Author: T3d-1978

Biblios: Quill and Parchment

| T3d-1978

A “roll and write” version of the popular Biblios.

The life of a monastic scribe is not easy. Every day you spend long hours in the monastery copying books, praying, and performing tasks. Through hard work and prayer, earn the abbot’s trust and display your dedication to the pious life.

The object of the game is to score the most piety points. The game consists of 8 days (i.e., rounds). In the first 4 days, players simultaneously roll their own dice (that show various book types, abbot influence and travel points) and may do so up to 3 times. After each roll, the players have 3 options: (1) to keep the dice as shown, (2) to reroll exactly one die or (3) to roll all the dice.

Most of the dice are resource dice showing books monks are copying, but there are also abbot influence dice (abbot influences is accrued in the first half, but spent in the second half of the game), and a travel die (allowing a player’s novice to go out into towns to do good works and find more books).

In the last 4 rounds, players use their abbot influence to bid for a priority of tasks.

This is a rare (if not unique) “roll + write” game that includes auctions and, unlike many roll + write game; it is highly interactive.

After 8 days, the game ends and the players calculate scores. As in the original Biblios, the relative value of books changes during the game, so players are unsure of which books will be most valuable until the end of the game.

Game Mechanics:

  • Action Drafting
  • Push Your Luck
  • Set Collection

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • ~40 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.08

Beyond the Horizon

| T3d-1978

Beyond the Horizon is a civilization game in which players compete to become the most influential society in history through exploration and expansion, development and production, research and technological advancement.

The game is played over a variable number of rounds until enough goals have been achieved to signal the end of the game. Along the way, players will earn points for exploring new lands, settling and building new cities, advancing technologically, and increasing their cultural and economic development. The player with the most points at the end of the game wins.

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Majority / Influence
  • Tile Placement
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 90 – 120 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.42

AQUA: Biodiversity in the Ocean

| T3d-1978

In AQUA, your starting point is a hot spot that gradually becomes surrounded by expanding coral formations. These corals serve as habitats for small marine animals. By fostering biodiverse habitats, you can then create ideal conditions for attracting the largest marine animals.

AQUA plays over 17 rounds. On your turn, you must take a new coral tile from the market and add it to your reef, then you may also attract animals to your ecosystem if you create the correct patterns of coral.

At the end of the game, the player who grew the best coral formations and attracted the most large and small sea animals will score the most points and win.

AQUA invites you to dive into the beauty and wonder of the ocean, delivering an incredible variety of gameplay experiences for the whole family.

Game Mechanics:

  • Open Drafting
  • Pattern Building
  • Tile Placement
  • Variable Set-up

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 30 – 45 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.08

Beer & Bread

| T3d-1978

Beer & Bread is a multi-use card game for two players. Its clever structure of alternating rounds puts a fascinating twist on player interaction, card drafting, and resource management.

Founded on the fruitful lands of an erstwhile monastery, two villages have held up the dual tradition of brewing beer and baking bread. While sharing fields and resources, they still find pride in their friendly rivalry of besting each other’s produce.

Each of you represents one of these villages. Over the course of six years – which alternate between fruitful and dry – you must harmonize your duties of harvesting and storing resources, producing beer and bread, selling them for coins and upgrading your facilities.

However, in order to win, you must maintain the balance between your baked and liquid goods. Because, after the sixth year, you only score the coins collected from the type of good – beer or bread – for which you earned less. The village with the higher score wins.

Game Mechanics:

  •  Closed Drafting

Game Specifications:

  • 2 Players
  • 30-45 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.32

Bears and the Bees, The

| T3d-1978

Come join the Hive! Compete to link honeycomb shaped cards to the growing hive. The more sides you match, the greater the payoff. Special cards help earn extra plays and deliver stings to your rivals. Just be careful to avoid those pesky honey-grubbin’ bears!

Game Mechanics:

  • Hand Management
  • Pattern Building
  • Take That
  • Tile Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 5 Players
  • ~30 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.27

Beacon Patrol

| T3d-1978

You are captains of the Coast Guard. Together you check beacon buoys and lighthouses to ensure the safety of the North Sea coast.

