Category: Ω Board Games

Space Gate Odyssey

Space Gate Odyssey

Space Gate Odyssey

The future of humanity awaits you in Space Gate Odyssey. A system of viable exoplanets has been recently discovered and the Confederations are flocking into space to colonize it. In this 2 to 4-player development and flow-management board game, you play the leader of one of these Confederations and play your influence in the Odyssey command station to send as many of your settlers as you can on these exoplanets.

After decades of research and technological development, humanity is preparing to leave the Earth to colonize this discovered system. To get there, only one possible means of transport exists: space gates. For reasons related to physics and other quantum aspects, these gates can be built only in space. The Confederations have therefore embarked on the construction of their own station in orbit, equipped with space gates.

At the beginning of the colonizing era, these portals make it possible to go on one of the first three discovered planets. As soon as an entire contingent of settlers has joined the gate of a space station, it is teleported to the corresponding exoplanet. The landing conditions vary according to the planets and the choice of colonized spots quickly becomes strategic.

As soon as one of the three exoplanets is fully colonized, each Confederation gains influence according to its placement, then access to one of the two later discovered exoplanets becomes possible. At the end of the colonization of the five exoplanets, the stations are teleported to the Hawking planet and the influence of each Confederation is assessed. The leader of the most influential Confederation will be promoted to the rank of Governor of this new system.

One of the biggest challenges in Space Gate Odyssey is your ability to quickly develop and intelligently arrange your space station. The better you optimize the flow of your settlers to your station, then to the exoplanets, the more of them you can send to the favorable spots and thus gain influence.

The choice of the modules, their arrangement, and the distance between the airlocks and the gates are therefore essential elements — especially since, at the end of the game, the domains of the modules you used to build your station will bring you additional influence points if they are in line with the position of the domains on the Hawking planet Predominance.

Finally, you must be careful not to leave too many open corridors on the space void as this represents a real danger for your settlers and could therefore damage your reputation.

Your most amazing quest starts with Space Gate Odyssey. Will you be able to take over your opponents in order to take control of the new system, or will you stay at the dock?

Game Mechanics:

  • Network Building
  • Tile Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • ~90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.79

Sorcerer

Sorcerer

Sorcerer

Sorcerer: A Strategy Card Game is set in what the company describes as a grim, gaslamp lit world full of fantastic, mythical creatures and sorcery. Designed for two to four players, the game pits two ancient beings of great power against one another to determine which of their lineage are strongest. The players use sorcery to conjure minions, cast spells, and wield enchanted items to reach the game’s goal of conquering three battlefields.

The game uses a simple resource system of “energy” that is determined randomly by a dice-roll at the beginning of each round, to make sure no round is the same. However, the outcome being the same for both players, the game balance stays even. This energy is then used in the Action Phase for conjuring minions from your hand on any of three battlefields, casting possessions that can improve your minion’s traits and abilities; or sorcery cards with various direct effects. Also as an action you can add more energy to your Energy Pool, draw more cards, move minions to another battlefield etc. The choice is yours, it is just about your pure skill to handle the battle preparation!

In the Battle Phase players roll amount of custom dice equal to each minion’s attack trait with possible outcome of miss, hit, double hit or critical hit for each die, and place damage counters on the respective minions or directly to the Battlefield. A unique system of Omen tokens then allows to adjust this outcome by re-rolling the dice, before distributing the damage among opponent’s minions and battlefield.

The combination of usual mechanics like story driven deck building, push your luck or dice-rolling; and a unique system of influencing the outcome of the battle, provides a perfect balance between strategy and random elements (even you still have the possibility to influence the outcome). Dividing the round to the Action Phase and Battle Phase then creates a very pleasant and natural flow of the hardcore game play.

Game Mechanics:

  • Action Points
  • Deck Building
  • Dice Rolling
  • Open Drafting
  • Push Your Luck

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 30 – 90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.90

Smartphone Inc.

Smartphone Inc.

Smartphone Inc.

In Smartphone Inc., you become a CEO of one of the largest smartphone-producing companies in the time when smartphones were only beginning to conquer the world. Research technologies, develop your factory, build your worldwide office network, and outprice your competitors to become the most profitable and successful smartphone company in the world.

