Author: T3d-1978

Gizmos

Gizmos

Gizmos

The smartest minds of our generation are gathering together at the Great Science Fair. Everyone’s been working hard on their creations, but only one will be crowned champion. Contestants have to think on the fly to build their machines quickly and efficiently. Whose project will be the best?

In Gizmos, you win the game by gaining victory points from building engines. And engines help you get things done faster. Whoever builds the greatest machine and collects the most victory points wins!

At the beginning of the game, you have 4 actions:

  • File: Put a card in the public to your Archive, allow you to build it later.
  • Pick: Take one energy marble from the 3D marble dispenser to your storage.
  • Build: Build one machine and put it on action! You have to pay the marbles with colors corresponding to the card cost.
  • Research: Draw some cards, and you can then File or Build one of the drawn cards. The rest go to the bottom of their deck.

Machines give you victory points and allow you to do more actions when conditions are met. As you build, new attachments can trigger chain reactions, letting you do even more on your turn.

Game Mechanics:

  • Open Drafting
  • Tableau Building

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 40 – 50 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.01

Geek Out! Disney

Geek Out! Disney

Geek Out! Disney

Geek Out! is a party game that can determine once and for all which player is the most knowledgeable about your favorite pop culture subjects!

In the game, you draw cards asking you to list a certain number of things which fall under a certain category: comic books, fantasy, games, science fiction, and miscellaneous. Before you begin, however, the other players may try to steal your points (and bragging rights!) by bidding to list even more than the card requires. The bidding continues until one player is ready to “out-geek” their friends. Collect a predetermined number of cards, and you win!

Geek Out! Disney features 350 questions about ninety years of Disney productions.

Game Mechanics:

  • Auction/Bidding
  • Dice Rolling
  • Party Game
  • Trivia

Game Specifications:

  • 2 -99 Players (You could honestly have more)
  • ~30 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.00

Gates of Delirium

Gates of Delirium

Gates of Delirium

You have finally set out to find the truth. You’ve heard the rumors of ancient runes and the lost pages of a scattered tome that tell of ancient and evil monstrosities, calling for their return. You’ve heard tales of those who came before you in this search losing grip on their sanity as they grew nearer to the truth. As you press on, you can’t help but notice that you feel less attached to reality yourself. Some days you lose track of time and can’t account for hours of the day. The whispers of secret gates to another world are growing stronger, and while no one knows who is building them, you have a dreadful hunch…

Could you be the hidden architect of the Gates of Delirium?

In Gates of Delirium, players have a hand of split action cards: one side sane, and the other insane. Every round, one player decides whether the round is sane or insane, and all players must play that side of their cards. During sane rounds, players search for maps and lost pages to a secret tome, while assigning investigators to help them in their cause. During insane rounds, players collect ancient runes and work to build gates to release the monstrosities that their sane selves have been trying so hard to understand and prevent. Earn the most victory points by the time the last monstrosity is released to win Gates of Delirium.

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Control
  • Hand Management
  • Set Collection

Game Specifications:

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

Ganymede

Ganymede

Ganymede

Ganymede is a development and tableau-building game in which players are corporations specialized in sending settlers to colonize the universe. To do so, you will recruit settlers on Earth, use shuttles to transport them to Mars, then to Ganymede where the settlers’ ships launch base is located.

The game ends when a player has launched four settlers’ ships into space. Players score VP from their launched ships and from their reputation track.

Game Mechanics:

  • Open Drafting
  • Pick-Up and Deliver
  • Set Collection
  • Tableau Building

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 20 – 40 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.30

Galaxy Trucker

Galaxy Trucker

Galaxy Trucker

In a galaxy far, far away… they need sewer systems, too. Corporation Incorporated builds them. Everyone knows their drivers — the brave men and women who fear no danger and would, if the pay was good enough, even fly through Hell.

Now you can join them. You will gain access to prefabricated spaceship components cleverly made from sewer pipes. Can you build a space ship durable enough to weather storms of meteors? Armed enough to defend against pirates? Big enough to carry a large crew and valuable cargo? Fast enough to get there first?

