Category: Ω Board Games

Tales of the Arabian Nights

Tales of the Arabian Nights

Tales of the Arabian Nights

In Tales of the Arabian Nights, you are the hero or heroine in a story of adventure and wonder just like those told by Scheherazade to her spellbound sultan! You will travel the land seeking your own destiny and fortune. You will learn stories and gain wisdom to share with others. Will you be the first to fulfill your destiny? The next Tale is yours to tell! There is, of course, a winner in Tales of the Arabian Nights, but the point of the game is less to see who wins and more to enjoy the unfolding and telling of a great story!

In this new edition of the groundbreaking storytelling game, you enter the lands of the Arabian Nights alongside Sindbad, Ali Baba, and the other legendary heroes of the tales. Travel the world encountering imprisoned princesses, powerful ‘efreets, evil viziers, and such marvels as the Magnetic Mountain and the fabled Elephant’s Graveyard.

Choose your actions carefully and the skills you possess will reward you: become beloved, wealthy, mighty – even become sultan of a great land. Choose foolishly, however, and become a beggar, or be cursed with a beast’s form or become insane from terror! YOU will bring to life the stories of the inestimable Book of Tales in this vastly replayable board game with over 2002 tales that will challenge, amuse, astound and spellbind you for years to come

Game Mechanics:

  • Dice Rolling
  • Narrative Choice
  • Role Playing
  • Storytelling

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 6 Players
  • ~120 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.16

Takenoko

Takenoko

Takenoko

A long time ago at the Japanese Imperial court, the Chinese Emperor offered a giant panda bear as a symbol of peace to the Japanese Emperor. Since then, the Japanese Emperor has entrusted his court members (the players) with the difficult task of caring for the animal by tending to his bamboo garden.

In Takenoko, the players will cultivate land plots, irrigate them, and grow one of the three species of bamboo (Green, Yellow, and Pink) with the help of the Imperial gardener to maintain this bamboo garden. They will have to bear with the immoderate hunger of this sacred animal for the juicy and tender bamboo. The player who manages his land plots best, growing the most bamboo while feeding the delicate appetite of the panda, will win the game.

Game Mechanics:

  • Action Points
  • Dice Rolling
  • Grid Movement
  • Network Building
  • Pattern Building
  • Set Collection
  • Tile Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • ~45 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.97

Suspects

Suspects

Suspects

Suspects is a range of investigation games with streamlined rules and plots centered on the psychology of the characters in the style of Agatha Christie’s novels. The first opus will feature the ingenious and fearless Claire Harper in three stories that pay tribute to the great classics of detective literature!

Claire Harper was one of the first women to graduate from Oxford in 1927. Specializing in criminal law, she is also an adventurous traveler. Every mystery is an opportunity for her to test her formidable spirit of deduction and her unfailing determination! In this first episode, follow her in her investigations that will take her from grand manor houses to shady theaters and from Scotland to…Egypt!

Game Mechanics:

  • Cooperative
  • Deduction
  • Storytelling

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 6 Players
  • 60 – 90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.82

Survive: Space Attack!

Survive: Space Attack!

Survive: Space Attack!

Welcome to the height of technology and comfort, the Space Station Atlantis! All the comfort of a five star hotel, mixed with the adventure of space travel. The station is filled with staff, entertainers and guests trying to enjoy their out-of-this-world vacation. But all of a sudden, the Atlantis comes under attack by aliens!

After getting the guests to safety, the crew rushes to escape. Some will find space on the limited escape pods, others will board fighters and attempt to destroy the aliens. The unlucky ones will have to trust in their space suits and float for it. But with the alien Warriors, Spawns, and Queens patrolling the space around the station, it will not be an easy trip!

Who will be able to jump to safety?

Survive: Space Attack! utilizes similar base mechanics to the best-selling game Survive: Escape From Atlantis! designed by Julian Courtland-Smith. However, Survive: Space Attack! has been reimagined and redesigned by Brian, Sydney, and Geoff Englestein, the designers of Space Cadets and Space Cadets: Dice Duel and the expansions for these games.

Game Mechanics:

  • Action Points
  • Dice Rolling

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 45 – 60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.13

Super Fantasy Brawl

Super Fantasy Brawl

Super Fantasy Brawl

In the land of Fabulosa, powerful magics have rendered war obsolete. With nothing else to compete for, the bored populace has turned to the Super Brawl for entertainment. These same powerful magics are now used to reach back into the timelines to pluck out the finest warriors from every civilization in order to compete against each other in the greatest entertainment spectacle ever staged.

Super Fantasy Brawl is a fun, fast-paced competitive miniatures board game. Players select a team of three champions and combine their unique action cards to create a synergistic action deck. The game is faction-free, so players have their choice of any combination of champions they wish. Each turn, the players use their hand of action cards to maneuver, attack, displace enemies, and claim objectives to score victory points.

The objectives in Super Fantasy Brawl are only scored at the beginning of a players’ turn, ensuring that you always get a chance to disrupt your enemy’s plans and position your champions to score the objective for yourself. This tactical to-and-fro continues until one player reaches the victory point threshold, declaring themselves the winner and advancing towards victory in the Super Brawl tournament!

Super Fantasy Brawl will also offer a 2v2 mode for 4 players to clash in an all-out melee mashup!