Smartphone Inc. is an economic simulation Eurogame. Over five rounds, players program their decisions about price, production, research, and expansion. The game features a unique mechanism of planning, which combines patching mechanisms with bidding and action selection. Each of the rounds consists of eight simple phases: planning, pricing, production, development, research, expansion, selling, and profits.

In the planning phase, all players simultaneously make decisions for the next year by overlaying (“patching”) their two plan cards and all of their development tiles. The actions they plan on their cards and tiles in this phase will determine what actions they can perform during all of the later phases.

In the pricing phase, players change the price they charge for their smartphones based on their plan. A lower price helps to go earlier and sell more smartphones on the market, but a higher price, while risky, helps players to earn more money.

In production, all players produce smartphones.

In development, players take development tiles, which expand their planning possibilities in future rounds.

In research, players discover new technologies. Each technology not only expands players’ ability to sell smartphones to customers, but also gives them special powers they can use during the game.

In the expansion phase, players open offices in neighbor regions, which allow them to sell in that region and develop their network of offices to more regions in further turns.

In the sale phase, players sell the phones they produced in regions where they have offices. But there is limited space in each region – and if your price is too high, cheaper rivals can block you from selling.

In the profit phase, players get income for their sales. Players gain the sale prices for all of their sold smartphones, and the player who sold the most phones in each region gains a bonus for controlling the accessory market. At the end of this phase all sold smartphones are discarded from the map – and a new round begins.

After five rounds, the richest player wins.

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Control
  • Economic
  • Network Building

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 5 Players
  • 60 – 90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.74

Sleeping Gods

Sleeping Gods

Sleeping Gods

“Are the stars unfamiliar here?” she asked, and the sky grew suddenly dark, the star’s patterns alien and exotic. “This is the Wandering Sea. The gods have brought you here, and you must wake them if you wish to return home.”

In Sleeping Gods, you and up to 3 friends become Captain Sofi Odessa and her crew, lost in a strange world in 1929 on your steamship, the Manticore. You must work together to survive, exploring exotic islands, meeting new characters, and seeking out the totems of the gods so that you can return home.

Sleeping Gods is a campaign game. Each session can last as long as you want. When you are ready to take a break, you mark your progress on a journey log sheet, making it easy to return to the same place in the game the next time you play. You can play solo or with friends throughout your campaign. It’s easy to swap players in and out at will. Your goal is to find at least fourteen totems hidden throughout the world. Like reading a book, you’ll complete this journey one or two hours at a time, discovering new lands, stories, and challenges along the way.

Sleeping Gods is an atlas game. Each page of the atlas represents only a small portion of the world you can explore. When you reach the edge of a page and you want to continue in the same direction, you simply turn to a new page and sail onward.

Sleeping Gods is a storybook game. Each new location holds wild adventure, hidden treasures, and vivid characters. Your choices affect the characters and the plot of the game, and may help or hinder your chances of getting home!

Welcome to a vast world. Your journey starts now.

Game Mechanics:

  • Action Points
  • Campaign
  • Cooperative
  • Hand Management
  • Narrative Choice
  • Push Your Luck
  • Storytelling

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 60 – 1,200 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.19

Skyrim

Skyrim

Skyrim

ADVENTURES IN THE WORLD OF SKYRIM!

Before the Dragonborn came to Skyrim….

You are surviving members of the Blades, a legendary group who long protected the Empire of Tamriel! Abandoned by the empire, you must work together to thwart a plot that threatens the whole of Skyrim

Build a unique character in the world of the Elder Scrolls. Choose between a Nord, Dunmer, Imperial, Altmer, Khajiit or Orsimer. Equip your character with a wide range of weapons, spells and armour. Travel across the Holds of Skyrim to places like Riften, Solitude, Falkreath and Whiterun. Attempt a huge range of evolving quests that change the game with each decision, Explore the wilderness. Gain side quests from mysterious characters. Delve into ancient ruins and tombs. Battle Draugr, Frostbite Spiders, Dragons, Dwemer Constructs and Daedra. The deeper you delve, the deadlier your foes will become. Gain experience and amazing treasures. Upgrade and enchant your gear. Level up your character with a wide range of unique skills and abilities. Play through six chapters of two huge campaigns spanning 25 years in the history of Skyrim in this endlessly replayable boardgame.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim – The Adventure Game is a 1-4 player co-operative game of adventure and exploration across Skyrim. Players take the roles of heroes involved in epic quests, working together to defeat their enemies and exploring the vast expanse of Skyrim. You will be able to choose character miniatures like the Khajiit, Nord, or High Elf; plan your strategy with weapons or spells; and fight your way through forgotten mines, Draugr-infested tombs, or ancient Dwemer cities to find ancient treasures and increase your power.

