What if all of world history had unfolded differently?
What if the great empires of our history had never come into being?
What if other forgotten civilizations had passed into posterity in their place?
The defeated could have been the victors, and the colonizers could have been the colonized — after all, empires are won and lost on a roll of the dice!
Game Mechanics:
Game Specifications:
Welcome to Fireball Island! You may have heard stories. You may have visited when you were younger. Perhaps you even saw a fireball engulf a fellow traveler in a hellscape of horror that makes you afraid to close your eyes at night. Whatever the case, welcome back! Turns out that Vul-Kar didn’t like having his gem stolen way back when, so there has been some volcanic upheaval, an explosion in our snake population, feral tigers, new types of trees bent on ending human life, and swarms of bees everywhere. But don’t worry — we have top people working on it.
Start your day of adventure at the helipad. Be sure to sign the waiver, which legally obligates you to take snapshots across the island. You’ll race down the many paths, avoiding hazards all the while. On the plus side, you get to keep all the treasure you find.
Fireball Island: The Curse of Vul-Kar is a restoration of the classic 1986 game Fireball Island that features a unique 3D island and a host of marble mayhem. This new version boasts an island that is even bigger than the original (and yet fits in a smaller box) and more marbles. It is a family-weight game for 2-4 players that plays in 30-45 minutes. Simple card play replaces the random roll-and-move of the original, and the set collection for the treasures offers some interesting choices for players.
Remember, you don’t have to outrun the fireball — just the other players.
Game Mechanics:
Game Specifications:
The Fantasy Fair is about to begin, and storybook characters from all over the realm are coming to town for the show. Everyone knows there’s only one place the visitors all want to stay: The Fairy Tale Inn!
It’s everyone’s favorite home away from home, and like always, the place is going to be fully booked. Each of the Inn’s two owners compete to be the one who takes the best care of the guests. They take turns ushering guests into enchanted rooms, gaining gold for strategic placement, and successfully keeping the guests from fighting. (Note to self: NEVER put Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf in adjoining rooms!)
In Fairy Tale Inn, two players try to earn the most gold coins by the end of the game. To set up, players select the character cards of guests who will be present during that game, then take the corresponding character tokens and toss them into the mixing bag. Next, players randomly draw those tokens to fill up the guest list board. After randomly choosing who goes first, the first player gets a gold coin, while the other player gets two. Now the game begins!
Game Mechanics:
Game Specifications:
Dungeon Party is a quick-play fantasy role-playing game played with coasters and a coin.
Dungeon Party is easy to learn, playable in a short time (or extended if that is desirable), has all of the aspects of a classic RPG adventure, and is playable in a bar, restaurant, or at home. The combat mechanism is fun and adds an element of luck and skill without much complexity. The game system is infinitely expandable.
Players will assemble a “dungeon” by creating a stack of coasters that includes rooms, monsters, and treasures. They then adventure through the dungeon by turning over tiles, battling the rooms, defeating the monsters, and looting the treasure. Along the way, they may pick up magical treasures or spells that can help them in their quest. If they survive the dungeon, the player with the most treasure points wins. If they do not, the dungeon wins. But either way, there will be laughs and maybe even a drink or two!
Battles are resolved by players trying to drop quarters on coasters. If they miss, players take hit damage. If they land on the coaster, the monsters take damage. Battles continue until either monster or player is eliminated.
Game Mechanics:
Game Specifications:
What would your house look like? Would you rather have a huge bedroom with an elegant canopy bed or a spacious living room with a grand piano? You are going to play a part of designers who will plan a house and add more and more rooms to it.
Dream Home is a family game about building and furnishing your new house. Over twelve rounds, players collect pairs of cards consisting of a room card and an accessory card (roof, helper, furnishing or tool) and place them on their personal boards, creating their dream homes.
At the end of the game, all players’ houses are finished and fully furnished. Players compare their houses, counting points for functionality, good design, quality of roof and furnishing. The player with the nicest and most comfortable house wins.
Game Mechanics:
Game Specifications:
Prepare to GUSH about your CRUSH!
