Category: Beginner Games

Azul: Stained Glass of Sintra

| OTSG Staff

Created by Michael Kiesling, Azul: Stained Glass of Sintra challenges players to carefully select glass panes to complete their windows while being careful not to damage or waste supplies in the process. The window panels are double-sided, providing players with a dynamic player board that affords nearly infinite variability!

Players can expect to discover new unique art and components in Azul: Stained Glass of Sintra, including translucent window pane pieces, a tower to hold discarded glass panes, and double-sided player boards and window pane panels, in addition to many other beautiful components!

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 30 – 45 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.01

Ascension: Deckbuilding Game

| OTSG Staff

Ascension: Deckbuilding Game — originally released as Ascension: Chronicle of the Godslayer — is a fast-paced deck-building game designed by Magic: The Gathering Pro Tour champions Justin Gary, Rob Dougherty, and Brian Kibler, with artwork by Eric Sabee.

Ascension is a deck-building game in which players spend Runes to acquire more powerful cards for their deck. It offers a dynamic play experience where players have to react and adjust their strategy accordingly. Each player starts with a small deck of cards, and uses those cards to acquire more and better cards for their deck, with the goal of earning the most Honor Points by gaining cards and defeating monsters.

Game Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • ~30 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.14

ArchRavels

| OTSG Staff

Experience the colorful and crafty world of fiber arts with ArchRavels! Play as one of four characters, each with their own unique crafting specialty. Hit the Yarn Bazaar to build up your stash. Follow the patterns to make cuddly bears, warm blankets, and cozy scarves. Along the way you’ll get some unique special requests. Turn in your completed items to master a pattern, complete projects, and score points. When the project list runs out, the crafter with the most points wins!

Game Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 30 – 45 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.92

Animal Kingdoms 🟢

| OTSG Staff

In Animal Kingdoms, each player takes on the role of a house leader, battling to gain control of the five kingdoms. Cards in your hand represent noble beasts that have pledged their allegiance to you. Over the course of three ages, you must deploy your beasts to the various territories – making sure that you adhere to each kingdom’s decree – to try and improve your influential position in the kingdoms. The house that gains the most influence by the end of the third age is declared the one true leader of the realm.

Game Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 5 Players
  • ~45 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.77

Adventure Land 🟢

| OTSG Staff

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:

Game Specifications:

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

7 Wonders 🟢

| OTSG Staff

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:

Game Specifications:

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

DC Deck-Building Game: Multiverse Box

| OTSG Staff
  • Deck Building
The DC Deck-Building Game: Multiverse Box is a storage solution for one box to house every DC Deck-Building Game card, featuring customizable trays, spacers, and a Crossover Pack of brand new cards! These new cards allow for each previous DC Deck-Building Game to be used together in one game.

Games included are: 
 
DC Deck-Building Game: Injustice: Gods Among Us
DC Deck-Building Game: Rebirth
DC Deck-Building Game: Rivals – Shazam! vs. Black Adam
DC Deck-Building Game: Rivals – The Flash vs. Reverse Flash

Game Mechanics:

  • Deck Building
  • Open Drafting

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 6 Players
  • 60 – 90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.75

In the Footsteps of Darwin

| OTSG Staff

Twenty years after his expedition around the world, Charles Darwin is writing On the Origins of Species. He wants to gather new information about animal life, particularly about continents he hardly explored. Who other than young naturalists, eager for discovery, could help the renowned scholar finish writing his most famous work?

In In the Footsteps of Darwin, players are junior naturalists who have just arrived aboard the Beagle to help Charles Darwin finish his book On the Origin of Species. During this journey, you will study animals, carry out cartographic surveys, publish your findings, and develop theories. Starting with the naturalist controlling the Darwin token, naturalists take turns in clockwise order, performing these two steps in order:

  • Study an animal or take inspiration from a character: Choose one of the three tiles facing the Beagle and place it onto your naturalist’s notebook. It may be either an animal to study or a character from the Beagle’s previous journey who will inspire you. Gain the bonuses depicted or any additional scoring bonuses triggered by the tile’s placement.
  • Voyage of the Beagle: After placing a tile on your notebook, move the Beagle as many spaces forward as the distance between the Beagle and the tile you just selected (1-3 spaces), then draw a new tile to replace the empty space on the journey board.

Your goal is to score more points than your opponents to determine who contributed the most to On the Origin of Species.

Game Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 5 Players
  • ~30 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.54

ICECOOL

| OTSG Staff

The lunch break is almost there and all of the young penguins would finally get the fish they’ve been craving. However, some rascals think they are quick enough to snatch some of the fish before the lunch break starts, but they have forgotten one thing – the Hall Monitor! Each school day one of the penguins is designated to watch over the school, and this is his moment to shine – for each rascal penguin he catches he would get additional fish!

A fun run takes place – the rascals are running everywhere and trying to snatch some fish on their way, but the Hall Monitor is trying to catch each and one of them to have some order in the school. Who will be more successful?

ICECOOL is a flicking game in which each round one of the players takes the role of the Hall Monitor (also called “the Catcher”) – his aim will be to catch each other penguin and get points for that. The others (also known as “Runners”) will try to run through several doors, thus gaining fish (that give them points) on their way. When either the Hall Monitor has caught each other penguin once or any of the others has gone through all 3 doors that have fish on them, the round is over. Each player will take the role of the Hall Monitor once and at the end of the game the winner will be the one with the most points on their fish cards.

The penguins can be flicked in a straight line, make curves and even jump over the walls! Each player will have to use the best of their skills in order to get the most points in this fun and exciting game. It’s not just cool, it’s ICECOOL!

Game Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • ~30 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.03

Garum

| OTSG Staff

Garum was a fermented fish sauce used as a condiment in the old ages; its manufacture and export was an element of prosperity and perhaps an impetus for the Roman penetration of Lusitanian and Hispanian coastal regions.

Garum from today’s Portugal and Spain was highly prized in Rome and has now inpired a versatile strategy boardgame for the whole family, ages 8 and up, that plays 2 to 4 players. Garum is a tile-laying game, which plays in about 30 minutes, it is language independent and features endless replayability, due to its board system, that ensures no two games are alike.

In Garum, each player represents a master in the preparation of a specific type of fish sauce and receives a set of 16 Cetarian Tiles; each one has 4 spaces filled by 4 colors in different proportions, though the color that the player is defending is the predominant one.

The goal of the game is to play Cetarian Tiles strategically, in order to get a huge number of his own colour symbols in selected rows or columns – the greater the influence, the higher the reward! While placing the tiles, players may apply to score, collect some bonuses and also block their opponent’s intents. Whoever scores most points is the winner.

Game Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 30 – 40 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.62