The players must keep an eye out as the threat increases across Skyrim as Dragons, Daedra, Trolls, and more roam the lands and wreak havoc across the holds. Players need to work together to keep the lands free, whilst balancing the demands of their most important quests.

The base game is divided into two campaigns of three chapters each. The decisions the players make from their first turn have a distinct effect on the unfolding story and encounters, making the whole campaign experience different every time you play. You can even save your progress after each game and start the next chapter with the same character, equipment, and skills.

With the numerous choices of characters, gear, magic, and skills matched with the many decisions each player makes through their quests, there are literally hundreds of hours of gameplay, with some stories not even seen based on your early decisions. The face of Skyrim can change during the game, impacting the course of the players’ experience in subsequent chapters. At any time, the players can simply reset, choose another character and play style, make different choices, and experience things differently. Alternatively, pick a chapter that sounds fun and drop in to just play that adventure as a one-off.

Key mechanics:

A Living Board
The game board represents the province of Skyrim. Players move their characters — represented by 32mm scale plastic miniatures — across the region, visiting Strongholds, exploring dungeons and meeting interesting characters as the story unfolds. But they are not the only ones there; roaming monsters appear, blocking roads and threatening the peace in Skyrim. Several game effects could lead to the fall of a Stronghold so players need to keep an eye on the state of unrest and the active dangers across the board.

Customizable Characters
There are no classes in Skyrim. Each character has a different starting innate ability and additional abilities that are unlocked as they learn specific skills, but that doesn’t mean that they are tied to a gameplay style. For example, even though Nords shine when they are developed with a focus on warrior skills and equipment, a player could decide to make their Nord a spellcaster, or a summoner, and still retrain midway through the game after finding an amazing sword they really want to use. Players can change their progression path mid-game, and enjoy many different play styles.

Upgradeable Equipment
There are plenty of equippable items: weapons, pieces of armor, trinkets, etc. Most of these items can be customized; by either Enchanting or Upgrading them in a Stronghold. When Upgrading or Enchanting an item, the player draws an Enchantment/Upgrade card, and slots it underneath the item, altering its properties. A piece of armor can be Upgraded so it becomes better against Heavy Attacks, for example, and it can also be Enchanted so it helps the character regenerate Stamina faster. When learning the Smithing and the Enchanting skills, the players get to draw more cards and choose between them, making the experience of customizing equipment richer and letting them focus on the playstyle they prefer. Furthermore, when playing in a group, one player can specialize their character in Enchanting or Smithing and upgrade all their allies’ items by meeting in a Stronghold, adding another layer of cooperative gameplay.

Quests in Cards
The story in the game is told using Quest cards. Players draw Main Quests — those that push the narrative forward — and Personal Quests — side stories gained by exploring the vastness of the province of Skyrim. By completing or failing them, the story progresses. Many of these Quests give the players a choice at the end. This choice chains the Quest with a new one, creating a branching story that changes every time the game is played. Failing a quest doesn’t mean losing the game; instead, failure often becomes another way of choosing. The cards are organized in a way in which, if a card is removed as a result of Quest being failed or a game effect is triggered, the next card will take its place, dramatically changing the story.

Combat System
With an assortment of weapons, ranging from daggers to bows, players will be able to engage in combat with dangerous enemies, whether they be in a dungeon or part of a questline. Each weapon and spell will inform the player what attacks it can perform and how much Stamina or Magicka they’ll have to spend to use them. The player will roll the custom dice and attempt to overcome each weapon’s specific Skill Tests; hitting with heavier weapons is bound to be harder than hitting with lighter weapons. Combat is fast, exciting, and deadly, although strategy is a key factor to success. Some enemies, in fact, will employ unorthodox tactics, including the ability to heal themselves or wear nearly impenetrable armors.

Dungeon Crawling
Players can visit increasingly dangerous caves, mines, tombs, ruins, and Dwemer cities across Skyrim. Dungeons are built with cards each representing a major threat in that area of the dungeon. It might be a terrifying Draugr or a surprise trap that, if you’re lucky, one of the characters may be capable of disabling. As the characters level up, the lower-level adversaries are discarded, scaling the difficulty of the dungeons along with the player’s level. The more you visit a certain type of dungeon, the more likely you will see its more fearsome denizens, albeit with better rewards!

