Category: Ω Board Games

Quadropolis

| T3d-1978
Quadropolis

Quadropolis

Each player builds their own metropolis in Quadropolis (first announced as City Mania), but they’re competing with one another for the shops, parks, public services and other structures to be placed in them.

The game lasts four rounds, and in each round players first lay out tiles for the appropriate round at random on a 5×5 grid. Each player has four architects numbered 1-4 and on a turn, a player places an architect next to a row or column in the grid, claims the tile that’s as far in as the number of the architect placed (e.g., the fourth tile in for architect #4), places that tile in the appropriately numbered row or column on the player’s 4×4 city board, then claims any resources associated with the tile (inhabitants or energy).

When a player takes a tile, a figure is placed in this now-empty space and the next player cannot place an architect in the same row or column where this tile was located. In addition, you can’t place one architect on top of another, so each placement cuts off play options for you and everyone else later in the round. After all players have placed all four architects, the round ends, all remaining tiles are removed, and the tiles for the next round laid out.

After four rounds, the game ends. Players can move the inhabitants and energy among their tiles at any point during the game to see how to maximize their score. At game end, they then score for each of the six types of buildings depending on how well they build their city — as long as they have activated the buildings with inhabitants or energy as required:

  • Residential buildings score depending on their height
  • Shops score depending on how many customers they have
  • Public services score depending on the number of districts in your city that have them
  • Parks score depending on the number of residential buildings next to them
  • Harbors score based on the longest row or column of activated harbors in the city
  • Factories score based on the number of adjacent shops and harbors

Some buildings are worth victory points (VPs) on their own, and once players sum these values with what they’ve scored for each type of building in their city, whoever has the highest score wins.

Game Mechanics:

  • City Building
  • Hand Management
  • Pattern Building
  • Set Collection
  • Tile Placement
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 30 – 60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.21

The Quacks of Quedlinburg

| T3d-1978
The Quacks of Quedlinburg

The Quacks of Quedlinburg

In The Quacks of Quedlinburg, players are charlatans — or quack doctors — each making their own secret brew by adding ingredients one at a time. Take care with what you add, though, for a pinch too much of this or that will spoil the whole mixture!

Each player has their own bag of ingredient chips. During each round, they simultaneously draw chips from their bags and add them to their pots. The higher the face value of the drawn chip, the further it is placed in the pot’s swirling pattern, increasing how much the potion will be worth. Push your luck as far as you can, but if you add too many cherry bombs, your pot will explode!

At the end of each round, players gain victory points and coins to spend on new ingredients, depending on how well they managed to fill up their pots. But players whose pots have exploded must choose points or coins — not both! The player with the most victory points at the end of nine rounds wins the game.

Game Mechanics:

  • Bag Building
  • Dice Rolling
  • Push Your Luck

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • ~45 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.95

The Pursuit of Happiness

| T3d-1978
The Pursuit of Happiness

The Pursuit of Happiness

We all have one common desire: the desire for happiness. As we build our life, taking steps towards the pursuit of happiness, we come closer to the realization that happiness lies in the pursuit.

The Pursuit of Happiness is a game in which you take a character from birth and you live the life you always wanted. Using a worker-placement mechanism with time as your workers, you take on projects, you get jobs, you buy items, you establish relationships, you raise families. The possibilities are endless as you live the life you have always wanted.

How much will you be able to achieve in just one lifetime during The Pursuit of Happiness?

Game Mechanics:

  • Economic
  • Open Drafting
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 60 – 90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.50

Psycho Killer

| T3d-1978
Psycho Killer

Psycho Killer

In the deck, there are 5 cards for the psycho killer and cards for the weapons he uses to attack you.

Your turn consists of playing as many cards as you like from your hand but must end by you drawing a card from the top of the deck. However, you do not need to play a card to draw from the deck.

If someone draws a Psycho Killer card they must play it on the table in front of them, unless they can evade the Psycho Killer. If they cannot, every player with a weapon card in their hand gets attacked.

When attacked, players must place their Weapon cards face up on the table in front of them. These are called Injury Piles.

Each Psycho Killer and Weapon card is worth a certain amount of points. When they are added to your injury pile they become Injury Points. The game ends when the last Psycho Killer card is drawn and the player with the lowest amount of injury points wins.

Psycho Killer satirises your favourite retro horror and slasher films. Use every cliche in the book to screw over your friends and survive the Psycho Killer!

Game Mechanics:

  • Hand Management
  • Party Game
  • Take That

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 6 Players
  • 15 – 30 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.00

The Princess Bride: Adventure Book Game

| T3d-1978
The Princess Bride: Adventure Book Game

The Princess Bride: Adventure Book Game

Inconceivable! Climb the Cliffs of Insanity, brave the Fire Swamp, and help Buttercup, Westley, Fezzik, and Inigo Montoya survive the dastardly machinations of Prince Humperdinck, Count Rugen, and Vizzini. Follow the incredible story of The Princess Bride through six chapters and work together to keep the plot on course despite Shrieking Eels, kissing, and constant interruptions! Will the forces of evil — or true “wove” — prevail?

In The Princess Bride Adventure Book Game, players work together to advance the plot and tell all six chapters despite interruptions from a sick grandson. Each chapter is represented by a new board within a “book” of game boards. Instead of each player controlling a single character, players cooperate to complete challenges by moving characters and discarding story cards from their hand.

