Category: General Games

Cryptid

| T3d-1978

You’ve studied the footage, connected the dots, and gathered what meager evidence you could. You’re close — soon the whole world will know the truth behind the Cryptid. A group of like-minded cryptozoologists have come together to finally uncover the elusive creature, but the glory of discovery is too rich to share. Without giving away some of what you know you will never succeed in locating the beast, but reveal too much and your name will be long forgotten!

Cryptid is a unique deduction game of honest misdirection in which players must try to uncover information about their opponents’ clues while throwing them off the scent of their own. Each player holds one piece of evidence to help them find the creature, and on their turn they can try to gain more information from their opponents. Be warned; give too much away and your opponents might beat you to the mysterious animal and claim the glory for themselves!

The game includes a modular board, five clue books, and a deck of set-up cards with hundreds of possible set-ups across two difficulty levels. It is also supported by an entirely optional digital companion, allowing for faster game set-up and a near-infinite range of puzzles.

Game Mechanics:

  • Deduction
  • Pattern Recognition

Game Specifications:

  • 3 – 5 Players
  • 30 – 50 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.26

Crusaders: Thy Will Be Done

| T3d-1978

Move your knights, erect buildings, and go crusading to spread the influence of your Order. When the Orders get too strong, King Philip will become nervous and disband all Templar orders, ending the game.

Crusaders: Thy Will Be Done uses a combination of rondel and mancala mechanisms. Each player has their own rondel, which they can upgrade over the course of the game, that controls their action choices during the game. Your faction gives you a special power to control your rondel, and the buildings you erect will help you form a strategy.

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Majority / Influence
  • Mancala
  • Rondel
  • Tech Trees / Tech Tracks
  • Variable Player Powers
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 40 – 60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.48

Creature Comforts

| T3d-1978

Life in the forest is a lot of fun, at least while the sun is shining and the leaves are on the trees. Those days don’t last forever though, and long before the weather starts to change, the wise animals start to harvest for the long cold winter ahead. You will spend many months tucked into your burrow and you want to make it as cozy as possible. A nice bowl of soup, a comfortable rocking chair, and some toys and games will go a long way to make those dark winter days pass by quickly.

In Creature Comforts, you spend the Spring, Summer, and Fall gathering different goods from the forest and spending them to collect items that will make your home more inviting while the world outside is covered in a layer of snow. Each round you send family members out to various locations in an attempt to gain supplies. If they fall short of their goal, they’ll learn a lesson and be better prepared next time. The family that has created the most comfortable den wins the game.

Game Mechanics:

  • Contracts
  • Events
  • Hand Management
  • Open Drafting
  • Push Your Luck
  • Set Collection
  • Solo / Solitaire Game
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 5 Players
  • ~45 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.36

Cowboy Bebop: Space Serenade

| T3d-1978

Cowboy Bebop: Space Serenade is a competitive deck-building game with 2 to 4 players in which you play one of the four members of the famous Bebop crew.

Each player tries to prove that he is the best bounty hunter by getting the most reputation points at the end of the game. To do so, they will have to capture the criminals wanted by the ISSP, in a spirit of limited collaboration.

During the game, players will be able to buy cards that will allow them to improve their personal deck, in order to better manage the resources necessary for their victory. They will also be able to move from planet to planet with gas or use their special abilities and even those of other players if they have in the same place as them.

The game ends when the terrible Vicious is captured or has fled.

Game Mechanics:

  • Deck Building

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 30 – 90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.32

Cosmic Encounter

| T3d-1978

Build a galactic empire…

In the depths of space, the alien races of the Cosmos vie with each other for control of the universe. Alliances form and shift from moment to moment, while cataclysmic battles send starships screaming into the warp.

This classic game of alien politics returns from the warp once more!

In Cosmic Encounter, each player becomes the leader of one of dozens of alien races, each with its own unique power. On a player’s turn, he or she becomes the offense. The offense encounters another player on a planet by moving a group of his or her ships through the hyperspace gate to that planet. Both sides can invite allies and play cards to try and tip the encounter in their favor.

The object of the game is for players to establish colonies in other players’ planetary systems by landing their ships on the other players’ planets. The winner(s) are the first player(s) to have five colonies on planets outside his or her home system. The players must use force, cunning, and diplomacy to ensure their victory. And, because alliances are a key part of the game, multiple players can win together!

Game Mechanics:

  • Alliances
  • Hand Management
  • Interrupts
  • Negotiation
  • Race
  • Take That
  • Trading
  • Variable Player Powers

Game Specifications:

  • 3 – 5 Players
  • 60 – 120 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.58

Cleopatra

| T3d-1978

Designed by Bruno Cathala and Ludovic Maublanc, Cleopatra and the Society of Architects is a fun and engaging game that includes a three-dimensional palace that players compete to build. Players strive to become the wealthiest of Cleopatra’s architects by constructing the most magnificent and valuable parts of her palace.

Players, however, will be tempted to trade in materials of dubious origins in order to build faster. While these corrupt practices might allow an architect to stay a step ahead of the rest, they come with a high price: the cursed corruption amulets honoring Sobek, the crocodile-god. When Cleopatra finally reaches her new palace at the end of the game, she punishes the most corrupted architects (i.e., the ones with the most amulets), depriving them of riches or giving them as a sacrifice to her crocodile! The wealthiest architect from among those still alive wins.

This new edition of Cleopatra and the Society of Architects has a new graphic design by Miguel Coimbra, a free-standing 3D palace, and rulebook updated by the designers for simplicity and fluidity, which incorporates these gameplay changes:

  • The combinations of resource cards to discard in order to build pieces of the palace have been reworked.
  • The player rewards for building the palace’s pieces have been recalculated.
  • The consequences of corruption have been reviewed.
  • The Great Priest is no longer activated in the same way.
  • The player count has changed from 3-5 to 2-4.
  • There is a new specific system to manage the character cards, which are no longer part of the deck, and are instead handled separately.

Game Mechanics:

  • Auction/Bidding
  • City Building
  • Hand Management
  • Set Collection
  • Tile Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 3 – 4 Players
  • ~60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.24

Champions of Midgard

| T3d-1978

Champions of Midgard is a middleweight, Viking-themed, worker placement game with dice rolling in which players are leaders of Viking clans who have traveled to an embattled Viking harbor town to help defend it against the threat of trolls, draugr, and other mythological Norse beasts. By defeating these epic creatures, players gain glory and the favor of the gods. When the game ends, the player who has earned the most glory earns the title of Jarl and is recognized as a champion of Midgard!

Placing workers allows for the collection of resources and warriors, which players may then send on journeys to neighboring villages or across the sea to defeat monsters and gain the glory they need for victory. Resources are used to carve runes, build ships, and feed your followers. Viking warriors (custom dice) do battle with the myriad enemies the town faces.

Game Mechanics:

  • Dice Rolling
  • Set Collection
  • Variable Player Powers
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 60 – 90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.62

Cape May

| T3d-1978

In Cape May, players traverse the city streets as entrepreneurs, developing property while building wealth over four seasons to earn prestige.

Build cottages, develop them into Victorian homes, and upgrade them into historic landmarks. Establish shops and grow them into profitable businesses. Carefully move around the city, and make strategic use of activity cards. Complete bonus goals, then take some time to relax and spot wildlife in the best place for birdwatching in the Northeastern United States.

Whoever best balances their income, development, movement, and personal goals will go down in history as the most successful developer of Cape May!

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Majority / Influence
  • Hand Management
  • Set Collection
  • Solo / Solitaire Game

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 60 – 120 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.40

Brian Boru: High King of Ireland

| T3d-1978

In Brian Boru: High King of Ireland, you strive to unite Ireland under your domain, securing control through might, cunning, and matrimony. Join forces to fend off Viking invaders, build monasteries to extend your influence, and gather support in towns and villages throughout the land. To become High King of all Ireland, you need to navigate a web of shifting alliances, outmaneuver your enemies, and grab history by the reins.

The success of the historical Brian Boru rested on three pillars: his victories against the Vikings, the favor he managed to garner with the Church, and the alliances he forged through political marriages. This became the foundation of the game, with each pillar becoming a suit in the trick-taking that forms the core of the mechanisms. Win a trick and you gain influence in a town, which, in turn, gains you majorities in the regions; if you lose the trick, however (deliberately or otherwise), you instead take an action corresponding to the suit of the card.

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Majority / Influence
  • Closed Drafting
  • Hand Management
  • Trick-taking
  • Variable Phase Order

Game Specifications:

  • 3 – 5 Players
  • 60 – 90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.54

Brew

| T3d-1978

Bring balance back to the forest!

Time is broken and shattered. The seasons all exist at once, and day and night have no real cycle — they rotate at the whim of the forest. This enchanted land has been driven into chaos and it’s up to you, the cunning mystics of the forest, to tame extraordinary woodland creatures and use your magic to bring back balance.

In Brew, players must choose how to use element dice, either to take back control of as many seasons as possible in an area-control game or to procure goods at the local village in a worker-placement game. Recruiting woodland creatures and brewing potions can help offset chance die-rolls or create an engine to help you tame the lands.

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Majority / Influence
  • Open Drafting
  • Take That
  • Variable Player Powers
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 45 – 90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.40