Author: T3d-1978

Alien: Fate of the Nostromo 🟢

| T3d-1978

In ALIEN: Fate of the Nostromo, players take the role of Nostromo crew members Ripley, Lambert, Parker, Brett, or Dallas. Over the course of the game, they collect scrap, craft items, and fulfill different objectives. The crew will lose and gain morale as they encounter the Alien and other situations. If crew morale reaches zero, players lose the game.

Each turn has two phases. In the Crew Action phase, players creep through the Nostromo’s halls, gathering scrap, crafting items, trading scrap and items with other players, and using items and their special abilities. Brett, for example, can craft items with one fewer scrap than other players. If the Alien is within three spaces of the player with the incinerator, that player can use the incinerator to send the Alien back to its nest.

In the Encounter phase, players draw and resolve an Encounter card. The Alien could be lurking behind any corner…

Once the players fulfill their initial objectives, they face one of five final missions, each with a unique set of requirements. Players must fulfill the final mission’s requirements simultaneously to win the game. Players can also introduce Science Officer Ash for a more challenging game. Ash moves through the ship, removing scrap and forcing the crew to lose morale.

Game Mechanics:

  • Action Points
  • Cooperative

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 5 Players
  • 45 – 60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.94

Agricola: All Creatures Big and Small 🟢

| T3d-1978

Agricola: All Creatures Big and Small is a new take on Uwe Rosenberg’s Agricola designed for exactly two players and focused only on the animal husbandry aspect of that game. So long plows and veggies!

In Agricola: All Creatures Big and Small, you become an animal breeder of horses, cows, sheep and pigs and try to make the most of your pastures. Players start with a 3×2 game board that can be expanded during play to give more room for players to grow and animals to run free. Sixteen possible actions are available for players to take, with each player taking three actions total in each of the eight rounds.

The player who amasses the most victory points through enclosing space with fences and acquiring the largest number and variety of animals and victory point-generating buildings will be the winner.

Four Standard Buildings and 4 special buildings are available in the base game. These buildings each provide unique special abilities during play and/or VP at game end. Balancing the tension between building infrastructure (fenced pastures and buildings) and acquiring animals (the single biggest source of end-game scoring) is the key to success!

Game Mechanics:

  • Tile Placement
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 Players
  • ~30 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.35

The Adventures of Robin Hood

| T3d-1978
The Adventures of Robin Hood

The Adventures of Robin Hood

In England in 1193, the county of Nottinghamshire suffers under the yoke of evil Prince John and his henchmen. Can Robin Hood and his companions escape the sheriff’s guards and complete their adventures successfully?

In The Adventures of Robin Hood, players take on the role of Robin Hood and his companions, with the action taking place on a living game board with no set paths. The board changes over the course of each adventure, and the movement of the characters is handled via an innovative mechanism that uses different length wooden character pieces. Various actions and secrets are integrated into the game levels and are revealed only in the course of the story. The game board “remembers” what players have already explored or found, and thanks to the special materials, the entire game can be set up and dismantled quickly.

Instead of using cards as in the author’s Legends of Andor, the game tells the story of Robin Hood in a high-quality hardcover book, and depending on the decisions the players make, the story changes…

Game Mechanics:

  • Campaign
  • Cooperative
  • Storytelling

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • ~60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.82

Adventure Mart 🟢

| T3d-1978

From dank dungeon entrances to magical market squares, Adventure Marts magically pop into existence wherever they are needed. Busier locations require more than one store, and each one needs a manager — that’s where you come in!

Outsmart your competition and serve a fantastical array of adventurers as you battle to make more gold than your opponents! Adventure Mart is a fresh new take on deck-building games with added twists and plenty of player interaction.

The life of a store manager is brief, but glorious. Can you become “Manager of the Week”? Or will you be banished to the abyss?

Game Mechanics:

  • Auction/Bidding
  • Deck Building
  • Economic

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 45 – 60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.40

Adventure Land 🟢

| T3d-1978

In Adventure Land, King Agamis rules from his castle. Rich cities, vast forests and rugged mountain ranges dominate the country. The large river is known to be lined with gold and the forests filled with medicinal herbs, but dangers lurk beneath the fog! Only the bravest adventurers dare to face the challenges. When you move your adventurer tactically and bravely fight the fog creatures, you’ll win the favor of the king. Illustrated by Franz Vohwinkel and designed by acclaimed duo Wolfgang Kramer and Michael Kiesling who between them have won the highly coveted Spiel des Jahres award 5 times.

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Control
  • Grid Movement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • ~45 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.84

Acquire 🟢

| T3d-1978

In Acquire, each player strategically invests in businesses, trying to retain a majority of stock. As the businesses grow with tile placements, they also start merging, giving the majority stockholders of the acquired business sizable bonuses, which can then be used to reinvest into other chains. All of the investors in the acquired company can then cash in their stocks for current value or trade them 2-for-1 for shares of the newer, larger business. The game is a race to acquire the greatest wealth.