Look into your heart and choose your favorite Crush, then guess who your friends are crushing on in this totally timeless fantasy dating game! Uncover sweet and strange secrets about prospective Crushes while navigating hilarious relationship milestones that will leave your feelings reeling as you play. Only by correctly predicting who makes your friends swoon will you live happily ever after with your own Dream Crush!
Inspired by the classic dating games of the past half-century or so, Dream Crush was brought to life by Found Footage Fest cofounder Nick Prueher, with graphic design by Chris Bilheimer and the Mondo team, original artwork by We Buy Your Kids, and incredible photography by Carli Davidson featuring a gorgeous cast of Crushes.
The game is played over five rounds: in each round, a Milestone Card with steadily increasing impact is revealed (ex: “They ask you to be on their bar trivia team” or “You must co-sign a lease with one Crush”. Next, a Secret about each Crush is revealed, lending insight into their unique personalities and lifestyles.
Each player secretly chooses a Crush to embark upon the Milestone with, writing it on their scorecard, while also predicting who their friends will pick. Once everyone has recorded their answers, players take turns revealing their choices, often engaging in passionate table-talk defending their decision-making process (which becomes more agonizing as the rounds pass).
All correct guesses count as points toward a total that will determine the winner at the end of the game.
Game Mechanics:
Game Specifications:
A fearsome dragon has trapped the princess in his tower. The prince and his companions rush to her aid. They must skillfully work together using their strong memory skills in order to rescue the princess before the dragon makes everything come crashing down.
Game Mechanics:
Game Specifications:
High-stakes bidding on million-dollar race cars. Frantic bets placed in secret even as the cars race around the track. And to the victor, the biggest purse of all. But in the world of motor racing, the margin between victory and defeat can be a single moment: a steep banked turn, tires screaming and spitting out smoke, and the downforce, pressing you down in your seat and keeping you on the track as you make your move inside to pull ahead.
Downforce is a card-driven bidding, racing, and betting game for 2-6 players based on Top Race, the award-winning design by the legendary Wolfgang Kramer. Players first bid to own the six cars in the race, then they play cards from their hand to speed them around the track. However, most cards will also move their opponents’ cars. So figuring out just the right time to play a card is the key to victory. Along the way, players make secret bets on who they think will win the race. Whoever has the most money from their prize money, winning bets, and remaining bank wins.
This is a game whose design needed no attention. Years of play and multiple versions have honed it to near perfection. On the contrary, one of the design challenges was figuring which of the many rules modules to incorporate to create the most fun version. Downforce also adds variable player powers to improve replayability. But mostly, it improves the look of the game to make it gorgeous and easy to play. Special attention was paid to the colors, the layout of the cards, the design of the cars, the details on the board, and more.
Game Mechanics:
Game Specifications:
Advance with blue or red cards and solve their whacky effects. Some will test your dexterity against your rivals by throwing bananas, flicking dodo eggs or making meteors fall.
Red cards are extra powerful but if too many players pick them during the same round, their effects will be ignored. Green cards allow the Dodo to react at any time.
Damage your rivals so they discard cards, with no cards in hand their Dodos will retrocede as a penalty and draw some cards.
At the end of each round, the Dodo in the lead advances an extra space while the rest gets to draw a card.
The fastest Dodo and Dino will be saved from extinction!
Game Mechanics:
Game Specifications:
Each turn in Dixit, one player is the storyteller, chooses one of the six cards in their hand, then makes up a sentence based on that card’s image and says it out loud without showing the card to the other players. Each other player then selects the card in their hand that best matches the sentence and gives the selected card to the storyteller, without showing it to anyone else.
The storyteller shuffles their card with all of the received cards, then reveals all of these cards. Each player other than the storyteller then secretly guesses which card belongs to the storyteller. If nobody or everybody guesses the correct card, the storyteller scores 0 points, and each other player scores 2 points. Otherwise, the storyteller and whoever found the correct answer score 3 points. Additionally, the non-storyteller players score 1 point for every vote received by their card.
The game ends when the deck is empty or if a player has scored at least 30 points. In either case, the player with the most points wins.
Game Mechanics:
Game Specifications:
