Category: Beginner Games

AQUA: Biodiversity in the Ocean

| OTSG Staff

In AQUA, your starting point is a hot spot that gradually becomes surrounded by expanding coral formations. These corals serve as habitats for small marine animals. By fostering biodiverse habitats, you can then create ideal conditions for attracting the largest marine animals.

AQUA plays over 17 rounds. On your turn, you must take a new coral tile from the market and add it to your reef, then you may also attract animals to your ecosystem if you create the correct patterns of coral.

At the end of the game, the player who grew the best coral formations and attracted the most large and small sea animals will score the most points and win.

AQUA invites you to dive into the beauty and wonder of the ocean, delivering an incredible variety of gameplay experiences for the whole family.

Game Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 30 – 45 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.08

Beacon Patrol

| OTSG Staff

You are captains of the Coast Guard. Together you check beacon buoys and lighthouses to ensure the safety of the North Sea coast.

You place your tiles next to tiles that are already placed, move your ships, and explore the sea.

Your goal is to explore as many tiles as possible. A tile is considered explored when it’s connected to other tiles on all four of its sides.

Beacon Patrol is a co-op tile-laying exploration game in which you navigate the coast of the North Sea to secure its beacon buoys, lighthouses and waterways.

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • ~30 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.35

Abducktion 🔵

| OTSG Staff

A 15-minute light strategy game for adults of duck matching, a UFO, and logic! Players are all interns on an alien UFO, working for an intergalactic corporation that has one main function: abducting ducks. (For research purposes, duh).

But, ducks need to be collected in specific formations, and you’ll have to use spatial logic and cunning to rearrange your ducks before your opponents to win!

Abduct (collect) ducks in specific formations by using action cards to move your (or your opponent’s) ducks around. Each player gets an individual stream board that can hold 10 ducks. Put the ducks into patterns by moving them around with action cards. When your ducks in a single color match a pattern on one of the shared formation cards, you earn the card and abduct the ducks into the UFO. Grab more ducks out of the UFO and try to make another pattern before the cards run out.

Game Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • ~15 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.33

Ascension: Dawn of Champions

| OTSG Staff

Where there were once six realms, now only a single remains: New Vigil. In Ascension: Dawn of Champions, you take on the role of your faction’s Champion to guide them to victory in this world of new alliances and ancient foes.

New Champion cards let you play as a faction leader, building your reputation to unlock powerful cards and effects. This set also includes new multi-faction cards to acquire and defeat, including Constructs and Monsters!

As with all other Ascension sets, Ascension: Dawn of Champions can be played as a standalone game or combined with other Ascension games.

Game Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • ~30 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.25

Aggravation 🔵

| kithorning

Players move their four pieces around the board from Start to Home. Lucky die rollers can make use of the shortcut spaces to speed movement. However, players can not pass their own pieces and landing on any one else’s piece sends the landed-on piece back to the Base where it must start again. First player to get all four pieces Home wins.

Game Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 6 Players
  • ~45 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.20

Adventure Zone: Bureau of Balance, The 🔵

| kithorning

The Adventure Zone: Bureau of Balance, based on the very popular podcast and series of graphic novels of the same name, lets players embark on their own adventure as they attempt to rescue various artifacts of immense power. Battle a myriad of enemies, from scary to sarcastic, as you and your friends work through a dynamic dungeon made from numerous decks of cards – ensuring that each game will be different!

Game Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 5 Players
  • 60 – 90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.71

Bites

| OTSG Staff

New version of the Spiel des Jahres Recommended Big Points with a new theme, more engaging components, and rule tweak cards to make sure every play is different.

Four page illustrated rulebook. 20min play time. Highly interactive with no direct conflict.

Players move ants along a trail and collect food as they go. However, the value of that food depends on how the other ants move.

Shared incentives mean you are always trying to figure out what the other players are up to. Variable “rules cards” tweak the rules to every game so that each play is fresh.

During setup, a trail of food is laid out. On each player’s turn, they can move any ant to the next food in the trail that matches their color (red ant to apple, purple ant to grapes, etc). Then the player takes the food token directly in front of or behind the ant, saving it to score at the end of the game.

