Category: Beginner Games

Citadels

| OTSG Staff

In Citadels, players take on new roles each round to represent characters they hire in order to help them acquire gold and erect buildings. The game ends at the close of a round in which a player erects their seventh building. Players then tally their points, and the player with the highest score wins.

Players start the game with a number of building cards in their hand; buildings come in five colors, with the purple buildings typically having a special ability and the other colored buildings providing a benefit when you play particular characters. At the start of each round, the player who was king the previous round discards one of the eight character cards at random, chooses one, then passes the cards to the next player, etc. until each player has secretly chosen a character. Each character has a special ability, and the usefulness of any character depends upon your situation, and that of your opponents. The characters then carry out their actions in numerical order: the assassin eliminating another character for the round, the thief stealing all gold from another character, the wizard swapping building cards with another player, the warlord optionally destroys a building in play, and so on.

On a turn, a player earns two or more gold (or draws two building cards then discards one), then optionally constructs one building (or up to three if playing the architect this round). Buildings cost gold equal to the number of symbols on them, and each building is worth a certain number of points. In addition to points from buildings, at the end of the game a player scores bonus points for having eight buildings or buildings of all five colors.

The 2016 edition of Citadels includes twenty-seven characters — eight from the original Citadels, ten from the Dark City expansion, and nine new ones — along with thirty unique building districts, and the rulebook includes six preset lists of characters and districts beyond the starter list, each crafted to encourage a different style and intensity of gameplay.

Game Mechanics:

  • Bluffing
  • City Building
  • Deduction
  • Set Collection
  • Take That
  • Variable Player Powers
  • Variable Set-up

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 8 Players
  • 30 – 60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.07

Chronicles of Avel

| OTSG Staff

Chronicles of Avel is a cooperative board game for the whole family. Take the role of brave heroes and heroines with a mission to save your magical land.

Create your character and give them a unique name. Get your equipment, upgrade it and prepare for battle. But remember to wisely choose what you carry as your backpack has limited space. Armed and ready, explore the land in search of adventure and fortune.

Answer the Queen’s call and fight together against the servants of the Black Moon. Defend the castle, banish the Beast, and save Avel!

In Chronicles of Avel players will be exploring the world of Avel, moving on a modular board created from hexagonal tiles (different every time). On their journey they will encounter dangerous monsters to fight and roll dice to determine success. Each victory leads to a prize – new weapon, armor, potions and gold – which will make heroes more powerful and unstoppable. But to earn equipment players will have to search through magical bag and choose using only their sense of touch. Victory awaits for those who will cooperate, prepare themselves and defeat the Beast and all his servants.

Game Mechanics:

  • Cooperative
  • Dice Rolling
  • Modular Board

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 60 – 90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.92

Challengers!

| OTSG Staff

Challengers! is an interactive deck-management game for 1-8 players that plays in about 45 minutes independent of player count. With the tournament gameplay style, you meet another opponent every round.

In the Deck Phase, you choose new members and add them to your deck, which might consist of a wizard, alien, cat, gangster and kraken. 75 distinct characters with more than 40 exciting effects create a unique experience every game. Choose from six different sets and discover new strategies and synergies every game.

In the Match Phase, stay in flag possession to win the trophy of that round. Try to get the most fans and trophies over the course of seven rounds to be able to qualify for the final. If you can best your opponent in the final, you win Challengers!

(If you think that all sounds a lot like a board game adaption of a digital Autobattler, we are proud to tell you that this is the first of its kind!)

Game Mechanics:

  • Deck Building
  • Hand Management
  • Open Drafting

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 8 Players
  • ~45 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.81

Century: Golem Edition – Eastern Mountains

| OTSG Staff

Return to Carvania in the follow-up to Century: Golem Edition.

In Century: Golem Edition – Eastern Mountains, players resume their roles as crystal traders and are now out exploring the Carvania mountain ranges and associated valleys seeking to establish a trade network.

Game Mechanics:

  • Modular Board
  • Pick-up and Deliver
  • Set Collection

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 30 – 45 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.14

Century: Golem Edition – An Endless World

| OTSG Staff

Century: Golem Edition – An Endless World brings crystal traders face to face with primordial golems predating human existence. These golems are incredibly powerful and ever eager to assist. As the world continues to unfold itself to players, you will discover how endless the fun will be!

Game Mechanics:

  • Set Collection
  • Variable Set-up
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 30 – 45 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.17

Catan: Starfarers

| OTSG Staff

Twenty years ago, the settlers started into the depths of the galaxy to discover unknown planets, the undiscovered universe lying before them. Maybe they’ll find planets with good ore or carbon deposits — or perhaps only barren ice planets. They might encounter alien folks and start lucrative trading, with pirates and wormholes being a constant challenge for them.

Catan: Starfarers is a new version of Starfarers of Catan, originally released in 1999, that contains completely revised graphics and game materials, revised rules, and (most importantly) a variable game board that brings even more variety to the exploration of space.

