Author: OTSG Staff

Shards of the Jaguar

| OTSG Staff
Shards of the Jaguar

Shards of the Jaguar

Shards of the Jaguar is a competitive “dungeon-deduction” game, which requires both strategic and tactical thinking. It is about an initiation trial where you and your fellow initiates have to prove that you are worthy of your tribe’s legendary animal’s, the Jaguar’s power.

The Jaguar was the defender of the tribe in the ancient times, but on a fateful day it got struck by a terrible curse and was broken into crystal shards.

The Shards of the Jaguar are still to be found in the Sacred Temple among the mountains, and the initiation trial is about to seek them and incorporate their power. But your journey will not be that easy. The temple is filled with perilous traps, and you have to learn how to use them, if you want to acquire the Jaguar’s hunting instinct.

Try to foresee what the others will do and set clever traps against them. Collect precious crystal shards, mystical amulets and map pieces leading to the Heart of the Jaguar. Outsmart the others and be the best in this trial to become the heir of the Jaguar, the defender of the tribe!

Shards of the Jaguar has eight rounds, and in each round, each player sets a trap secretly (Poisonous Gas/Darts/Guards/Earthquake), and then each player moves their character in the temple spending action points. You can move, take crystal shards, perform rituals and heal yourself in your turn for the action points. But move carefully! Each space on the game board could contain a secret trap – activated by another player – so you have to pay attention to each other’s movements to be able to find out which traps will be activated and so which spaces are safe for that round.

After each player spent their action points, you activate the traps and check who got hit by them (gathering different negative effects). If you were able to hit another player with your trap, you get glory points, as you are worthy of the Jaguar’s hunting instinct. At the end of the game you count the points you get for the crystal shards, the glory points for the successful traps, and the player with the most points wins the game.

Game Mechanics:

  • Action Drafting
  • Action Points
  • Deduction
  • Grid Movement
  • Racing

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • ~90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.36

The Shadow Planet

| OTSG Staff
The Shadow Planet

The Shadow Planet

In strange and remote regions of space, death may not be the worst end…

A group of astronauts on a rescue mission lands on a desolate planet to learn the fate of a long-lost scientific vessel. With little over a day to investigate what happened, they discover that the planet itself and the encountered survivors hide horrible secrets that might endanger humanity.

The Shadow Planet: The Board Game is a sci-fi game of alien horror, based on a beautifully illustrated, Italian graphic novel by Blasteroid Brothers and designed by Giacomo and Gianluca Santopietro, the authors responsible for Letters from Whitechapel. It perfectly blends the idea of hidden identities with a completely revolutionary approach to the deck-building genre, thus offering you a unique gaming experience and a chance to use a completely different strategy every time to play.

Draw your secret goal and use six different characters to achieve it. Deceive your rivals and control the flow of the game through cunning management of different decks. Move around various locations on the planet to gain powerful cards or use special abilities, but remember that they will also benefit your opponents, who can acquire the very same deck you’re trying to modify. Play over the table, look for allies, and identify the alien threat before it proves too powerful… unless you’re the creature trying to leave the planet! Save humanity… or save yourself.

Game Mechanics:

  • Cooperative
  • Deck Building
  • Hand Management
  • Hidden Roles

Game Specifications:

  • 3 – 5 Players
  • ~90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.86

Sentinels of Earth-Prime

| OTSG Staff
Sentinels of Earth-Prime

Sentinels of Earth-Prime

Sentinels of Earth-Prime is a standalone card game set in the Earth-Prime universe of the Mutants & Masterminds RPG that can also be played with the decks and characters from Sentinels of the Multiverse.

Game Mechanics:

  • We don’t know

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 5 Players
  • 45 – 60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.00

Seasons

| OTSG Staff
Seasons

Seasons

The greatest sorcerers of the kingdom have gathered at the heart of the Argos forest, where the legendary tournament of the 12 seasons is taking place. At the end of the three year competition, the new archmage of the kingdom of Xidit will be chosen from among the competitors. Take your place, wizard! Equip your ancestral magical items, summon your most faithful familiars to your side and be ready to face the challenge!

Seasons is a tactical game of cards and dice which takes place in two phases:

The first phase “Prelude” consists of a card draft: the goal during this phase will be to establish your own 9-card deck for the main part of the game and with it the strategy.

Once the Prelude is complete, each player must separate their 9 cards into 3 packs of 3 cards. They will begin the second phase of the game with their first pack of three cards, then gradually as the game progresses, they will receive the other two packets of three cards.

Next comes the Tournament: at the beginning of each round a player will roll the seasons dice (dice = number of players +1).

These cubes offer a variety of actions to the players:
– Increase your gauge (maximum number of cards you may have placed on the table and in play)
– Harvesting energy (water, earth, fire, air) to pay the cost of power cards
– Crystallizing the energy (during the current season) to collect crystals. Crystals serve both as a resource to pay for some cards, but also as victory points in the end.
– Draw new cards

Each player can choose only one die per turn. The die not chosen by anyone determines how many fields the “time track” would move forward.
In addition, all the dice are different depending on the season. For example, there are not the same energies to a particular season. Throughout the game, players will therefore have to adapt to these changes – also the “exchange rates” of energy to crystals vary during seasons – the energy not present on the dice in any given season is also the best paid during the season.

At the end of the game, the crystals are summed with victory points granted by the cards (minus some penalties, where applicable). The highest score wins.

