Category: Ω Board Games

Full Throttle!

Full Throttle!

Full Throttle!

The wild moped riders are ready to race with their souped-up mopeds! Knowing that neither your courage nor your health insurance lets you take part in such a dangerous race, you and your friends instead choose the safe way to enjoy these races and start betting on the mopeds.

While the six mopeds race three times around the racetrack, trying to avoid getting stuck behind other mopeds or at the choke points, you assess the situation round by round and bet on your favorite mopeds. Who will finally win, place, or show?

In Full Throttle!, no one controls the mopeds, with them racing around the track in a “self-controlled” manner. Each round, reveal racing cards and move the mopeds around the track. Then draft the racing cards to be used as your hidden bets. The undrafted cards are reused for future movement of the mopeds. Choose your bets carefully because the cards you choose will make those mopeds go slower.

Game Mechanics:

  • Bluffing
  • Closed Drafting
  • Racing

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 6 Players
  • 20 – 40 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.20

Forbidden Island

Forbidden Island

Forbidden Island

Dare to discover Forbidden Island! Join a team of fearless adventurers on a do-or-die mission to capture four sacred treasures from the ruins of this perilous paradise. Your team will have to work together and make some pulse-pounding maneuvers, as the island will sink beneath every step! Race to collect the treasures and make a triumphant escape before you are swallowed into the watery abyss!

Game Mechanics:

  • Action Points
  • Cooperative
  • Grid Movement
  • Hand Management
  • Set Collection

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • ~30 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.74

Flyin’ Goblin

Flyin' Goblin

Flyin' Goblin

Attack! Catapult your goblin soldiers, and plunder the riches of the castle! Gold and diamonds reward the best shots, but each room is full of surprises…not all of which are pleasant!

To win, you will have to fully build you totem first OR accumulate the necessary amount of diamonds!

In a round, you will perform the following actions in sequence:
– Everyone catapults their goblins

Then, each players takes turn and:
– Retrieve their goblins and apply the effects of the rooms they fell into.
– Check if a player fulfilled an end game condition.
– Recruit new goblins from their Army board.

From round to round, spend your earnings, buy extra troops and go back to battle! The bravest will build their totem on top of the castle! It will prove your superiority… if it survives the attacks, of course.

Game Mechanics:

  • Dexterity
  • Set Collection
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • ~30 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.20

Flamme Rouge

Flamme Rouge

Flamme Rouge

The excitement in the air is electric as the leaders round the last corner and head for the finish line. Each team has used cunning and skill to position their sprinter for this moment, but only one has done enough to pull off the win!

Will your team lead from the front and risk exhaustion? Should you play it safe in the middle of the pack? Could you surprise everyone by striking from the back? Can you time your move perfectly?

Anyone can race, few become champions!

Flamme Rouge is a fast-paced, tactical bicycle racing game where each player controls a team of two riders: a Rouleur and a Sprinteur. The players’ goal is to be the first to cross the finish line with one of their riders. Players move their riders forward by drawing and playing cards from that riders specific deck, depleting it as they go. Use slipstreams to avoid exhaustion and position your team for a well timed sprint for the win.

Game Mechanics:

  • Hand Management
  • Programmed Movement
  • Racing

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 30 – 45 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.69

Fjords

Fjords

Fjords

Explore a landscape so stunning that even a Viking would hold their breath in awe…

Fjords is a tile-laying game that takes place in two phases. The first one invites the players to explore the fjords around them by laying hexagonal landscape tiles, creating a map that serves as the gameboard. In the second phase, players begin from the longhouses they placed during phase one and will walk the landscape, claiming as much of the plains and cliffs as possible.

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Control
  • Pattern Building
  • Tile Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 30 – 45 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.26

Fish N Chips

Fish N Chips

Fish N Chips

Fish ‘n’ Chips is a dexterity game for two or more players, with the players being divided onto Team Pelican or Team Seagull. Your goal is to grab available fish and/or control the three areas of the shore by having the most power in them. To do both of these things, you’ll take turns throwing chips for your team onto the playing area. But be careful, because any chip that is “under” another chip is no longer worth anything.