Game Mechanics:

  • Hexagon Grid
  • Modular Board
  • Trading
  • Variable Set-up

Game Specifications:

  • 3 – 4 Players
  • ~120 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.58

CATAN

| OTSG Staff

In CATAN (formerly The Settlers of Catan), players try to be the dominant force on the island of Catan by building settlements, cities, and roads. On each turn dice are rolled to determine what resources the island produces. Players build by spending resources (sheep, wheat, wood, brick and ore) that are depicted by these resource cards; each land type, with the exception of the unproductive desert, produces a specific resource: hills produce brick, forests produce wood, mountains produce ore, fields produce wheat, and pastures produce sheep.

Setup includes randomly placing large hexagonal tiles (each showing a resource or the desert) in a honeycomb shape and surrounding them with water tiles, some of which contain ports of exchange. Number disks, which will correspond to die rolls (two 6-sided dice are used), are placed on each resource tile. Each player is given two settlements (think: houses) and roads (sticks) which are, in turn, placed on intersections and borders of the resource tiles. Players collect a hand of resource cards based on which hex tiles their last-placed house is adjacent to. A robber pawn is placed on the desert tile.

A turn consists of possibly playing a development card, rolling the dice, everyone (perhaps) collecting resource cards based on the roll and position of houses (or upgraded cities—think: hotels) unless a 7 is rolled, turning in resource cards (if possible and desired) for improvements, trading cards at a port, and trading resource cards with other players. If a 7 is rolled, the active player moves the robber to a new hex tile and steals resource cards from other players who have built structures adjacent to that tile.

Points are accumulated by building settlements and cities, having the longest road and the largest army (from some of the development cards), and gathering certain development cards that simply award victory points. When a player has gathered 10 points (some of which may be held in secret), he announces his total and claims the win.

Game Mechanics:

  • Hand Management
  • Income
  • Modular Board
  • Network and Route Building
  • Trading
  • Variable Set-up

Game Specifications:

  • 3 – 6 Players
  • 60 – 120 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.29

Castle Panic: Big Box

| OTSG Staff

Castle Panic is a cooperative, light strategy game for 1 to 6 players ages 10 and up. Players must work together to defend their castle, in the center of the board, from monsters that attack out of the forest at the edges of the board. Players trade cards, hit and slay monsters, and plan strategies together to keep their castle towers intact. The players either win or lose together, but only the player with the most victory points is declared the Master Slayer. Players must balance the survival of the group with their own desire to win.

To celebrate the ten-year anniversary, Fireside Games is releasing the Castle Panic Big Box. This extra-large box will contain the original Castle Panic game as well as all three expansions; The Wizard’s Tower, The Dark Titan, and Engines of War. For the first time ever, fans both new and old will be able to get the core game and all the expansions together in one box.

Castle Panic Big Box will also include seven promotional game cards and five promotional Tower tokens, one of which has never been available before 2019. Players will also find an updated, comprehensive rulebook that covers the rules for the base game and all three expansions. The insert for the box has a space for all the game pieces and provides a handy way to organize everything players need.

Game Mechanics:

  • Campaign
  • Cooperative Game
  • Dice Rolling
  • Hand Management
  • Trading

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 6 Players
  • ~60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.13

Carcassonne: Hunters and Gatherers

| OTSG Staff

Carcassonne: Hunters and Gatherers is a standalone game in the Carcassonne series set in the stone age.

As in other Carcassonne games, players take turns placing tiles to create the landscape and placing meeples to score points from the map they’re creating. The player with the most points at the end of the game wins.

Instead of cities, roads, and farms, Carcassonne: Hunters and Gatherers has forests, rivers, lakes, and meadows. Players’ meeples can represent hunters (when placed in the meadows), gatherers (in a forest), or fishermen (on a river segment). They also have huts, which can be placed on rivers or lakes to get fish from the entire river system.

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Control
  • Map Addition
  • Tile Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 5 Players
  • ~35 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.92

Call to Adventure: Epic Origins

| OTSG Staff

In this hero-crafting card game, 1-4 players compete to earn the highest Destiny score while cooperating to defeat the Adversary. Like the original Call To Adventure, Epic Origins is a tableau-building game where players draft cards, cast runes, and overcome challenges to score victory points.

For players familiar with Call To Adventure game system, Epic Origins introduces a high fantasy theme inspired by classic dungeon-crawling RPGs. The new Heritage card type provides options like Elf, Halfling, and Dwarf. Class cards allow you to invest Experience to “level up” your character. High fantasy themes and challenges can be found throughout the game’s 150+ unique cards.

This game also features overhauled Solo and Co-Op play. Double-sided Adversaries provide an evolving challenge: face a lower-level Adversary at the end of Act II, then the Final Adversary at the end of Act III. In Campaign Mode, players can unlock new cards by defeating each new Adversary. The game incorporates more rewards for cooperative play while still incentivizing individual achievement.

While points decide the winner of the game, Call To Adventure encourages storytelling at the end of the game. Epic Origins also includes a guide for converting your final tableau into a 5th Edition D&D character.

Game Mechanics:

  • Deck Building
  • Open Drafting
  • Role Playing
  • Solo / Solitaire Game
  • Storytelling

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 30 – 60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.38