Cooperative
The whole game is fully cooperative. Players are encouraged to discuss their strategies and to collaborate to advance in their own storylines. Each player will be following their own storyline, joining together at the end of each chapter, when their plots are woven together into an epic finale for the whole party.
There are some situations where characters, even if they have the same overall goal, find themselves on opposite sides of a struggle, and may interfere with each other as they progress. This gives an interesting layer of light competitive gameplay, whilst still keeping the cooperative nature of the game in the forefront.
Expansions
The Dawnguard expansion will add a third campaign with three additional chapters to play through, new characters, dungeon adversaries, treasures, events, and more. One of our expansions will make the Ghosts of the Blades haunt you throughout Skyrim during the first Campaign of the game and another threatens devastation to Skyrim in the form of a great dragon! There is much more to be revealed through the Gamefound campaign. The team has planned for a massive upgrade kit converting all the wandering monsters over to 32mm scale plastic miniatures which are all compatible in scale with the miniatures game The Elder Scrolls Call to Arms. More information will be revealed in the run-up to the launch of the board game


All in all, the Elder Scrolls Skyrim Adventure Game will offer players dozens and dozens of hours of adventure exploring the game world. Expansions will ensure there’s even more Skyrim to be had.

Game Mechanics:

  • Campaign
  • Cooperative
  • Dice Rolling
  • Narrative Choice
  • Role Playing

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 60 – 120 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.32

Shogun Big Box

Shogun Big Box

Shogun Big Box

Shogun Big Box includes the base game of Shogun and its expansion Shogun: Tenno’s Court, as well as three small modules: SamuraiMilitary Leaders and Chambers, with the latter two unique to this release.

With Samurai, each player receives a stack of cards showing progressively better bonuses. At the beginning of each round, if a player controls provinces in at least four regions, they reveal the next card in their stack and select one of the bonuses depicted on it. These bonuses include war chests, armies placed directly into the tower tray, rice and victory points.

With Military Leaders, every player is given one military leader figure to place on one of their controlled provinces. A player’s leader provides extra benefits for performing actions in their province, such as reducing the cost for buildings or providing extra resources when collecting rice or taxes. At the end of a player’s turn, they move their leader to an adjacent province they control and leave a marker at the old location – if they don’t control any provinces adjacent to where their leader is, they move their leader to any of their controlled provinces without leaving a marker behind. The more markers a player has on the board at the end of the game, the more points will be awarded!

For Chambers, many offices have to be taken in order to rule the land. At the beginning of each round, six chamber markers are revealed and placed on the corresponding spaces on the chamber tableau, representing available offices that can be filled by the players. Whoever controls the most provinces in each region can fill the position by exchanging the chamber marker on the tableau with one of their own player markers. At the end of the game, players are awarded extra points for majorities in horizontal and vertical lines on the chamber tableau.

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Control
  • Area Movement
  • Auction/Bidding
  • Economic

Game Specifications:

  • 3 – 5 Players
  • 120 – 150 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.25

Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective

Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective

Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective

Have you ever had the desire to walk the streets of Victorian London with Sherlock Holmes in search of Professor Moriarty? To search the docks for the giant rat of Sumatra? To walk up Baker Street as the fog is rolling in and hear Holmes cry out, “Come, Watson, come! The game is afoot!”? Now you can! You can enter the opium den beneath the Bar of Gold, but beware, that may be Colonel Sebastian Moran lurking around the corner. You can capture the mystery and excitement of Holmes’ London in this challenging and informative game. You, the player, will match your deductive abilities against your opponents and the master sleuth himself, Sherlock Holmes.

In Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective, you are presented with a mystery to solve, and it is then up to you to trace the threads of evidence through the byways and mansions of nineteenth century London. You will interview suspects, search the newspapers for clues, and put together the facts to reach a solution.

Why were two lions murdered in Hyde Park? Who is responsible for the missing paintings from the National Gallery? Who murdered Oswald Mason and why? These are just a few of the cases that will challenge your ingenuity and deductive abilities.