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Control
  • Dexterity
  • Team Based

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 8 Players
  • 15 – 20 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.00

First Empires

First Empires

First Empires

What if all of world history had unfolded differently?


What if the great empires of our history had never come into being?


What if other forgotten civilizations had passed into posterity in their place?


The defeated could have been the victors, and the colonizers could have been the colonized — after all, empires are won and lost on a roll of the dice!

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Movement
  • Civilization
  • Dice Rolling

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 5 Players
  • 45 – 60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.75

Fireball Island: The Curse of Vul-Kar

Fireball Island: The Curse of Vul-Kar

Fireball Island: The Curse of Vul-Kar

Welcome to Fireball Island! You may have heard stories. You may have visited when you were younger. Perhaps you even saw a fireball engulf a fellow traveler in a hellscape of horror that makes you afraid to close your eyes at night. Whatever the case, welcome back! Turns out that Vul-Kar didn’t like having his gem stolen way back when, so there has been some volcanic upheaval, an explosion in our snake population, feral tigers, new types of trees bent on ending human life, and swarms of bees everywhere. But don’t worry — we have top people working on it.

Start your day of adventure at the helipad. Be sure to sign the waiver, which legally obligates you to take snapshots across the island. You’ll race down the many paths, avoiding hazards all the while. On the plus side, you get to keep all the treasure you find.

Fireball Island: The Curse of Vul-Kar is a restoration of the classic 1986 game Fireball Island that features a unique 3D island and a host of marble mayhem. This new version boasts an island that is even bigger than the original (and yet fits in a smaller box) and more marbles. It is a family-weight game for 2-4 players that plays in 30-45 minutes. Simple card play replaces the random roll-and-move of the original, and the set collection for the treasures offers some interesting choices for players.

Remember, you don’t have to outrun the fireball — just the other players.

Game Mechanics:

  • Action Points
  • Area Movement
  • Dexterity
  • Push Your Luck
  • Set Collection
  • Take That

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 45 – 60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.50

Fairy Tale Inn

Fairy Tale Inn

Fairy Tale Inn

The Fantasy Fair is about to begin, and storybook characters from all over the realm are coming to town for the show. Everyone knows there’s only one place the visitors all want to stay: The Fairy Tale Inn!

It’s everyone’s favorite home away from home, and like always, the place is going to be fully booked. Each of the Inn’s two owners compete to be the one who takes the best care of the guests. They take turns ushering guests into enchanted rooms, gaining gold for strategic placement, and successfully keeping the guests from fighting. (Note to self: NEVER put Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf in adjoining rooms!)

In Fairy Tale Inn, two players try to earn the most gold coins by the end of the game. To set up, players select the character cards of guests who will be present during that game, then take the corresponding character tokens and toss them into the mixing bag. Next, players randomly draw those tokens to fill up the guest list board. After randomly choosing who goes first, the first player gets a gold coin, while the other player gets two. Now the game begins!

Game Mechanics:

  • Abstract Strategy

Game Specifications:

  • 2 Players
  • 15 – 20 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.50

Escape the Curse of the Temple

Escape the Curse of the Temple

Escape the Curse of the Temple

Escape is played in real-time, with all players rolling dice and taking actions simultaneously. You must roll the right symbols to enter a room, and if you’re at an open doorway, you can roll to reveal the next tile in the stack and add it to that doorway. Some rooms contain combinations of red and blue symbols, and if you (possibly working with other players in the same room) roll enough red or blue symbols, you “discover” magic gems, moving them from a separate gem depot onto that tile.

The real-time aspect is enforced by a soundtrack to be played during the game. At certain points, a countdown starts, and if players aren’t back in the safe room when time is up, they lose one of their dice.

Once the exit tile is revealed, players can attempt to escape the temple by moving to that tile, then rolling a number of blue dice equal to the magic gems that haven’t been removed from the gem depot. Thus, the more gems you find, the easier it is to escape the temple. When a player escapes, he gives one die to a player of his choice. If all players escape before the third countdown, everyone wins; if not, everyone loses, no matter how many players did escape.

Game Mechanics:

  • Cooperative
  • Dexterity
  • Dice Rolling
  • Grid Movement
  • Push Your Luck
  • Tile Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 5 Players
  • 10 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.48