Game Mechanics:

  • City Building
  • Economic
  • Hand Management
  • Stock Holding
  • Tile Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 6 Players
  • ~90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.50

Abyss 🟢

| T3d-1978

The Abyss power is once again vacant, so the time has come to get your hands on the throne and its privileges. Use all of your cunning to win or buy votes in the Council. Recruit the most influential Lords and abuse their powers to take control of the most strategic territories. Finally, impose yourself as the only one able to rule the Abyssal people!

Abyss is a game of development, combination and collection in which players try to take control of strategic locations in an underwater city. To achieve this, players must develop on three levels: first by collecting allies, then using them to recruit Lords of the Abyss, who will then grant access to different parts of the city. Players acquire cards through a draft of sorts, and the Lords of the Abyss acquired on those cards grant special powers to the cardholder — but once you use the cards to acquire a location, that power is shut off, so players need to time their land grabs well in order to put themselves in the best position for when the game ends.

  • Auction/Bidding
  • Hand Management
  • Memory
  • Open Drafting
  • Push Your Luck
  • Set Collection

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 30 – 60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.34

A War of Whispers 🟢

| T3d-1978

A War of Whispers is a competitive board game for 2 to 4 players. Five mighty empires are at war for the world, but you are no mighty ruler. Instead, you play a secret society that is betting on the results of this war while pulling strings to rig the results and ensure their bets pay off. A War of Whispers is a game of deep strategy, hidden agendas, and shifting loyalties.

You start the game with five loyalty tokens, each corresponding to one of the five different empires, bet randomly on a loyalty value. Your primary goal is to ensure that when the game ends, the empires you are most loyal to control the most cities across the globe. Gameplay consists of turns broken down into four phases:

  1. Deploy agents phase: In player order (starting with the first player and proceeding clockwise), each player removes, then deploys agents to empire councils, the positions on the board marked Sheriff, Steward, Marshall, and Chancellor.
  2. Empire turns phase: Each council position on each empire council will take an action. If a player has acquired cards, they may play them during this phase.
  3. Cleanup phase: Add the turn marker to the next space on the turn tracker, then each player discards down to the hand limit of five cards.
  4. Swap phase: In player order, each player may swap two of their unrevealed loyalty tokens. If you choose to do so, you must reveal both of the swapped loyalty tokens. They remain revealed for the rest of the game.

Gameplay repeats itself in this order four times. When the last space on the turn track is filled, the game ends immediately and scoring commences. The player with the most points based off their empire loyalties and the cities they control wins.

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Control
  • Bluffing
  • Take That
  • Wargame
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 30 – 60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.57

7 Wonders Duel 🟢

| T3d-1978

In many ways 7 Wonders Duel resembles its parent game 7 Wonders as over three ages players acquire cards that provide resources or advance their military or scientific development in order to develop a civilization and complete wonders.

What’s different about 7 Wonders Duel is that, as the title suggests, the game is solely for two players, with the players not drafting cards simultaneously from hands of cards, but from a display of face-down and face-up cards arranged at the start of a round. A player can take a card only if it’s not covered by any others, so timing comes into play as well as bonus moves that allow you to take a second card immediately. As in the original game, each card that you acquire can be built, discarded for coins, or used to construct a wonder.

Each player starts with four wonder cards, and the construction of a wonder provides its owner with a special ability. Only seven wonders can be built, though, so one player will end up short.

Players can purchase resources at any time from the bank, or they can gain cards during the game that provide them with resources for future building; as you acquire resources, the cost for those particular resources increases for your opponent, representing your dominance in this area.

A player can win 7 Wonders Duel in one of three ways: each time you acquire a military card, you advance the military marker toward your opponent’s capital, giving you a bonus at certain positions; if you reach the opponent’s capital, you win the game immediately; similarly, if you acquire any six of seven different scientific symbols, you achieve scientific dominance and win immediately; if none of these situations occurs, then the player with the most points at the end of the game wins.

Game Mechanics:

  • City Building
  • Civilization
  • Closed Drafting
  • Economic
  • Hand Management
  • Set Collection

Game Specifications:

  • 2 Players
  • ~30 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.22

7 Wonders 🟢

| T3d-1978

You are the leader of one of the 7 great cities of the Ancient World. Gather resources, develop commercial routes, and affirm your military supremacy. Build your city and erect an architectural wonder which will transcend future times.

7 Wonders lasts three ages. In each age, players receive seven cards from a particular deck, choose one of those cards, then pass the remainder to an adjacent player. Players reveal their cards simultaneously, paying resources if needed or collecting resources or interacting with other players in various ways. (Players have individual boards with special powers on which to organize their cards, and the boards are double-sided). Each player then chooses another card from the deck they were passed, and the process repeats until players have six cards in play from that age. After three ages, the game ends.

In essence, 7 Wonders is a card development game. Some cards have immediate effects, while others provide bonuses or upgrades later in the game. Some cards provide discounts on future purchases. Some provide military strength to overpower your neighbors and others give nothing but victory points. Each card is played immediately after being drafted, so you’ll know which cards your neighbor is receiving and how her choices might affect what you’ve already built up. Cards are passed left-right-left over the three ages, so you need to keep an eye on the neighbors in both directions.

Game Mechanics:

  • City Building
  • Civilization
  • Closed Drafting
  • Economic
  • Hand Management
  • Set Collection

Game Specifications:

  • 3 – 7 Players
  • 30 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.32