This is not a board game: No dice, no luck, but a challenge to your mental ability. The game has been thoroughly researched for Holmesian and Victorian accuracy so as to capture a feeling of that bygone era.

Game Mechanics:

  • Cooperative
  • Deduction
  • Narrative Choice
  • Storytelling

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 8 Players
  • 60 – 120 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.68

The Shared Dream

The Shared Dream

The Shared Dream

Of Dreams and Magic: The Shared Dream is a cooperative board game for 2-4 players. In The Shared Dream, players take on the role of Anima, special people who can make their dreams (and nightmares) real in the waking world. All of the players have awoken to find that they all had the same dream and parts of it (good and bad) are coming to life. The players must re-experience their shared dream in the waking world while avoiding or destroying the nightmarish creatures that have sprung from that same dream.

In game terms, the players must follow the instructions on the chosen “Shared Dream” card in an attempt to prevent the nightmares from that dream from spreading to the innocent sleepers of the city. This generally includes traveling through the city to find clues, destroying shadows and reavers, and taking on a nemesis born from the shared dream.

Game Mechanics:

  • Action Points
  • Cooperative
  • Dice Rolling

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 90 – 120 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.25

Shards of the Jaguar

Shards of the Jaguar

Shards of the Jaguar

Shards of the Jaguar is a competitive “dungeon-deduction” game, which requires both strategic and tactical thinking. It is about an initiation trial where you and your fellow initiates have to prove that you are worthy of your tribe’s legendary animal’s, the Jaguar’s power.

The Jaguar was the defender of the tribe in the ancient times, but on a fateful day it got struck by a terrible curse and was broken into crystal shards.

The Shards of the Jaguar are still to be found in the Sacred Temple among the mountains, and the initiation trial is about to seek them and incorporate their power. But your journey will not be that easy. The temple is filled with perilous traps, and you have to learn how to use them, if you want to acquire the Jaguar’s hunting instinct.

Try to foresee what the others will do and set clever traps against them. Collect precious crystal shards, mystical amulets and map pieces leading to the Heart of the Jaguar. Outsmart the others and be the best in this trial to become the heir of the Jaguar, the defender of the tribe!

Shards of the Jaguar has eight rounds, and in each round, each player sets a trap secretly (Poisonous Gas/Darts/Guards/Earthquake), and then each player moves their character in the temple spending action points. You can move, take crystal shards, perform rituals and heal yourself in your turn for the action points. But move carefully! Each space on the game board could contain a secret trap – activated by another player – so you have to pay attention to each other’s movements to be able to find out which traps will be activated and so which spaces are safe for that round.

After each player spent their action points, you activate the traps and check who got hit by them (gathering different negative effects). If you were able to hit another player with your trap, you get glory points, as you are worthy of the Jaguar’s hunting instinct. At the end of the game you count the points you get for the crystal shards, the glory points for the successful traps, and the player with the most points wins the game.

Game Mechanics:

  • Action Drafting
  • Action Points
  • Deduction
  • Grid Movement
  • Racing

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • ~90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.36

The Shadow Planet

The Shadow Planet

The Shadow Planet

In strange and remote regions of space, death may not be the worst end…

A group of astronauts on a rescue mission lands on a desolate planet to learn the fate of a long-lost scientific vessel. With little over a day to investigate what happened, they discover that the planet itself and the encountered survivors hide horrible secrets that might endanger humanity.

The Shadow Planet: The Board Game is a sci-fi game of alien horror, based on a beautifully illustrated, Italian graphic novel by Blasteroid Brothers and designed by Giacomo and Gianluca Santopietro, the authors responsible for Letters from Whitechapel. It perfectly blends the idea of hidden identities with a completely revolutionary approach to the deck-building genre, thus offering you a unique gaming experience and a chance to use a completely different strategy every time to play.

Draw your secret goal and use six different characters to achieve it. Deceive your rivals and control the flow of the game through cunning management of different decks. Move around various locations on the planet to gain powerful cards or use special abilities, but remember that they will also benefit your opponents, who can acquire the very same deck you’re trying to modify. Play over the table, look for allies, and identify the alien threat before it proves too powerful… unless you’re the creature trying to leave the planet! Save humanity… or save yourself.

Game Mechanics:

  • Cooperative
  • Deck Building
  • Hand Management
  • Hidden Roles

Game Specifications:

  • 3 – 5 Players
  • ~90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.86