Each chapter has a series of challenges that require characters to be in specific locations and specific story cards to be discarded from a player’s hand. All challenges must be completed before players can advance to the next chapter. A chapter can be interrupted by different story-based conditions or by the grandson. Players have one more chance to complete the story after an interruption, or they lose the game. Special story cards earned as a reward for completing challenges as well as miracle tokens give players more options and help them along the way.

The Princess Bride Adventure Book Game includes paintable miniatures for Westley, Princess Buttercup, Prince Humperdinck, Count Rugen, Vizzini, Inigo Montoya, and Fezzik.

Game Mechanics:

  • Action Points
  • Area Movement
  • Campaign
  • Cooperative
  • Hand Management
  • Move Through Deck
  • Pick-Up and Deliver

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 15 – 90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.92

Power Plants

| T3d-1978
Power Plants

Power Plants

Every wizard in the neighborhood knows that the best spell components are grown fresh. Unfortunately, only one particular plot of fertile soil in the area is the best for growing magical plants. Everyone agrees to “share” the garden, but you have a plan: Your team of loyal sprites will use the powers of the plants to infiltrate the garden as it grows, so that when everything is in full bloom, the most potent patches will belong to you!

In Power Plants, you are a wizard growing a shared garden of magical plants with your rivals. Each turn, you choose one of the patch tiles from your hand and add it to the growing garden. You can activate the added tile for its dynamic “plant” power or activate all the tiles it touches for their slightly weaker (but still very cool) “grow” powers. As the fields expand, you strategically deploy your sprites to gain control of more and more of the fantastic flora. Will your magical horticulture skills pay off?

Manipulate the garden’s growth, gather magical gems, and deploy your team of loyal sprites to repel your competition and be in control of the most valuable fields when the garden is complete!

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Control
  • Puzzle
  • Tile Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 5 Players
  • ~30 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.35

Polynesia

| T3d-1978
Polynesia

Polynesia

The frequent tremors, the looming clouds over the crater, and the ever-increasing smell of sulfur make it clear that it is time to escape. Direct your tribe through the waters of the Pacific in search of a new home, safe from the impending eruption of the volcano. Explore new sea routes that lead to unvisited islands, collect resources on those islands to offer to other tribes in exchange for their knowledge, and continue sailing in search of a safe place — all this being done to save as many of your tribe members as possible and lead them to new lands where they can prosper. The most successful individual through this difficult mission will be appointed the supreme chief of the Polynesian tribal group.

In Polynesia, players must save their tribe members from the dangers of the volcano by taking them to the islands that will give them the most points. At the same time, players must try to reach the objectives set by the tide cards, which will vary from one game to another. To succeed, players must collect resources in the form of fish and shells that will allow them to explore new sea routes, use the routes of other players, and sail from one island to another.

Polynesia is played in rounds, and each round is divided into two phases. In the action phase, each player has three turns in which they can perform one of three actions: sail, explore, or populate and fish. In the maintenance phase, the volcano activity is checked for activity, and each player can collect resources depending on the islands where they have tribe members.

Game Mechanics:

  • Network Building

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 60 – 75 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.40

Photograph

| T3d-1978
Photograph

Photograph

Time to walk about town and take some pictures! It’s the 1960s in Japan, and you have a half-size camera that lets you take half-size vertical pictures. Let’s see whether you can put together good shots…

In Photograph!, you’re trying to organize pictures on your roll so that they appear in the right order. Each player has a hand of cards, and on a turn, you’ll add 1-3 cards to the front of your hand (without changing their order), move one card in your hand closer to the front, then discard as many cards from the back of your hand as the number of cards that you added. When the sunset card comes out, you can take no more pictures, and everyone scores for what’s on their camera.

The cards all have numbers and colors on them, and you try to line them up in hand to score the most points possible.

Game Mechanics:

  • Hand Management
  • Open Drafting
  • Set Collection

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • ~20 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.07

Plague Inc.

| T3d-1978
Plague Inc.

Plague Inc.

Each player is a deadly disease and they must battle against each other to spread their plagues, develop new symptoms and ultimately wipe out humanity.

Starting with Patient Zero, you spread your infection across the world by placing tokens in cities – earning DNA points and preventing other players from becoming dominant. Players choose which countries are placed on the board but you must be both climate resistant and connected to a country before you can infect it. Eventually, as countries become fully infected – you try to kill them using the Death Dice.

Each player’s unique pathogen can be upgraded by evolving trait cards onto an evolution slide (with DNA points). At the start, your disease is weak and unspecialised, so you will need to add new symptoms to make it stronger. Choose carefully and plan ahead in order to react to the changing world and exploit opportunities created by other player’s actions.

A simple nosebleed could accelerate things early on, whilst diarrhea will help you thrive in hot countries. Sneezing can infect new continents by air but Total Organ Failure would allow you wipe out multiple countries each turn.

As countries start to fall, use powerful event cards to alter the balance of power. You might try to eradicate a dominant player by bombing their diseased cities, or hold the Olympics to cause huge numbers of infected people to travel to a healthy continent.

When the world collapses, who will be the ultimate plague?

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Control
  • Hand Management
  • Network Building
  • Take That
  • Tile Placement
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • ~60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.15

Pie Town

| T3d-1978
Pie Town

Pie Town

Welcome to Pie Town, a community built on apples and butter. Business here is no cake walk, so manage your operation well and keep your secret recipe secret.

Pie Town is a worker-dice placement game with hidden information. You need to manage your constantly changing workforce to harvest, bake, and sell pies while deducing other players’ secret recipes! Now is your chance to become the best pie shop in town!

Game Mechanics:

  • Deduction
  • Dice Rolling
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 60 – 90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.33