Category: Ω Board Games

Bargain Quest

| T3d-1978

Bargain Quest is a game of adventure and capitalism for 2-6 players. Players will take the role of shopkeepers in an adventuring town plagued by monsters. Players must draft items and then secretly choose which items to place in their windows to attract wealthy heroes to their shops.

Once all heroes have been equipped, they venture out to battle against monstrous threats, earning money and prestige for the shop they represent. Throughout the game players will encounter new heroes and monsters while upgrading their shops and hiring employees. Once the third monster is defeated the player who has earned the most gold and prestige is the winner.

Game Mechanics:

  • Auction/Bidding
  • Closed Drafting
  • Hand Management
  • Open Drafting
  • Take That

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 6 Players
  • 30 – 60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.01

Bad Company

| T3d-1978

Build your own gang and customize it to suit your plans. Gather resources to complete heists and money to recruit new gang members. And make sure you escape the police! A unique and fun game from the award-winning designers of Automania and Trails of Tucana.

Bad Company supports up to 6 players with very little downtime. It also includes a solo mode where you try to outsmart the police.

Each player has a player board with 11 gang members. You may upgrade them by placing overlapping cards onto them. This way, the visual appearances of your gang members change as they gain more abilities.

Each round, the active player rolls four dice and divides them into two pairs (pay coins to reroll). Each pair of dice activates one gang member on the active player’s board. All other players may use one of the pairs to activate a single gang member on their own boards.

Activating a gangster provides resources needed to complete heists, money to upgrade your gang members, or advance your car through the city.
You want to advance your car, because you need to stay ahead of the police in order to collect loot along the city route.

You gain points by completing heists, upgrading your gang and by driving your car through the city.
Some completed heists provide special abilities which you can build your strategy around.

The game ends when a player completes their 6th heist, or when any car reaches the dock on the city track, and the player with the most points wins.

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Majority / Influence
  • Contracts
  • Dice Rolling
  • Set Collection
  • Solo / Solitaire Play
  • Variable Set-up

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 6 Players
  • ~30 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.92

Back to the Future: Back In Time

| T3d-1978

“Wait a minute, Doc, are you telling me you built a time machine…out of a DeLorean?”

The photo of the McFly family is slowly fading… It’s 1955, and you’re wrapped up in a time paradox with Biff, Lorraine, George, and Doc Brown! Cooperate to move around Hill Valley to get the DeLorean ready, avoid Biff and his gang, help George and Lorraine fall in love, and crank the DeLorean up to 88 MPH — all just in time for the lightning to strike the Clock Tower, sending you back to the future!

In the fully co-operative game Back to the Future: Back in Time, each player takes on the role of a major character from the movie: Marty McFly, Doc Brown, Jennifer Parker, or Einstein the dog. The objective of the game is to have the characters move around 1955 Hill Valley, collecting certain items in an effort to fix Doc’s famous DeLorean time machine, defeat Biff Tannen and his gang of trouble-making friends, while ensuring that Marty’s parents fall in love. Only when that is accomplished can players then accelerate the DeLorean to 88 MPH down Main Street before the clock tower strikes 10:04 pm!

Game Mechanics:

  • Cooperative
  • Dice Rolling
  • Push Your Luck
  • Variable Player Powers

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • ~50 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.40

Babylonia

| T3d-1978

The Neo-Babylonian empire, especially under the reign of Nebuchadnezzar II (605-562 B.C.), was a period of rebirth for southern Mesopotamia. Irrigation systems improved and expanded, increasing agricultural production. Urban life flourished with the creation of new cities, monuments and temples, and the consequent increase in trade.

In Babylonia, you try to make your clan prosper under the peace and imperial power of that era. You have to place your nobles, priests, and craftsmen tokens on the map to make your relations with the cities as profitable as possible. Properly placing these counters next to the court also allows you to gain the special power of some rulers. Finally, the good use of your peasants in the fertile areas gives more value to your crops. The player who gets the most points through all these actions wins.

Game Mechanics:

  • Abstract Strategy
  • Area Control
  • Hand Management
  • Network Building
  • Tile Placement

Game Specifications:

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

Azul: Summer Pavilion

| T3d-1978

At the turn of the 16th Century, King Manuel I commissioned Portugal’s greatest artisans to construct grandiose buildings. After completing the Palaces of Evora and Sintra, the king sought to build a summer pavilion to honor the most famous members of the royal family. This construction was intended for the most talented artisans — whose skills meet the splendor that the royal family deserves. Sadly, King Manuel I died before construction ever began.

In Azul: Summer Pavilion, players return to Portugal to accomplish the task that never began. As a master artisan, you must use the finest materials to create the summer pavilion while carefully avoiding wasting supplies. Only the best will rise to the challenge to honor the Portuguese royal family.

Azul: Summer Pavilion lasts six rounds, and in each round players draft tiles, then place them on their individual player board to score points. Each of the six colors of tiles is wild during one of the rounds.

At the start of each round, draw tiles at random from the bag to refill each of the five, seven, or nine factories with four tiles each. Draw tiles as needed to refill the ten supply spaces on the central scoring board. Players then take turns drafting tiles. You can choose to take all of the tiles of a non-wild color on a factory and place them next to your board; if any wild tiles are on this factory, you must take one of them. Place all remaining tiles in the center of the table. Alternatively, you can take all tiles of a non-wild color from the center of play; you must also take one wild tile, if present.

After all tiles have been claimed, players then take turns placing tiles on their individual boards. Each board depicts seven stars that would be composed of six tiles; each space on a star shows a number from 1-6, and six of the stars are for tiles of a single color while the seventh will be composed of one tile of each color. To place a tile on the blue 5, for example, you must discard five blue or wild tiles from next to your player board (with at least one blue being required), placing one blue tile in the blue 5 space and the rest in the discard tower. You score 1 point for this tile and 1 point for each tile within this star connected to the newly placed tile.

If you completely surround a pillar, statue, or window on your game board with tiles, you get an immediate bonus, taking 1-3 tiles from the central supply spaces and placing them next to your board. At the end of the round, you can carry over at most four tiles to the next round; discard any others, losing 1 point for each such tile.

After six rounds, you score a bonus for each of the seven stars that you’ve filled completely. Additionally, you score a bonus for having covered all seven spaces of value 1, 2, 3 or 4. You lose 1 point for each remaining tile unused, then whoever has the most points wins.

Game Mechanics:

  • Open Drafting
  • Pattern Building
  • Set Collection
  • Tile Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 30 – 45 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.07

Azul: Stained Glass of Sintra

| T3d-1978

Created by Michael Kiesling, Azul: Stained Glass of Sintra challenges players to carefully select glass panes to complete their windows while being careful not to damage or waste supplies in the process. The window panels are double-sided, providing players with a dynamic player board that affords nearly infinite variability!

Players can expect to discover new unique art and components in Azul: Stained Glass of Sintra, including translucent window pane pieces, a tower to hold discarded glass panes, and double-sided player boards and window pane panels, in addition to many other beautiful components!

Game Mechanics:

  • Open Drafting
  • Pattern Building
  • Set Collection
  • Tile Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 30 – 45 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.01

Atlantis Rising

| T3d-1978

The isle of Atlantis, your home, is sinking. Will you be able to save your people in time?

Atlantis Rising is a co-operative worker placement game in which you must work together with up to six other players to deploy citizens across your homeland, gathering resources in order to build a cosmic gate that can save your people. Workers placed close to the shoreline are more rewarding, but are more likely to be flooded and the actions lost.

Every turn, each player draws a misfortune card that will flood certain locations along the ever-shrinking Atlantis shoreline, or may otherwise work to undermine your efforts to save your people. So you must race to gather the necessary resources to build and power the gate, before the island disappears beneath the waves forever.

This edition contains all new art and graphic design, created to bring even more attention to the thematic setting of the game. The Athenians Attack phase has been replaced with the Wrath of the Gods phase, requiring more strategic planning and adding to the sense of urgency. Now, instead of placing workers in an Atlantean Navy, players must cooperatively decide to flood a set number of tiles at the end of each round. To further aid them in their task, Councilor player powers have been expanded and made more impactful, and the knowledge deck has similarly been revised and expanded. The variable gate components, once built, no longer offer one-time bonuses, but create new worker placement spots where players can send Atlantean workers to unleash actions to help save their island.

