Author: OTSG Staff

Guillotine

| OTSG Staff

The French Revolution is famous in part for the use of the guillotine to put nobles to death, and this is the macabre subject of this light card game. As executioners pandering to the masses, the players are trying to behead the most popular nobles. Each day the nobles are lined up and players take turns killing the ones at the front of the line until all the nobles are gone. However, players are given cards which will manipulate the line order right before ‘harvesting’ heads, which is what makes the game interesting. After three days of chopping, the highest total carries the day.

Game Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

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

Guildhall Fantasy: Box of Holding

| OTSG Staff

Guildhall Fantasy: Box of Holding contains 4 Guildhall Fantasy games all in one spot! Feel free to mix and match the different sets for new experiences each time you play!

Guildhall Fantasy: Fellowship

Do you have a thirst for adventure? Is your middle name danger? Do you just like treasure? Form a party of adventurers to help you be victorious! The more members of each class you have, the greater the bonus they’ll give you – but be careful; your opponents might try to poach your party members!

In Guildhall Fantasy: Fellowship, 2-4 players compete to create the perfect party by recruiting adventurers into their guildhall chapters. Collect sets of cards with unique abilities to control the table, and complete a full chapter to claim victory cards. Will you go for points quickly, or build up your special powers? Which will lead to ultimate victory? Only you and the gamemaster know!

Guildhall Fantasy: Alliance

In Guildhall Fantasy: Alliance, each profession grants you special abilities, and these abilities grow stronger the more of that profession that you collect. When you cash in that profession set for victory points, however, you lose the ability until you can build it up again.

Guildhall Fantasy: Coalition

In Guildhall Fantasy: Coalition, each profession grants you special abilities, and these abilities grow stronger the more of that profession that you collect. When you cash in that profession set for victory points, however, you lose the ability until you can build it up again.

Advanced Guildhall Fantasy: The Gathering

There can be only… Wait! There is another!

Guildhall Fantasy: The Gathering is a standalone game in the Guildhall series, featuring six never before seen professions. Additionally, this set contains two mini expansions: “The Chapter Masters” and “The Master Houses”.

Game Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 30 – 45 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.00

Guild of Merchant Explorers, the

| OTSG Staff

In The Guild of Merchant Explorers, each player starts with one city on their personal map board.

Shuffle the deck of terrain cards, then reveal most of these cards one by one. Based on the terrain revealed, each player places on their board cubes that are connected to their starting city or other cubes. You want to complete areas on your board, cross the seas to new land, and establish new cities on the board. You can explore capsized ships for treasure — which gives you special placement capabilities — and create linked connections between locations to score bonus points. Common objectives can be completed by all players, with those who complete it first scoring more points.

At the end of a round, all cubes are removed from each board, leaving only the cities behind, so if you don’t establish new cities, you’ll be stuck in the same places.

The Guild of Merchant Explorers contains multiple copies of four different maps, and the game is designed so that you can play remotely with one or more copies.

Game Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 45 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.05

Guild Academies of Valeria

| OTSG Staff

You and your fellow Headmasters are trying to build out your academies, recruit the best students, hire talented guildmasters, and influence important council ministers. Only select graduates can be tasked to fulfill quests ordered by the King, while the so-so graduates are sent to the capital city to make their own way.

GAOV uses action selection, dice drafting and dice manipulation (Students), tile drafting, resource management and engine building (Academies), contract fulfillment (Quests), and a unique system where players choose which game aspects they want to score (Council Ministers) to bring a new aspect of the Valeria Universe to life.

—description from the publisher

Game Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 90 – 120 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.94

GUBS: A Game of Wit and Luck

| OTSG Staff

GUBS: A Game of Wit and Luck invites you to partake in the secret struggle of the Gubs. Each player competes to build the largest, strongest colony by the time the three dreaded Letter Cards emerge from the deck and end the game. Their world is a place filled with danger; from giant Omen Beetles who consume the delicate Gub Cities to Flash Floods to deadly Wasps, your gubs hardly stand a chance on their own… but arm them with Spears, let ride the valiant Toad Riders, build Mushroom Barricades and lead your colony through the forest underbrush and to victory.

Wit and Luck. You’ll need them both. The gubs are counting on you.

Game Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 6 Players
  • 20 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.36

Grizzled, the

| OTSG Staff

The Grizzled is a cooperative game about survival in the trenches during the first World War where players win or lose together.

Each round, the current team leader will choose how many cards every player draws. Then, going around the table, players must either play a card in their hand or back out of the mission. Each card represents either threats to the team (such as mortar shells and weather conditions) or negative personality traits (such as frightened or obsessive). At the end of the round, more cards are added to the draw deck. The game ends only if the players can deplete the draw deck as well as their hands without letting time run out.

If one threat shows up too many times, the team fails the mission. The team must play their threats correctly in order to gain any progress. However, most of the information in a players hand remains secret throughout the game.

Planning, teamwork, and a little luck are the tools you’ll need to win this cooperative game for two to five players.

Game Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 5 Players
  • 30 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.97

Grimm Forest, the

| OTSG Staff

Welcome to The Grimm Forest, where family members of the legendary Three Little Pigs are having an epic house building competition. But this is no ordinary competition as all the most famous Fairy Tale characters will be looking on and occasionally lending a hand.

