Category: General Games

Ankh: Gods of Egypt 🟡

Play as a god of ancient Egypt, competing to survive as society begins to forget the old ways, so that only you and your followers remain.

Build caravans, summon monsters, and convert followers in your quest to reign supreme in Ankh: Gods of Egypt. Deities, monsters, and the people of ancient Egypt have been lovingly reimagined and interpreted in beautiful illustrations and detailed miniatures, and players will truly feel like gods as they shake the very foundations of Egypt. All gameplay in Ankh, including combat, is streamlined and non-random. Compete and win solely on your godly wits alone.

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Majority / Influence
  • Auction: Sealed Bid
  • Grid Movement
  • Player Elimination
  • Race
  • Variable Player Powers

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 5 Players
  • ~90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.12

Ahoy 🟡

Ahoy is a lightly asymmetrical game where two to four players take the roles of swashbucklers and soldiers seeking Fame on the high seas.

One player controls the Bluefin Squadron, a company of sharks and their toothy friends, who patrol these waters and keep order with shot and sword. Another player controls the Mollusk Union, an alliance of undersea creatures and their comrades-in-arms, who fight to reclaim their ancestral home. In games with more people, some players control Smugglers, maverick captains who run blockades to smuggle luxuries and essentials, delivering them to those with the most need—or the most coin. Explore the seas. As you play, you’ll make a unique map full of treasure troves, dangerous wreckage, and mighty sea currents, using deluxe double-layer region tiles.

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Control
  • Pick-Up and Deliver
  • Tile Placement
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 45 – 75 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.86

Abomination: The Heir of Frankenstein 🟡

It’s been twenty years since Victor Frankenstein died on a ship in the arctic, but his vengeful creature lives on, as does Robert Walton, the sea captain who vowed to kill the fiend before mercy stayed his hand. It’s now 1819, and a sinister darkness descends upon the city of Paris. A mysterious benefactor of gigantic stature has emerged in the scientific community, never showing his face, claiming to possess the late Frankenstein’s research. He sponsors a grand competition, offering an even grander prize: unlocking the mystery of mortality!

Renowned scientists from around the world come to take part: some drawn to solve this eternal riddle, others coerced against their will. But a certain captain comes as well, one deeply suspicious of the secretive patron, hoping to finally fulfill his vow.

Abomination: The Heir of Frankenstein is a competitive game of strategic monster building for 2-4 players, inspired by Mary Shelley’s classic novel of gothic horror. In the game, the creature demands your help to accomplish what his own creator would not: to bring to life an abomination like itself, a companion to end its miserable solitude. Through worker placement and careful management of decomposing resources, you’ll gather materials from the cemeteries and morgues around the city, conduct valuable research at the Academy of Science, hire less-than-reputable associates, and toil away in your lab — all in an effort to assemble a new form of life and infuse it with a “spark of being”. Do well, and the creature may reward you during one of its surprise visits; do poorly, and you may come to regret not putting forth more effort. Narrative elements come into play throughout the game, guided by your decisions, leading to potentially unsavory outcomes.

The game ends when you succeed in bringing your creation to life or when the Captain kills the creature, whichever happens first. Then the player with the most points fulfills Frankenstein’s dark legacy, becoming his heir, for good or ill…

Game Mechanics:

  • Dice Rolling
  • Narrative Choice
  • Set Collection
  • Storytelling
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 90 – 180 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.25

D6: Dungeons, Dudes, Dames, Danger, Dice and Dragons!

In D6, you’re playing the role of players playing a role-playing game. That boat you needed? It’s already in the harbor. That pit? It’s already been dug. Every adventure will be different, but your objectives will remain the same.

Collect the bounties. Kill the monsters. Gain the glory. The most glorious hero will prevail!

Game Mechanics:

  • Action Points
  • Chit-Pull System
  • Cooperative
  • Dice Rolling
  • Narrative Choice
  • Role Playing
  • Take That
  • Team Based

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • ~90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.50

Cuzco

Cuzco is a new 2018 edition of Java from French publisher Super Meeple that moves the action to South America, which is in line with the other titles in the Mask Trilogy as well as the authors’ original plans for the design.

Game Mechanics:

  • Action Points
  • Area Control
  • City Building
  • Tile Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • ~90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.50

Cryptid

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 2.23

Crusaders: Thy Will Be Done

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:

  • Grid Movement
  • Rondel

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 40 – 60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.43

Creature Comforts

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:

  • Dice Rolling
  • Open Drafting
  • Set Collection
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 5 Players
  • ~45 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.29

Cowboy Bebop: Space Serenade

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 2.36

Cosmic Encounter

Players represent alien races that are seeking to spread themselves onto five foreign worlds. To accomplish this, they make challenges against other players and enlist the aid of interested parties. But alien powers, which are unique to each race, give players ways to bend or outright break some rule in the game.

The game continues until one player occupies five planets in other systems to win. Shared victories are possible, and a player need not occupy one’s own system to win.

Game Mechanics:

  • Bluffing
  • Hand Management
  • Negotiation
  • Racing
  • Take That
  • Trading

Game Specifications:

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