Category: Ω Board Games

Gods Love Dinosaurs

Gods Love Dinosaurs

Gods Love Dinosaurs

How do you make an ecosystem flourish with just enough of every life form in the chain to supply you with dinosaurs to dominate the lands? Resources are scarce, animals can go extinct in an area, and everyone must eat to survive — so moves must be cunning. Life hangs in the balance…

In Gods Love Dinosaurs, a cheeky, wild, and timeless take on the scientific tale as old as life itself, you are a god who has been tasked with designing an ecosystem with a sustainable food chain of predator and prey animals. But you just love dinosaurs, so all you really want to do is to make as many of them as possible!

Each turn, you’ll add one tile to your ecosystem, which will add new animals and give them room to grow. Every so often, your dinosaurs will tromp around your ecosystem eating all the animals. The more they eat, the more eggs they lay — and the more points you score! Just be careful not to overeat, or there won’t be enough food to keep your dinosaurs alive the next time.

Game Mechanics:

  • Abstract Strategy
  • Grid Movement
  • Open Drafting
  • Tile Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 5 Players
  • 30 – 45 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.38

God of War: The Card Game

God of War: The Card Game

God of War: The Card Game

Ragnarök is coming. The fate of all existence is at stake. Is destruction inevitable, or are there ways to avoid ultimate cataclysm? The Norns, mystical beings of great power, have decided they will not go quietly into oblivion and have turned their attention to the well of Fate, Urðr, in order to find any possible way to stop Ragnarök. Looking deep into the swirling waters, they can foresee which potential combination of heroes, villains, battles, victories, and defeats might stop the end of all that is known — but will they find the right combination in time? Is there any true path to salvation at all? They must hurry and seek the true way through, before all is lost.

In God of War: The Card Game, players take on the role of the Norns as they try different combinations of heroes and events in order to stop Ragnarök. Each game is a new attempt to find the right key to saving Midgard from destruction. Players must work together, embodying mighty heroes such as Kratos, Mimir, Atreus, Brok and Sindri, and Freya. They will fight enemies and bosses from the popular God of War video game, but combined and remixed in exciting new ways, creating unique “What if…?” scenarios each time they play. If they succeed, the way forward has been secured and Ragnarök can be halted. Failure means the Norns will have to try again as only death and destruction lay along that particular path.

Each quest in God of War: The Card Game is made up of a mosaic of cards that recreate monsters and locations from the video game. Each quest’s mosaic is different, and each card is double-sided, depending on whether a section has been destroyed or not, and each has special rules that go into effect when it is face up on the tabletop. Learning how each quest is won, as well as what strategy to employ, is key to victory.

As players progress, earlier quests have an effect on what comes after them. At certain points along their path, players must choose which quest they will complete. Completing one might grant a bonus, but quests left untouched result in dire permanent consequences as the players move forward. These choices and challenges lead to new strategies, making it so no two games of God of War: The Card Game are alike.

Heroes in the game have several elements that make them unique. Each comes with their own dashboard that explains their special abilities and health totals, in addition to tracking the number of cards a player can keep in their hand from round to round. Tokens are used to keep everything clear as heroes gain and lose health and build up their power so they can unleash a mighty special attack. Heroes begin the game with a unique starting deck of cards that will be augmented from additional decks as the game progresses. Players can construct their deck to focus on their strengths or look for ways to generalize their approach, preparing for future quests that lie ahead. Each hero also has a unique standee that indicates which portion of the mosaic they are facing. With multiple heroes from which to choose, numerous ways to build their deck, and various different quests to attempt, each game of God of War: The Card Game will be a new experience that will echo throughout eternity.

Game Mechanics:

  • Cooperative
  • Deck Building

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 90 – 180 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.57

Goblin Firework Fight

Goblin Firework Fight

Goblin Firework Fight

Goblins have come to the town of Sandpoint, intent upon stealing their fireworks for an upcoming festival. Do you have the goblin grit to pillage your way to victory and emerge from the town with the most fireworks?