Who will benefit most from the cunning of Robin Hood, the beauty of Snow White, the bountiful gifts of the Golden Goose or the dark witchcraft of the Evil Queen?

Using only their wits, a handful of sharp steel tools, and a few stacks of resources gathered at great risk from fields, brickyards, and even the dark and deadly Grimm Forest itself, each player must compete to be the first to build 3 Houses and gain the title of Royal Builder.

Players are encouraged to use any of the devious tricks they have read about in the many books of Fables found throughout the land. Some will have their plans wrecked by that villain of old, the Big Bad Wolf, while others will gain bricks, straw, and wood by the cart load.

Who will brave the dangers, avoid foul monsters, and bring home the victory? There is only one way to find out… get ready to venture into …The Grimm Forest!

Grimm Forest is a 2-4 player strategic game of Hidden Movement, Resource Gathering, and House Building. It is a medium weight game that plays in approximately 45-60 minutes.

During the game, players will play cards secretly to move to various Location boards where they attempt to gather resources. Using their deduction skills and a hand full of Fable cards, players attempt to guess each other’s plans and make the most of their actions while disrupting the other player’s plans.

After resources are collected during the Gather Phase, players will enter a Building Phase where they can use those resources to build Wood, Straw, or Brick Houses. Whenever a player builds a Wall Section on one of their houses, a helpful Friend from the nearby forest comes to lend a hand. Players may choose to accept the help of that Friend, but occasionally it makes more sense to send that Friend to a different player, sometimes discarding their current Friend in the process.

With 16 unique Fable cards and 12 powerful Friend cards, gathering resources in the Grimm Forest can be a difficult and challenging endeavor.

Work hard, deduce correctly, avoid the treachery of the other builders and the sharp teeth of the lurking monsters, and you just might have a chance!

Game Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 45 – 60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.93

Grifters: Nexus

| OTSG Staff

Grifters operate on the fringes of The Dystopian Universe, eager to take advantage of every opportunity to profit from the chaos caused by the resistance. Players take on the role of powerful crime bosses, building their criminal organizations by carefully recruiting new operatives with specialized skills. During the game, the players’ criminal teams will steal ISK from the government, powerful corporations, and each other via cons, blackmail, daring heists, and a multitude of other nefarious deeds. As always, money is power in The Dystopian Universe and the player with the most ISK at the end of the game is the winner.

Grifters: Nexus is a standalone game that is also an expansion for Grifters, which was released by Indie Boards and Cards in 2016. Nexus uses the same core “cool down” mechanisms found in Grifters, and introduces 15 new specialist cards, new mechanisms and a new job card system.

Game Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 30 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.00

Grifters

| OTSG Staff

Grifters is a hand-building game that has all the fun of deck-building games, without the deck. Set in the Dystopian Universe, players take on the role of powerful crime bosses, building their criminal organizations by carefully recruiting new operatives with specialized skills and directing their team’s nefarious deeds. All of your specialists are either in play or in your hand, ready to be used as you command. This unique hand-building mechanism gives you total control of your strategy.

Grifters is all about stealing as much money as you can from the corrupt government, malicious corporations, and your rival players. Each player starts the game with a hand of six Specialist cards, each with unique abilities. Your objective is to use this team of six Specialists to recruit more criminals, complete jobs, steal from the government coffers and swindle your opponents.

Each specialist has a special ability and skill. On your turn you can play a single specialist to perform their ability, or you can play a team of specialists to use their combined skills to complete a job. This means every specialist is a valuable asset to your criminal enterprise, earning immediate benefit through abilities and valuable end-game bonuses by completing jobs against the same target. And because all the cards in your deck are always available, you decide how to maximize your play.

Grifters uses a unique card “cooldown” system to control the use of your cards. On your turn, you play one or more specialist cards into the first “Night” of your hideout. If you already have a specialist card, or a team of specialist cards, in night one those cards advance to night two and push other cards through your hideout.

When a card is pushed out of the third night of your hideout it enters the refresh area. Any cards in your refresh area will return to your hand at the end of your turn.

The game ends when the coffers run out of money, there are no more jobs left to complete, or if there are no more specialists cards left for recruiting. End game bonuses are calculated for completing multiple jobs against the same target. The player with the most money wins.

Game Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 30 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.79

Green Team Wins

| OTSG Staff

The game is played over 15 rounds, where players will simultaneously answer one question at a time.

There are three types of questions: Fill in the Blank, This or That, and Multiple Choice. To set up the game, randomly choose 5 cards from each type and shuffle them.

Everyone will be asked the same question, then writes down their responses at the same time. All players with the winning answer join the Green Team and score points. If your answer is not the most popular among the other players, then you join the Orange Team and score zero points for that round. Players joining the Green Team from the Orange Team will score one point. Players who are on the Green Team and stay on it will earn two points.

But it’s not about having the best answer, or the smartest answer, or the funniest answer. Only the most popular answer wins – the one that the most players at the table wrote down.

To win, get on the Green Team, stay on the Green Team, and win – because that’s what the Green Team does. They win.

Game Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

  • 3 – 12 Players
  • 15 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.05