However, players don’t know for sure how much the food is going to be worth until the matching ant makes it to the ant hill at the end of the trail. This creates shared incentives as players work together to advance some ants and hold others back.

Along the way players also have the chance to pick up chocolate, which can be turned into special actions, and wine, which provides a way to score bonus points.

There are four decks of cards that define the rules for the game. Each game, one card is chosen from each deck to provide a unqiue combination. Players have to adapt their strategy to the actions the other players are taking and the unique rules for this game. The “rule decks” are:

  • Ant Hill – Food tokens are worth more points if the matching ant gets to the hill FIRST. Or, food tokens are worth more points if the matching ants get to the ant hill LAST.
  • Wine – The wine tokens have a different way of scoring in every game.
  • Chocolate – The chocolate tokens provide a different special power in every game. And, the best way to use that power will change based on the other special rules in play.
  • Variant – One special rule that applies to this game which offers an extra twist.

Your actions will change the incentives for the other players. Can you manage these cascading effects to collect the most valuable food collection?

Game Mechanics:

  • Modular Board
  • Set Collection
  • Variable Set-up

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 5 Players
  • ~20 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.46

Clash of Cultures: Monumental Edition

| OTSG Staff

Clash of Cultures: Monumental Edition brings back the classic game of exploration, expansion, and development with the Clash of Cultures base game and the Civilizations and Aztecs expansions in one box! Grow your civilization, advance your culture and tech, and leave your mark by building wonders, with this edition of the game including fully-sculpted miniatures of the Seven Wonders.

In Clash of Cultures, each player leads a civilization from a single settlement to a mighty empire. Players must explore their surroundings, build large cities, research advances and conquer those who stand in the way. The game features a modular board for players to explore, 48 distinct advances, seven mighty wonders, and loads of miniatures and cards. The winner will create a culture that will be remembered and admired for millennia.

Game Mechanics:

  • City Building
  • Hand Management
  • Modular Board
  • Tech Trees / Tech Tracks
  • Trading
  • Variable Player Powers

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 180 – 240 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.72

Evolution: Climate

| OTSG Staff

Evolution: Climate is a standalone game that introduces climate into the Evolution game system.

In Evolution: Climate, players adapt their species in a dynamic ecosystem where food is scarce, predators lurk, and the climate can swing between scorching hot and icy cold. Traits like a Hard Shell and Horns can protect your species from Carnivores while a Long Neck will help them get food that others cannot reach. Heavy Fur and Migratory can protect your species from the cold while being Nocturnal or Burrowing will provide protection from the cruel desert sun. With over 200,000 ways to evolve your species, every game evolves into a different adventure.

The Climate standalone game dramatically changes game play with several simple additions to the Evolution base set:

  • Players draw 4 cards +1 per species per round (instead of 3 cards + 1 per species).
  • Each species may have up to 4 traits (instead of 3).
  • The climate moves along a Climate Track based upon the food cards played each round.
  • There are additional trait cards that provide protection from the heat and cold.

Evolution: Climate changes Evolution from a two-dimensional game (dealing with the threat of Starvation and Carnivores) into a three-dimensional game (dealing with the threat of Starvation, Carnivores, and Climate effects) while increasing the vividness of the theme. It adds additional layers into what was already a dynamically strategic game.

Game Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 6 Players
  • ~60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.73

Dominion: Renaissance

| OTSG Staff

It’s a momentous time. Art has been revolutionized by the invention of “perspective,” and also of “funding.” A picture used to be worth a dozen or so words; these new ones are more like a hundred. Oil paintings have gotten so realistic that you’ve hired an artist to do a portrait of you each morning, so you can make sure your hair is good. Busts have gotten better too; no more stopping at the shoulders, they go all the way to the ground. Science and medicine have advanced; there’s no more superstition, now they know the perfect number of leeches to apply for each ailment. You have a clock accurate to within an hour, and a calendar accurate to within a week. Your physician heals himself, and your barber cuts his own hair. This is truly a golden age.

This is the 12th expansion to Dominion. It has 300 cards, with 25 new Kingdom cards. There are tokens that let you save coins and actions for later, Projects that grant abilities, and Artifacts to fight over.

Game Mechanics:

  • Deck Building
  • Hand Management
  • Open Drafting

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • ~30 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.48