The game is played over a number of rounds. Each round, every goblin takes a turn pulling a loot token from the town’s treasure pile. These tokens might represent useful tools or valuable treasure like fireworks, dogslicers (goblin knives), or shields. Unfortunately, the tribe’s most fearsome beast, a pig called Squealy Nord, is also hiding in the treasure, bringing mayhem and chaos to any who draw his token from the pile. You never know what you might get.

Fighty goblins can choose dogslicers and just steal from their neighbors instead of raiding the village. Smart goblins will take some shields to defend themselves from their peers. Crafty goblins with leadership qualities may choose instead to take the badge of leadership, the Pickle Token, signifying for all their prominence and importance as well as the right to pick first next time.

After 10 rounds and one last free for all opportunity to steal from each other on the way back home, one goblin is declared the “bestest goblin of the raid” and basks in glory and the admiration of their peers. Until the next raid…

Game Mechanics:

  • Open Drafting
  • Party Game
  • Take That

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 20 – 30 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.00

Glow

Glow

Glow

In Glow, you are an adventurer who builds their company by recruiting a new traveling companion each turn, trying to combine their powers as best as possible. You’ll roll the dice to activate the advantages that your companions bring you…or their disadvantages. Gather many slivers of light to dispel the darkness, restore the colors, travel the land to reach landmarks, and (yes) score points.

In short, Glow is a card-drafting, dice-rolling, and combinations game. The box contains lots of colorful dice, two game boards for two different gaming experiences. You have also to count on luck sometimes, but be attentive to your card combinations, too.

Game Mechanics:

  • Dice Rolling
  • Open Drafting
  • Push Your Luck
  • Set Collection

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • ~45 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.03

Gizmos

Gizmos

Gizmos

The smartest minds of our generation are gathering together at the Great Science Fair. Everyone’s been working hard on their creations, but only one will be crowned champion. Contestants have to think on the fly to build their machines quickly and efficiently. Whose project will be the best?

In Gizmos, you win the game by gaining victory points from building engines. And engines help you get things done faster. Whoever builds the greatest machine and collects the most victory points wins!

At the beginning of the game, you have 4 actions:

  • File: Put a card in the public to your Archive, allow you to build it later.
  • Pick: Take one energy marble from the 3D marble dispenser to your storage.
  • Build: Build one machine and put it on action! You have to pay the marbles with colors corresponding to the card cost.
  • Research: Draw some cards, and you can then File or Build one of the drawn cards. The rest go to the bottom of their deck.

Machines give you victory points and allow you to do more actions when conditions are met. As you build, new attachments can trigger chain reactions, letting you do even more on your turn.

Game Mechanics:

  • Open Drafting
  • Tableau Building

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 40 – 50 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.01

Geek Out! Disney

Geek Out! Disney

Geek Out! Disney

Geek Out! is a party game that can determine once and for all which player is the most knowledgeable about your favorite pop culture subjects!

In the game, you draw cards asking you to list a certain number of things which fall under a certain category: comic books, fantasy, games, science fiction, and miscellaneous. Before you begin, however, the other players may try to steal your points (and bragging rights!) by bidding to list even more than the card requires. The bidding continues until one player is ready to “out-geek” their friends. Collect a predetermined number of cards, and you win!

Geek Out! Disney features 350 questions about ninety years of Disney productions.

Game Mechanics:

  • Auction/Bidding
  • Dice Rolling
  • Party Game
  • Trivia

Game Specifications:

  • 2 -99 Players (You could honestly have more)
  • ~30 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.00

Gates of Delirium

Gates of Delirium

Gates of Delirium

You have finally set out to find the truth. You’ve heard the rumors of ancient runes and the lost pages of a scattered tome that tell of ancient and evil monstrosities, calling for their return. You’ve heard tales of those who came before you in this search losing grip on their sanity as they grew nearer to the truth. As you press on, you can’t help but notice that you feel less attached to reality yourself. Some days you lose track of time and can’t account for hours of the day. The whispers of secret gates to another world are growing stronger, and while no one knows who is building them, you have a dreadful hunch…

Could you be the hidden architect of the Gates of Delirium?