You place your tiles next to tiles that are already placed, move your ships, and explore the sea.

Your goal is to explore as many tiles as possible. A tile is considered explored when it’s connected to other tiles on all four of its sides.

Beacon Patrol is a co-op tile-laying exploration game in which you navigate the coast of the North Sea to secure its beacon buoys, lighthouses and waterways.

Game Mechanics:

  • Cooperative Game
  • Grid Movement
  • Modular Board
  • Tile Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • ~30 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.35

Battletech: Beginner Box

| T3d-1978

In this introduction to the BattleTech game and universe, players each take control of one giant walking war machine (a BattleMech, aka ‘Mech) and battle until one is destroyed or until the scenario objectives being played are completed.

BattleTech is the world’s greatest armored combat game, filled with a myriad of epic stories and gaming experiences to satiate any player: miniatures to RPG play, hobby painting to fiction, and beyond. The BattleTech Beginner Box is the first step on that fantastic journey and includes everything you need to get started: two high-quality miniatures, quick-start rules, a mapsheet, cards to represent your MechWarrior’s unique skills, dice, and more.

Game Mechanics:

  • Dice Rolling
  • Miniatures
  • Paper-and-Pencil
  • Player Elimination
  • Variable Player Powers
  • Wargame

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 2 Players
  • ~120 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.43

Atlantis Exodus

| T3d-1978

The legendary Atlantis is shrouded in so many stories and myths, an island realm that was reputed to have completely drowned in only one night.

Atlantis Exodus presents the player kings with the challenge of rescuing as many citizens as possible before the impending downfall and, by doing so, saving the knowledge they have acquired for a different world and time.

Thanks to an innovative rotation mechanism, 1-4 kings have to face constantly changing conditions and keep adjusting their own strategy to the different action possibilities in order to ultimately become the savior of the achievements of their time.

Game Mechanics:

  • End Game Bonuses,
  • Once-Per-Game Abilities
  • Tile Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • ~90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.24

Battle of the Boy Bands

| T3d-1978

In Battle of the Boy Bands, 3 to 5 players take on the roles of producers in the pop music industry and must build boy bands to compete in special events. The player with the most points at the end of six rounds wins.

During each round, players try to win the event in play by building the boy band that will earn the most points according to the special event rules. Equipping perk cards from the “Breaking News” deck to boys can give them extra points. Players can sabotage each others’ boy bands by playing attack cards from the “Breaking News” deck against them, but watch out! Players can also protect their precious boys with defend cards!

Game Mechanics:

  • Closed Drafting
  • Take That

Game Specifications:

  • 3 – 5 Players
  • ~30 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.50

Battle Line: Medieval

| T3d-1978

This new re-themed version of Battle Line is a two-player strategy card game built around the theme of Medieval warfare. This re-themed version of Battle Line features 60 beautiful new cards by illustrator Roland MacDonald, as well as 10 full-color tactics “wildcards” that give players extra flexibility and choices and help make each new battle wildly different from the last.

Battle Line takes about 30 minutes to play. To win, you must create powerful formations along your side of the line of battle that are superior to those of your enemy. Victory goes to the player who wins 5 of the 9 battle flags (an envelopment) or three adjacent flags (a breakthrough). Based on Reiner Knizia’s original design published in Germany as Shotten-Totten, Battle Line enhances and expands that game system to give players even more tactical options and gut-wrenching decisions.

Battle Line places you in command of your army’s strategies. How will you muster your formations? Will you use your powerful KingsGuard to vanquish your enemy, or perhaps send the King of England or France to the front to win a critical flag? Or perhaps you”ll rely on your spies to determine the enemy”s strengths and weaknesses before committing your best forces. You’ll always have plenty of choices. With every card play, you’ll determine the strength and direction of your attack while plotting to fend off your enemy’s advances.

In Battle Line, you and your opponent lead the combined arms of the greatest units of the era. Will you, like the great Kings of yore, reign supreme? Play Battle Line, and find out.

Game Mechanics:

  • Card Play Conflict Resolution
  • Hand Management
  • Melding and Splaying

Game Specifications:

  • 2 Players
  • ~30 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.85