Game Mechanics:

  • Closed Drafting
  • Dice Drafting
  • Dice Rolling
  • Hand Management
  • Open Drafting
  • Tableau Building
  • Take That

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • ~60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.78

Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Card Game

| OTSG Staff
Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Card Game

Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Card Game

So why grow up anyway? Is it really worth it? Don’t you have better things to do? Why does it matter whether or not your indie-rock band gets that great gig? You started a band to have fun, and now you’re going to get your butts kicked by robots. And who wants to deal with the headache of dating? Look, we’ve all got baggage. Some of us have drama that likes to pick fights and exes that like to throw punches. Love is a battlefield! So you’d rather sit on the couch throwing punches in your favorite video game. Hey, who’s going to stop you? Demons, fireballs, giant purple dudes?? Sounds like a bummer! If you want to keep living your precious little life, maybe it’s time to get it together and go up against the world!

Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Card Game is a deck-building game that challenges you to grow up and prepare for your finest hour. Players assume the roles of their favorite characters in the Scott Pilgrim universe, each of whom comes with a unique starting deck. Innovative double-sided cards let you decide whether to solve your problems with hard work and empathy, or whether to embrace the unpredictable world of gratuitous video game violence. Defeating the Evil Ex and collecting Power-Ups will help players inch their way towards victory.

Game Mechanics:

  • Deck Building

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 45 – 60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.69

Rurik: Dawn of Kiev

| OTSG Staff
Rurik: Dawn of Kiev

Rurik: Dawn of Kiev

Rurik: Dawn of Kiev is a euro-style realm building game set in an 11th century Eastern European Kingdom. It features area control, resource management, and a new game mechanic – “auction programming.”

You play as a potential successor to the throne following the death of your father, Vladimir the Great, in 1015. The people value a well-rounded leader, so you must establish your legacy by building, taxing, fighting, and accomplishing great deeds. Will you win over the hearts of the people to become the next ruler of Kievan Rus?

Rurik brings to life the ancient culture of Kievan Rus with game design by Russian designer Stanislav Kordonskiy and illustrations by Ukrainian artist Yaroslav Radeckyi.

In Rurik, players openly bid for actions with their advisors. Stronger advisors earn greater benefits at the cost of performing their action later than other players. Conversely, weaker advisors earn lesser benefits but perform their action quickly. This planning mechanism (“auction programming”) adds a fun tension to the game.

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Control
  • Area Movement
  • Auction/Bidding
  • Civilization
  • Economic
  • Open Drafting
  • Take That

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 60 – 120 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.07

Ruination

| OTSG Staff
Ruination

Ruination

The world ended so long ago that none remember its name. From its ashes rose the Khanate, whose citadel guards the last aquifer. The immortal Khan commands that only the most worthy may drink from its waters. Thus the hordes ready themselves for battle. Win, and lead your people onward… Die, and be forgotten!

Ruination is a 2-4 player area control and civilization game set in post-apocalyptic Eurasia. Using an innovative action system, players will gather resources to acquire advantages from the wreckage of the world before, bolster their armies with powerful exiles, and march across The Wasteland to war. Only the strongest and most canny horde will rule beside the Khan in this new world.

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Control
  • Area Movement
  • Dice Rolling
  • Open Drafting
  • Wargame

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 60 – 120 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.00

Roll for the Galaxy

| OTSG Staff
Roll for the Galaxy

Roll for the Galaxy

Roll for the Galaxy is a dice game of building space empires for 2–5 players. Your dice represent your populace, whom you direct to develop new technologies, settle worlds, and ship goods. The player who best manages his workers and builds the most prosperous empire wins!

Game Mechanics:

  • Civilization
  • Deck Building
  • Economic
  • Tableau Building
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 5 Players
  • ~45 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.78

Robotech: Attack on the SDF-1

| OTSG Staff
Robotech: Attack on the SDF-1

Robotech: Attack on the SDF-1

In Robotech: Attack on the SDF-1, you play heroic characters of the venerable Super Dimension Fortress One, also known as the SDF-1. Players are thrown on a chaotic path as alien forces, known as the Zentraedi, attack without warning. You must defend the SDF-1 against continuous waves of Zentraedi attacks, unexpected disasters, and treachery. As a hero, you are forced to battle vicious enemies, repair damage, and manage resources. Tough decisions and sacrifices are required for you to reach home safely.

If the Heroes can keep the SDF-1 from being captured by the Zentraedi and make it to the end of the Scenario, they win. Beware as there are many ways to lose, and the Zentraedi will not give up…

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Movement
  • Cooperative

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 5 Players
  • 120 – 180 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.75

RiverBoat

| OTSG Staff
RiverBoat

RiverBoat

Riverboat posits each player as the owner of a 19th century farm on the bank of the Mississippi River. You need to organize your workers to ensure that the fields are ordered according to their type and harvested when ready so that the goods can be shipped to New Orleans.

In more detail, the game lasts four rounds, and at the start of each round players draft phase cards until they’re all distributed. The phases then take place in numerical order, with the player who chose a phase being the first one to act. In the first phase, players place their workers in the fields, with each player having the same distribution of colored field tiles, but a different random placement for each player. In phase two, players organize their crops, trying to group like types together, with some fields requiring two or three workers. In phase three, players harvest crops and load riverboats, with a dock needing to be filled with all the goods of a single type before it can be loaded. In phase four, the boats are launched and players can take special actions, with additional victory points possibly coming in phase five.

Game Mechanics:

  • Action Drafting
  • Open Drafting
  • Set Collection
  • Tile Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • ~90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.90