Category: Ω Board Games

Jamaica

| T3d-1978
Jamaica

Jamaica

After a long career in piracy, Captain Henry Morgan skillfully gets appointed to be Governor of Jamaica, with the explicit order to cleanse the Caribbean of pirates and buccaneers! Instead, he invites all of his former “colleagues” to join him in his retirement, to enjoy the fruits of their looting with impunity. Each year, in remembrance of the “good old days,” Morgan organizes the Great Challenge, a race around the island, and at its end, the Captain with the most gold is declared Grand Winner.

Game Mechanics:

  • Dice Rolling
  • Hand Management
  • Racing

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 6 Players
  • 30 – 60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.65

In the Footsteps of Darwin

| T3d-1978
In the Footsteps of Darwin

In the Footsteps of Darwin

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:

  • Grid Coverage
  • Open Drafting
  • Pattern Building
  • Rondel
  • Tile Placement

Game Specifications:

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

ICECOOL

| T3d-1978
ICECOOL

ICECOOL

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:

  • Area Movement
  • Dexterity
  • Take That

Game Specifications:

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

Ice Hoppers

| T3d-1978
Ice Hoppers

Ice Hoppers

Jump from one iceberg to another with your penguin friends to reach the ice floe.

  1. Push an iceberg across the sea.
  2. Cleverly move it to connect it to another iceberg.
  3. Make a penguin jump on an iceberg.

Can you get all your friends to the ice floe in time?

Game Mechanics:

  • Cooperative
  • Dexterity

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 15 – 20 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.00

Hues and Cues

| T3d-1978
Hues and Cues

Hues and Cues

What hue do you think of when we say “apple”? Hues and Cues is a vibrant game of colorful communication where players are challenged to make connections to colors with words. Using only one and two-word cues, players try to get others to guess a specific hue from the 480 colors on the game board. The closer the guesses are to the target, the more points you earn. Since everyone imagines colors differently, connecting colors and clues has never been this much fun!

Gather around with three to ten people to play a quick and simple game with a prism of possibilities! First, a “cue giver” hides a specific color they’ve chosen out of a deck of cards. There are 480 shades on the board in front of you! After getting one- and two-word cues, everyone places their marker on which color they think is being described. “Coffee.” Is it dark brown, as in freshly brewed? “Au lait.” With milk. That means I should pick a lighter shade!

Use examples from everyday life, from nature to pop culture, or materials and moods. Everyone around the table gets a turn to give cues and guess. The better your hints or guesses, the more points you earn. Play off others’ experiences to narrow down what they have in mind!

Game Mechanics:

  • Deduction
  • Limited Communication
  • Party Game
  • Targeted Clues

Game Specifications:

  • 3 – 10 Players
  • ~30 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.17

Highly Suspect

| T3d-1978
Highly Suspect

Highly Suspect

In Highly Suspect 2-4 detectives are chasing the crook who’s hiding in the park. The bord is tiltable, and by tilting the board in one direction all detectives and the crook will walk as far to this side as they can, until they hit an obstacle. The goal is to get your detective to land on a square next to the crook, thus catching him.

Game Mechanics:

  • Puzzle

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • ~20 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.33

Hanamikoji

| T3d-1978
Hanamikoji

Hanamikoji

Welcome to the most famed Geisha street in the old capital, Hanamikoji. Geishas are elegant and graceful women who are skilled in art, music, dance, and a variety of performances and ceremonies. Greatly respected and adored, Geishas are masters of entertainment.

In Hanamikoji, two players compete to earn the favor of seven illustrious Geishas by collecting each Geisha’s preferred performance item. With careful speculation and a few bold moves, can you outsmart your opponent to win the favor of the most Geishas?

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Control
  • Hand Management

Game Specifications:

  • 2 Players
  • ~15 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.69

Good and Bad Ghosts

| T3d-1978
Good and Bad Ghosts

Good and Bad Ghosts

In Good & Bad Ghosts!, each player has four good ghosts and four evil ghosts – but only the player who owns a ghost can see whether it’s good or evil. These ghosts start the game in the back rows of a 6×6 game board with the corners removed. Each turn, a player moves one of his ghosts one square orthogonally. Moving into an opponent’s ghost kills that ghost. To win, you must get rid of your own evil ghosts, kill your opponent’s good ghosts, or move one of your good ghosts off the board from one of your opponent’s corner squares.

Game Mechanics:

  • Bluffing
  • Grid Movement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 Players
  • 15 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.31

Glux

| T3d-1978
Glux

Glux

Glüx is a family game all about illuminating rooms. Every player tries to play the brightest light tokens in different areas on the board, thus gaining the majority in those areas. Who can place their light tokens in the cleverest way and illuminate the most areas?

Game Mechanics:

  • Abstract Strategy
  • Area Control
  • Grid Movement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 30 – 45 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.60

Garum

| T3d-1978
Garum

Garum

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:

  • Abstract Strategy
  • Area Control
  • Hand Management
  • Pattern Building
  • Tile Placement
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 30 – 40 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.44