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Control
  • Deck Building
  • Grid Movement
  • Hand Management
  • Team Based
  • Wargame

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 30 – 40 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.28

Summoner Wars

Summoner Wars

Summoner Wars

Summoner Wars puts you in the role of a powerful summoner in control of a unique army, dedicated to taking control of the war-torn planet of Itharia. Display your tactical prowess by summoning units to your gates, outmaneuvering your opponent, and cutting down the enemy summoner to claim victory. Be wary though! The enemy will take advantage of every opportunity they find to destroy you and your army.

Countless units, a wide variety of spells and abilities, and the option to build your own decks, all make for a game sure to entertain, play after play.

Game Mechanics:

  • Action Points
  • Deck Building
  • Dice Rolling
  • Grid Movement
  • Hand Management
  • Take That

Game Specifications:

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

Sudoku Board

Sudoku Board

Sudoku Board

In this variation of a game based on the Sudoku puzzle, a “host” (referee) sets up the board with the initial Sudoku puzzle (using one of the 162 puzzles supplied, broken into Easy, Medium, and Hard groups, or by using others found on the web site whose URL is provided in the instructions) by laying the numbered tiles on the blank Sudoku layout board. Players (or teams) take turns adding one tile (and only one tile) to the board.

Points are scored for correct placement based on the number of the tile laid (placing a “6” gets the player 6 points). Points are lost for misplayed tiles (placing a “6” incorrectly costs the player 6 points). A misplayed tile is removed from the board.

Bonus points are won or lost for correctly/incorrectly completing a row or column (5 points each) or a 3×3 block (15 points) or the whole puzzle (20 points).

Repeat until each player has had a turn being “host”, and the player with the most cumulative points wins.

Game Mechanics:

  • Deduction
  • Pattern Building
  • Puzzle Tile Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • ~30 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.83

Succulent

Succulent

Succulent

Your succulent garden is amazing! Through thoughtful selection, delicate pruning, and tireless care, you’ve earned a reputation as a master horticulturist. In Succulent, you compete against your peers for lucrative and prestigious projects that will cement your place as the community’s premier succulent gardener.

The game is played over a series of turns during which players collect succulent cuttings from their gardens along with water crystals and use them to complete projects which grant various benefits, including earning points. Most victory points at the end of the game wins!

Game Mechanics:

  • Abstract Strategy
  • Set Collection
  • Tile Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 45 – 60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.21

Sub Terra

Sub Terra

Sub Terra

A 1-6 player cooperative game of terrifying cave escape. Players take the role of amateur cavers attempting to escape an unexplored network of subterranean tunnels, before the lights flicker out or the darker things beneath the Earth catch up to them…

In Sub Terra players spend their turn exploring and revealing the tunnel system around them, attempting to survive the various perils of the cave, from floods and cave ins to gas leaks and scree. Players each have a role which gives them specialist abilities, such as an Engineer with dynamite to blast a new route or a Scout to find a route more easily.

New tiles are placed from a randomised stack of cave features, which determines whether you’ll be hit with a dead end or a range of new options.

At the end of each turn, players face the reality of their situation, with a hazard card drawn to determine what danger causes them damage or cuts off their way out of the horror below.

These cards are finite, and when they run out, your torches flicker and the air feels tight, and your chance of survival diminishes quickly.

Game Mechanics:

  • Action Points
  • Cooperative
  • Dice Rolling
  • Grid Movement
  • Push Your Luck
  • Tile Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 6 Players
  • ~60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.14

Stuffed Fables

Stuffed Fables

Stuffed Fables

Stuffed Fables is an unusual adventure game in which players take on the roles of brave stuffies seeking to save the child they love from a scheming, evil mastermind. Make daring melee attacks, leap across conveyor belts, or even steer a racing wagon down a peril-filled hill. The game delivers a thrilling narrative driven by player choices. Players explore a world of wonder and danger, unlocking curious discoveries. The chapters of Stuffed Fables explore the many milestones of a child’s life, creating a memorable tale ideal for families, as well as groups of adults who haven’t forgotten their childlike sense of wonder.

Stuffed Fables is the first “AdventureBook Game”, a new product line from Plaid Hat Games in which all of the action takes place in the unique storybook — a book that acts as your rules reference, story guide, and game board, all in one! Each adventure in the game takes place over several pages of the immersive AdventureBook. The book opens flat onto the table to reveal a colorful map or other illustration central to playing the game, with choices, story, and special rules on the opposite page.

On their turn, a player draws five dice from the bag. The colors of the dice drawn determine the types of actions and options available to the player. White dice can re-stuff stuffies injured in battle. Red dice perform melee attacks while green dice perform ranged attacks. Yellow dice search while blue dice are used for special actions and purple dice can be used as any color. Most dice can always find a strategic use, including moving, using items, or contributing to group tasks. Players can store dice for later, combine dice for stronger actions, or use them one-at-a-time for multiple activations. As turns go by, black dice are also drawn, and after enough appear, minions emerge or attack, and the dice bag is reset!

Players can encourage each other by sharing dice or their precious stuffing. In addition to fighting minions, each page of the storybook offers numerous points of interest, charming characters to interact or trade with, as well as many unusual challenges. And each page is but one chapter that folds into a branching, overarching story with a multitude of items and a special discovery deck full of surprises.

Game Mechanics:

  • Campaign
  • Cooperative
  • Dice Rolling
  • Role Playing
  • Storytelling

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 60 – 90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.43