In Gates of Delirium, players have a hand of split action cards: one side sane, and the other insane. Every round, one player decides whether the round is sane or insane, and all players must play that side of their cards. During sane rounds, players search for maps and lost pages to a secret tome, while assigning investigators to help them in their cause. During insane rounds, players collect ancient runes and work to build gates to release the monstrosities that their sane selves have been trying so hard to understand and prevent. Earn the most victory points by the time the last monstrosity is released to win Gates of Delirium.

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Control
  • Hand Management
  • Set Collection

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 30 – 45 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.00

Ganymede

Ganymede

Ganymede

Ganymede is a development and tableau-building game in which players are corporations specialized in sending settlers to colonize the universe. To do so, you will recruit settlers on Earth, use shuttles to transport them to Mars, then to Ganymede where the settlers’ ships launch base is located.

The game ends when a player has launched four settlers’ ships into space. Players score VP from their launched ships and from their reputation track.

Game Mechanics:

  • Open Drafting
  • Pick-Up and Deliver
  • Set Collection
  • Tableau Building

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 20 – 40 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.30

Galaxy Trucker

Galaxy Trucker

Galaxy Trucker

In a galaxy far, far away… they need sewer systems, too. Corporation Incorporated builds them. Everyone knows their drivers — the brave men and women who fear no danger and would, if the pay was good enough, even fly through Hell.

Now you can join them. You will gain access to prefabricated spaceship components cleverly made from sewer pipes. Can you build a space ship durable enough to weather storms of meteors? Armed enough to defend against pirates? Big enough to carry a large crew and valuable cargo? Fast enough to get there first?

Of course you can. Become a Galaxy Trucker. It’s loads of fun.

Galaxy Trucker is a tile laying game that plays out over two phases: building and flying. The goal is to have the most credits at the end of the game. You can earn credits by delivering goods, defeating pirates, building an efficient ship, and being the furthest along the track at the end of the flying phase.

Building happens in real time and has players build their personal space ships by grabbing tiles from the middle of the table before the timer runs out. Tiles start out facedown so they won’t know what they have until they take it, but they may choose to return it faceup if they don’t want it. They must place the tiles they keep in a legal manner in their space ship. Usually this just means lining up the connectors appropriately (single to single, double to double, universal to anything) but also includes proper positioning of guns and engines. Tiles represent a variety of things including guns, engines, storage containers, crew cabins, shields, and batteries. They may also peek at the cards they will encounter in phase 2, but they must sacrifice building time to do this. At any time players may call their ships finished and take an order marker from the center.

Once building is completed, and ships have been checked for errors, the flight begins. The flight cards are shuffled and player markers are placed on the flight board according to the order markers taken. Cards are revealed one at a time and players interact with them in order. They may include things such as pirates, abandoned vessels, disease outbreaks, meteor showers, worlds with goods to pick up, player-on-player combat zones, and other various things.

Most of the cards will cause players to move back on the flight track and they must decide if the delay is worth their efforts. When all the cards are encountered players sell any goods they have collected, collect their rewards for finishing in first, second, or third place or having the most intact ship, and then lose some credits for damaged components. Space can be a very dangerous place and it is not uncommon to see your ship break into smaller and smaller pieces or lose some very valuable cargo off the side. If your ship gets damaged too much you can get knocked out of the race, so be careful!

3 rounds of this are done, and in each round players get a bigger board to build a ship that can hold more components. After the 3rd round the player with the most credits wins!

Game Mechanics:

  • Dice Rolling
  • Team Based
  • Tile Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 20 – 30 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.38

G.I. Joe the Deck Building Game

G.I. Joe the Deck Building Game

G.I. Joe the Deck Building Game

In G.I. JOE Deck-Building Game, you and your fellow players will lead teams of G.I. JOE soldiers on missions to stop Cobra’s dastardly plans! Each player starts the game with a meager deck that will grow more powerful as you recruit veterans from the G.I. JOE team, requisition gear, and field new vehicles. This fully co-operative game pits you against increasingly dangerous missions to save the world. This core set begins your journey with everything needed to play, but be prepared for more JOEs and missions to come!

Game Mechanics:

  • Cooperative
  • Deck Building

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 30 – 70 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.38