Tag: Area Control

When playing games with an Area Control aspect, players are typically rewarded for controlling the majority of a particular space.

Lockup: A Roll Player Tale

| T3d-1978
Lockup: A Roll Player Tale

Lockup: A Roll Player Tale

During the Dragul Invasion of Nalos, King Taron’s loyal soldiers throw captured minions into Kulbak Prison, where enchanted gates and Construct guards make escape all but impossible. Once each year, Taron releases the toughest gang of war prisoners into the royal Colosseum.

You command a squadron of these captured Dragul. Gather goons and craft contraband to raise your reputation. Keep your suspicion with the guards low while establishing yourself as the most powerful crew in Kulbak. In six short days, Taron may offer you the chance to fight for your freedom.

Lockup: A Roll Player Tale is a competitive worker-allocation game for one to five players. In the game, players manage groups of minions — gnolls, kobolds, bugbears, goblins, or insectoids — locked up in Kulbak Prison.

Each round, players try to keep their suspicion from the guards under control while allocating their crew to different locations within Kulbak. The player with the strongest crew in each location at the end of each round gains the most resources, hires the most powerful crew, and builds the most powerful items, increases their reputation. The player with the highest reputation at the end of six rounds, wins the game.

Lockup is a worker placement game set in the Roll Player universe.

Play takes place over three phases in each round:

  1. Roll Call – Players take turns placing their minions in different parts of the prison, some face up showing a unit’s strength and some face down, hiding the strength from the other players.
  2. Lights Out – Each area with minions is scored based on the strength of each player’s crew. Players receive resources and have the opportunity to recruit goons and build items.
  3. Patrol Phase – New resources are placed on the gameboard, and the guards patrol the dungeon. Players with high suspicion are raided, and their chambers are searched.

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Control
  • Set Collection

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 5 Players
  • 45 – 90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.31

Kiwi Chow Down

| T3d-1978
Kiwi Chow Down

Kiwi Chow Down

Control your ravenous kiwi flock to outnumber your opponents and claim dominance over island sections.

Kiwi Chow Down is played over four seasons with each season having a different objective to earn rewards. Each season has three rounds and you can either build, move or feed depending on the cards in your hand and the strategy you want to adopt.

When you build you claim benefits for your kiwi flock both immediately and at the beginning of each season.

Kiwi birds are hungry and love to be fed. When you feed them, they grow and can push other smaller kiwi out of the way, or even off the island. Be careful though – too much food and they explode!

Move your kiwi flock to strategic areas to outnumber your opponents. Use your leader or larger kiwi birds to push other players kiwis out of the way or off the board.

At the end of each season place domain markers to claim your territory. Domain markers = victory points. When the game ends, the player with the most victory points wins.

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Control
  • Grid Movement

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • ~50 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.40

Kitara

| T3d-1978
Kitara

Kitara

Kitara is a strategy game that mixes conquest, movement, and battle. Manage your cards to plan your actions: the more territories you control, the more options you get! Strengthen your army of hunters, cheetah-centaurs, and heroes! Protect livestock and crops, move your troops, and go to war. Kitara is a dynamic strategy game, full of tension and suspense.

A play turn consists of drafting kingdom cards, recruiting pawns, moving pawns and attacking neighboring areas. A successful attack garners one or more hero tokens which allots victory points. Attacking and retreating is based on the number of pawns in each group. The player with the most victory points wins the game.

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Control
  • Area Movement
  • Hand Management
  • Open Drafting

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • ~40 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.31

Kingdom Builder: Big Box

| T3d-1978
Kingdom Builder: Big Box

Kingdom Builder: Big Box

In Kingdom Builder, the players create their own kingdoms by skillfully building their settlements, aiming to earn the most gold at the end of the game.

Nine different kinds of terrain are on the variable game board, including locations and castles. During his turn, a player plays his terrain card and builds three settlements on three hexes of this kind. If possible, a new settlement must be built next to one of that player’s existing settlements. When building next to a location, the player may seize an extra action tile that he may use from his next turn on. These extra actions allow extraordinary actions such as moving your settlements.

By building next to a castle, the player will earn gold at the end of the game, but the most gold will be earned by meeting the conditions of the three Kingdom Builder cards; these three cards (from a total of ten in the game) specify the conditions that must be met in order to earn the much-desired gold, such as earning gold for your settlements built next to water hexes or having the majority of settlements in a sector of the board.

Each game, players will use a random set of Kingdom Builder cards, special actions, and terrain sectors to build the map!

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Control
  • City Building
  • Grid Movement
  • Network Building

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 5 Players
  • ~45 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.34

Kero

| T3d-1978
Kero

Kero

June 2471, and kerosene – KERO – is scarce. Two clans are struggling to survive, exploring New Territories in their tanker trucks. Running out of fuel is a risk each time they leave camp! Fortunately, a local tribe of Tuareks can lend a helping hand…

Kero is a two-player game set in a future unfriendly world, where players will be clan leaders – managing a camp, a tanker truck and 7 Explorers – competing for the same lands. Their ability to win the game will be based on how much kerosene (Jerrycans) they can find and how they use it wisely… Collect as many resources as possible while using as little as possible of the KERO in your tanker-truck to upgrade your camp and claim New Territories! Score the more points (by adding up the points on cards and territories) and become the 2471 Badassest Clan!