Game Mechanics:

  • Civilization
  • Cooperative
  • Dice Rolling
  • Push Your Luck
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 7 Players
  • 60 – 120 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.44

Ascension: Deckbuilding Game

| T3d-1978

Ascension: Deckbuilding Game — originally released as Ascension: Chronicle of the Godslayer — is a fast-paced deck-building game designed by Magic: The Gathering Pro Tour champions Justin Gary, Rob Dougherty, and Brian Kibler, with artwork by Eric Sabee.

Ascension is a deck-building game in which players spend Runes to acquire more powerful cards for their deck. It offers a dynamic play experience where players have to react and adjust their strategy accordingly. Each player starts with a small deck of cards, and uses those cards to acquire more and better cards for their deck, with the goal of earning the most Honor Points by gaining cards and defeating monsters.

Game Mechanics:

  • Deck Building
  • Hand Management
  • Open Drafting

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • ~30 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.14

Ascension Tactics: Miniatures Deckbuilding Game

| T3d-1978

Ascension Tactics is a revolutionary new game, pioneering a brand-new genre by combining the best of tactical miniatures games with the fast-paced strategy of deck-building games. Ascension Tactics brings the most iconic characters from the award-winning deck-building game to life as highly-detailed paintable 3D miniatures.

  • Many ways to play! Battle through the campaign mode or try the various PvP, Cooperative, and Solo Scenarios.
  • PvP drafting mode allows players to build their armies before a battle.
  • Players acquire cards from the ever-changing center row to power up their forces.
  • Even the smallest miniature can take down mighty beasts by gaining command points and equipping magical constructs.
  • No dice rolling required!

Game Mechanics:

  • Campaign
  • Cooperative
  • Deck Building
  • Solo / Solitaire Game

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 45 – 90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.54

Art Decko

| T3d-1978

Art Decko, first released as Promenade, is a light strategy game for 2 to 4 painting collectors in which you try to create a valuable deck of gold and painting cards over the course of play. These cards — gold and paintings — both count as currencies in the game, and you can use them to purchase more paintings, acquire more gold, and pay for exhibition space in a museum. Your long-term goal is to manipulate the market value of certain styles of artwork, while also earning points by placing paintings in the museum.

The game includes paintings from five styles of art — Art Nouveau, Pop Art, Renaissance, Surrealism, and Impressionism — and you start with five random painting cards in your deck. Each art style starts with a value of 1 gold for a painting. You also have five starting gold cards in your deck, with the cards being worth 1 or 2 gold, with some cards having a special ability on them.

To start the game, shuffle your deck, then take five cards in hand. Fill the four galleries with 2-3 random paintings each, then place two random 3-gold cards (each with a special power) in the bank, along with the deck of 5-gold cards. Paintings in galleries cost 1-8 gold, while gold cards cost 5 or 8 gold. On a turn, take two actions from these three choices, repeating an action, if desired:

• Haggle: Discard a card from your hand to draw two cards from your deck.
• Acquire: Pay the acquisition cost of a painting or gold card by discarding cards from your hand, then place that card in your discard pile. Increase the “market rating” of the painting’s art style or gold by the value listed in the gallery/bank. As the market rating of an art style increases, each painting in that style is worth more gold, effectively increasing its buying power; that art style is also worth more points at game’s end.
• Exhibit: Pay the exhibition cost for a gallery, then place a painting into that gallery that matches one of that gallery’s invitation markers. (A gallery might want, for example, 2 Impressionistic paintings, 1 Renaissance painting, and 1 painting of any type.) Mark that painting with one of your ownership tokens, then place the related invitation marker on the highest available victory point (VP) space, scoring those points for yourself immediately. That painting is now removed from your deck.

If you use the special ability on a gold card instead of its listed numerical value, remove that card from the game.

At the end of your turn, discard any number of cards from your hand, then refill your hand to five cards. If a gallery has no paintings in it, refill all of the galleries with 2-3 paintings, then replace each empty gallery’s cost token with the next highest one available. When at least twelve paintings are in the museum, the painting deck is empty, or an art style or gold reaches a market rating of 70, finish the round, then proceed to final scoring.

The value of gold depends on its market rating, with its value ratio ranging from 6:1 to 1:1. Each painting in your deck is worth 1-7 VPs depending on the market rating of its art style. Each exhibition space in the museum also has a random bonus that was revealed at the start of play, and you can earn additional points through these bonuses. In the end, the player with most VPs wins.

Game Mechanics:

  • Deck Building
  • Economic

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 45 – 60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.31