Of course you can. Become a Galaxy Trucker. It’s loads of fun.

Galaxy Trucker is a tile laying game that plays out over two phases: building and flying. The goal is to have the most credits at the end of the game. You can earn credits by delivering goods, defeating pirates, building an efficient ship, and being the furthest along the track at the end of the flying phase.

Building happens in real time and has players build their personal space ships by grabbing tiles from the middle of the table before the timer runs out. Tiles start out facedown so they won’t know what they have until they take it, but they may choose to return it faceup if they don’t want it. They must place the tiles they keep in a legal manner in their space ship. Usually this just means lining up the connectors appropriately (single to single, double to double, universal to anything) but also includes proper positioning of guns and engines. Tiles represent a variety of things including guns, engines, storage containers, crew cabins, shields, and batteries. They may also peek at the cards they will encounter in phase 2, but they must sacrifice building time to do this. At any time players may call their ships finished and take an order marker from the center.

Once building is completed, and ships have been checked for errors, the flight begins. The flight cards are shuffled and player markers are placed on the flight board according to the order markers taken. Cards are revealed one at a time and players interact with them in order. They may include things such as pirates, abandoned vessels, disease outbreaks, meteor showers, worlds with goods to pick up, player-on-player combat zones, and other various things.

Most of the cards will cause players to move back on the flight track and they must decide if the delay is worth their efforts. When all the cards are encountered players sell any goods they have collected, collect their rewards for finishing in first, second, or third place or having the most intact ship, and then lose some credits for damaged components. Space can be a very dangerous place and it is not uncommon to see your ship break into smaller and smaller pieces or lose some very valuable cargo off the side. If your ship gets damaged too much you can get knocked out of the race, so be careful!

3 rounds of this are done, and in each round players get a bigger board to build a ship that can hold more components. After the 3rd round the player with the most credits wins!

Game Mechanics:

  • Dice Rolling
  • Team Based
  • Tile Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 20 – 30 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.38

G.I. Joe the Deck Building Game

G.I. Joe the Deck Building Game

G.I. Joe the Deck Building Game

In G.I. JOE Deck-Building Game, you and your fellow players will lead teams of G.I. JOE soldiers on missions to stop Cobra’s dastardly plans! Each player starts the game with a meager deck that will grow more powerful as you recruit veterans from the G.I. JOE team, requisition gear, and field new vehicles. This fully co-operative game pits you against increasingly dangerous missions to save the world. This core set begins your journey with everything needed to play, but be prepared for more JOEs and missions to come!

Game Mechanics:

  • Cooperative
  • Deck Building

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 30 – 70 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.38

Furnace

Furnace

Furnace

Furnace is an engine-building Eurogame in which players take on the roles of 19th-century capitalists building their industrial corporations and aspiring to make as much money as they can by purchasing companies, extracting resources, and processing them in the best combinations possible.

Each player starts the game with a random start-up card, the resources depicted at the top of that card, and four colored discs valued 1-4.

The game is played over four rounds, and each round consists of two phases: Auction and Production. During the auction, 6-8 company cards are laid out with their basic sides face up. Players take turns placing one of their discs on one of these cards, but you cannot place a disc on a card if a disc of the same value or color is already present. Thus, you’ll place discs on four cards.

Once all the discs are placed, the cards are resolved from left to right. Whoever placed the highest-valued disc will claim this card, but first anyone with a lower-valued disc on this card will gain compensation, either the resources depicted multiplied by the value of their disc or a processing ability (exchange X for Y) up to as many times as the value of their disc.

Once all the cards have been claimed or discarded, players enter the production phase, using their cards in the order of their choice. Each company card has one action — either production or processing — on its basic side and two actions on its upgraded side. During the production phase, you can use each of your cards once to gain resources, process those resources into other resources or money, and upgrade your cards.

At the end of four rounds, whoever has the most money wins.