The game is played in 3 rounds (ending when a Claim card is revealed), each comprising several turns. Making snap decisions and mistakes under time pressure is part of the game!

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Control
  • Dice Rolling
  • Move Through Deck
  • Push Your Luck
  • Set Collection
  • Take That
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 Players
  • ~30 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.97

Iwari

| T3d-1978
Iwari

Iwari

Evermore have they walked the world of Iwari. Evermore have they embodied its spirit and shaped its lands. They are stewards of the earth. Five Titans that make the cosmos breath. On Iwari, there are no teeming masses, no continent-wide civilizations. Humanity is in its infancy, living in scattered tribes in forest, tundra, and desert.

Now we have left our ancestral homelands to explore the vast uncharted regions, encountering other fellow tribes and exchanging knowledge, culture and wisdom. In our journey, we all live in harmony with the Titans, and though distant to us, they decide our fate. And yet only we don’t know if they created us, or we created them.

Iwari is an abstract-like Eurogame in which players represent different tribes looking for their identity by traveling around far lands and expanding their settlements into five different regions on the board. In the game, players use cards for two different actions:

1) Place tents and expand their settlements into five different regions on the board in a majority game that scores on each territory.
2) Construct nature totems to bond with the Titans by placing them on regions and score points based on the totem majorities in adjacent territories.

During the game, players can complete missions that grant small perks and score points by having the majority of tents in each territory after the end of the first card cycle. At game end, the majority of tents will be scored again, along with the majorities of nature totems in two adjacent regions and settlements that players have created (i.e., four or more tents in an uninterrupted sequence along one of the roads on the board).

Iwari reimagines the award-winning game Web of Power by Michael Schacht by adding new layers of strategy, tribe player boards, different maps with their own set of rules, modules that can be added to the game, and unique co-operative and solo modes.

Game Mechanics:

  • Abstract Strategy
  • Area Control
  • Cooperative
  • Hand Management
  • Network Building
  • Open Drafting

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 5 Players
  • ~45 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.15

Iquazu

| T3d-1978
Iquazu

Iquazu

The Inox people have been living peacefully in the Land of the Waterfalls for a long time, but now there is a dangerous threat. Evil Rhujas roaming the land want to capture the gemstones of the Inox. That’s why the Inox have selected the hardest to reach and most dangerous place to hide their gemstones: the rock wall behind the Iquazú waterfall. Their water dragon Silon blocks the waterfall so that the brave Inox can rappel down the rock wall behind it to place their gemstones there, out of harm’s way. The gushing water and the dangerous water snakes at the bottom will stop the Rhujas from getting the gemstones. Which player in Iquazú will manage to use their cards skillfully and place their colored gemstones in the best spots?

Each turn in Iquazú, players either draw four cards or play cards of a single color from their hand to place one of their gems in an empty space on the board the same color as the cards they played. If you place in the leftmost column, you play only one card, in the secondmost left column, two cards, and so on. The last player in turn order adds a water droplet to the highest empty spot in the leftmost column after their turn.

Once the leftmost column is full, players earn points based on how many gems they have in this column and they earn a bonus token if they have the most gems in a horizontal row. Bonus tokens can let you draw cards, ignore the color rule, earn points at the end of the game, and take another turn. Players then slide the waterfall right one column to make new bonuses appear and the leftmost gems disappear. Whoever holds the water droplet box passes it right. Players continue taking turns until the final column is filled, at which point players collect bonuses for the final time, then added any points collected to their score.

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Control
  • Hand Management
  • Set Collection

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • ~50 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.86

Imhotep: Builder of Egypt

| T3d-1978
Imhotep: Builder of Egypt

Imhotep: Builder of Egypt

In Imhotep, the players become builders in Egypt who want to emulate the first and best-known architect there, namely Imhotep.

Over six rounds, they move wooden stones by boat to create five seminal monuments, and on a turn, a player chooses one of four actions: Procure new stones, load stones on a boat, bring a boat to a monument, or play an action card. While this sounds easy, naturally the other players constantly thwart your building plans by carrying out plans of their own. Only those with the best timing — and the stones to back up their plans — will prove to be Egypt’s best builder.

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Control
  • Set Collection
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • ~40 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.00

If Wishes Were Fishes!

| T3d-1978
If Wishes Were Fishes!

If Wishes Were Fishes!

Players are fishermen, trying to catch the most valuable fish and sell them in the market for the best prices. With limited space for storing caught fish, players must use their wits to get the right fish to market at the right times. This is where the granting of wishes is most helpful. Just catch the fish who will grant the wish you want, throw it back, and you get your wish. Sounds simple, but the game does require a bit of thinking and planning. The wishes can help you increase the value of fish when sold, grant you extra storage space, and several other useful things.

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Control
  • Economic
  • Hand Management
  • Open Drafting

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 5 Players
  • ~45 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.95

Gates of Delirium

| T3d-1978
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