattern Recognition

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 6 Players
  • 30 – 50 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.69

Orchard

| T3d-1978
Orchard

Orchard

Orchard is a cooperative game for two or more players aged 3 and up. Only a quick harvesting of the trees carrying crunchy cherries, juicy apples, sweet pears and marvelous plums prevents the snitching of fruits by the impudent and insatiable raven. All players work together to harvest the fruits.

Game Mechanics:

  • Cooperative
  • Dice Rolling

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 8 Players
  • ~10 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.04

One Card Wonder

| T3d-1978
One Card Wonder

One Card Wonder

In One Card Wonder, each player receives a card that shows a wonder of the ancient world and a set of support buildings. The multiple stages of the wonder must be built from the ground up, while the buildings may be built in any order. Players have four worker meeples and a personal supply of resources, and a general supply of resources also exists. The resource supply bag moves from player to player to indicate who is the active player.

On a turn, you take one of four actions. You may draw three cubes from the cloth supply bag, then add two to your personal supply, placing the other one in the general supply. You may take all resources of one type from the general supply. (You may hold only eight resources at a time in your supply, so if after drawing or taking you have more than eight resources, you must return some to the general supply.) You may build a level of the wonder or a building by paying its resource cost from your supply; your workers mark individual buildings as you build them, unlocking abilities. Finally, you may sell pairs of matching goods to the supply in exchange for coins. Coins can be used as a wild resource, but they also appear in the cost of some wonders. Resources sold or used to build are returned to the supply bag.

In games of four or more players, players may also trade. Trading occurs off-turn, that is, it can involve anyone except the active player. You may negotiate and trade freely with other players, but you must stop negotiating once you receive the supply bag and become the active player. The longer you spend on your turn, the more opportunity your opponents have to make deals.

Game Mechanics:

  • Hand Management
  • Set Collection

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 6 Players
  • 10 – 15 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.33

Nut Hunt

| T3d-1978
Nut Hunt

Nut Hunt

Nut Hunt is a fast-paced squirrel placement game where 1-5 players battle for control of the forest.

But watch out!

The wily fox roams the board scattering squirrels.

Clever players will use the fox to their advantage, positioning their critters to scatter onto favorable territories, or strategically hassling the fox to foil their opponents’ plans.

Turns in Nut Hunt are fast paced and intuitive with one mandatory action: Move the Fox (causing squirrel scattering, and nut foraging), followed by your choice of one optional action: Recruit a Squirrel, Hassle the Fox, or Scout an Objective.

Game Mechanics:

  • Dice Rolling
  • Hand Management
  • Network Building
  • Push Your Luck
  • Set Collection

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 5 Players
  • ~30 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.80