Furnace also includes capitalist cards that contain unique effects, and if you want, you can choose to deal one out to each player at the start of the game. For an additional challenge, you can require players to create a “production chain”, with each newly acquired company card being placed somewhere in that chain and locked in position for the remainder of the game.

Game Mechanics:

  • Auction/Bidding
  • Economic
  • Open Drafting

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 30 – 60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.23

Funfair

Funfair

Funfair

Can you build the best theme park in town?

Choose and build an exciting mix of attractions in your very own theme park. Upgrade them to match blueprints, or just to stack up towering rides that pull in the crowds and make the most cash. Hire staff members and build super attractions to maximise your park’s strategy for the win!

Game Mechanics:

  • City Building
  • Economic
  • Hand Management
  • Open Drafting

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 30 – 60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.14

Free Radicals

Free Radicals

Free Radicals

In Free Radicals, players take control of one of ten fully asymmetrical factions, each with its own path to earn resources, power, and the knowledge stored in the “Free Radicals”, which are giant mysterious objects that appeared around the world, causing a huge evolutionary leap in technology. You might play as the merchants, using action points to travel to different markets, and grow in influence and efficiency; the Couriers, using your drones to pick up and deliver valuable goods; the Entertainers, using card placement and abilities to maximize powerful abilities; or one of seven other entirely unique factions!

Players also interact through the main board, where they can visit each other’s buildings and try to unlock the technology in one of the free radicals. You can even help your opponents’ research in return for influence and other rewards!

Game Mechanics:

  • Action Points
  • Economic
  • Negotiation
  • Open Drafting
  • Pattern Building
  • Pick-Up and Deliver
  • Tile Placement
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 5 Players
  • 45 – 90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.50

Four Humours

Four Humours

Four Humours

In Four Humours, you are a doctor in medieval times, and everyone knows that your personality is determined by an imbalance of your bodily fluids, a.k.a., the four humours:

  1. Choleric (Yellow bile) – Goal-oriented, decisive, ambitious.
  2. Sanguine (Red blood) – Talkative, enthusiastic, social.
  3. Melancholic (Black bile) – Analytical, detail-oriented, reserved.
  4. Phlegmatic (White phlegm) – Relaxed, peaceful, easy-going.

The kingdom — composed of six map tiles with various locations — is filled with all types of personalities, from choleric sorcerers to phlegmatic peasants. ​Prove you’re the best medieval doctor by visiting citizens throughout the kingdom so they can live out their life’s ambitions…or lack thereof.

Each turn, you play a personality potion from your hand onto a citizen on a scene card to determining that citizen’s personality. Each citizen can have one of two potion types played onto it, and you play each token face down so you know the personality of the citizen, but none of the other players do. Once all citizens on two of the scene cards are covered with potions, all potions are resolved in the following order:

  • A lone choleric wins, whereas two or more are discarded, after which…
  • Two or more sanguines win, whereas a single one is discarded, after which…
  • Exactly two melancholics win, whereas more than two are discarded and a single one sneaks away, after which…
  • Any number of phlegmatics win.

Place winning potions on the corresponding scene in the kingdom.. If a melancholic token sneaks away, place the potion on an adjacent scene connected by a path or bridge. After all potions have been placed, see whether you’ve completed any of the four randomized goals on display, such as having a potion on each of the six map tiles or occupying two pairs of locations that are connected by bridges. Then reveal four new scene cards and begin another round.

When a player completes an objective, the first party tile is resolved. Party tiles are similar to scenes with citizens, but they are available to play onto on your turn at any point in the game. Once the players at the table have completed six total objectives, the last party tile is resolved and the game ends. The player with the most objectives completed wins!

Alternatively, instead of using a shared kingdom board, you can play in “Fiefdom Mode”, with each player having their own fiefdom board. After resolving scene cards, players place their winning personality potion covering a matching character in your fiefdom. The objectives now encourage you to cover all characters of certain types or to create a specific pattern within your Fiefdom.

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Control
  • Bluffing
  • Deduction
  • Network Building
  • Pattern Building

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 6 Players
  • 45 – 60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.00