Tag: Area Movement

Area Movement is a mechanic in which players move various pieces into and out of areas provided that the areas are properly connected.

Axis & Allies

Axis and Allies is the most successful of Milton Bradley’s Gamemaster series.

It depicts WWII on a grand scale, full global level. Up to five players can play on two different teams. The Axis which has Germany and Japan, and the Allies which has the USA, the United Kingdom, and the USSR. A full map of the world is provided, broken up in various chunks similar to Risk. The game comes with gobs of plastic miniatures that represent various military units during WWII. Players have at their disposal infantry, armor, fighters, bombers, battleships, aircraft carriers, submarines, troop transports, anti-air guns, and factories. All of the units perform differently, and many have special functions. Players have to work together with their teammates in order to coordinate offenses and decide how best to utilize their production points. Players also have the option of risking production resources on the possibility of developing a super technology that might turn the tide of war.

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Movement
  • Dice Rolling
  • Economic
  • Team Based
  • Wargame

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 5 Players
  • ~180 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.04

Aftermath 🟡

Aftermath is an Adventure Book Game in which players take on the role of small critters struggling to survive and thrive in a big, dangerous world. Humans have mysteriously vanished, and the remnants of civilization are quickly being reclaimed by nature and the animals who still remain.

In the game, you play as a misfit band of critters known by their colony as “providers”. There’s the guinea pig with anger issues, a hamster that talks fast and drives faster, a small mouse with keen eyes and a lot to prove, and a mysterious vole who’s borderline feral. These characters each have their own personalities, play-styles, and personal goals.

You’ll leave the safety of your colony and venture out into the abandoned world on one of 20+ story-driven missions and side missions. Scavenge the ruins of mankind in search of food and supplies for your colony, but beware — the world is filled with bandits and predators, and you must fight or flee to stay alive.

Return to your colony with resources and information that will help your friends and family survive. Grow your colony and keep it safe by building structures and improvements with the spoils of your adventures, but plan accordingly, for the colony will face hardship each time you leave it…

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Movement
  • Contracts
  • Cooperative
  • Dice Rolling
  • Hand Management
  • Narrative Choice
  • Pick-Up and Deliver
  • Player Elimination
  • Role Playing
  • Storytelling

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 60 – 120 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.88

Windward

Windward

Windward

You are a captain flying your Ship on the skies of the gaseous planet Celus. Gain the most notoriety by sailing the skies, hunting crestors, fighting opponents. Whichever player has the most notoriety points at the end of the game is the winner. To gain notoriety, you can trade in Crestor teeth and gas at the trading post.

Players take turns to move their ships, take actions, use supply cards, and battle other players.

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Movement
  • Cooperative
  • Dice Rolling
  • Grid Movement
  • Hand Management
  • Pick-Up and Deliver
  • Trading
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 5 Players
  • 30 – 90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.29

Village Attacks

Village Attacks

Village Attacks

Village Attacks is a co-operative castle defense game in which players take on the roles of the most infamous creatures of folklore and legend from around the world! Deep in a remote part of the world, you and your monstrous associates have taken up residence in an immense castle. But the local village has had enough of the evil that lies at its door and has decided to lay siege to the castle in an effort to exorcise your wicked taint from the world.

The villagers may be weak, but they are not alone! News of your malevolent presence has spread far and wide; hunters and heroes have come from all corners of the globe to vanquish you! Some have come for fame, others for the glory, and some even for the reward. But they share a single goal; your doom!

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Movement
  • Cooperative
  • Dice Rolling
  • Puzzle

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 5 Players
  • 30 – 180 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.60

Vengeance Roll & Fight: Episode 2

Vengeance Roll & Fight: Episode 2

Vengeance Roll & Fight: Episode 2

Vengeance: Roll & Fight is a real-time, roll-and-write game, where the frantic action around the table mimics the kick-arse fighting action in the game-world! Set in the world of Vengeance and designed by Dávid Turczi, Noralie Lubbers and Gordon Calleja, Vengeance: Roll & Fight is a stand-along game that transforms the fast-paced dice puzzles of the original Vengeance into roll-and-write mechanics where you’re building combos, striking off enemies and scoring points for an action-packed, brain-teasing fighting game that’s easy to learn and hard to master.

The aim of Vengeance: Roll & Fight is to infiltrate a gang den, carve your way through it’s rooms and killing the Boss, while completing side objectives printed on the dens themselves.

The game is split into three parts: planning, fighting and montage. In the planning phase players roll and re-roll 4 dice in real time, aiming to roll a combination of dice that match an ability they wish to trigger in the upcoming, fight phase. Assigning dice to an ability allows players to fill their hand back to 4 dice from a large, common pool and repeat the process as quickly as they can manage.

Once the dice pool is depleted, the fighting proper begins. Here players take a set of dice assigned to an ability and execute that ability, moving their piece through rooms full of enemies, and crossing them out when they are hit with the multitude of available abilities. Finally, players heal and upgrade their characters, bring new abilities and items into play to help them on their road to vengeance.

Vengeance: Roll and Fight comes in two boxes: Episode 1 and Episode 2. Both episodes are stand-alone games with the same rules, but with entirely different content: different heroes, dens, bosses, abilities and items. Each episode accommodates up to 4 players so combining the two increases the player count from 1-4 to 1-8! Content in both Episodes can be switched like-for-like as you choose.

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Movement
  • Dice Rolling
  • Paper and Pencil
  • Push Your Luck

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • ~30 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.33

Small World of Warcraft

Small World of Warcraft

Small World of Warcraft

In Small World of Warcraft, players vie for conquest and control of a world that is simply too small to accommodate everybody.

Small World of Warcraft is set on the fantasy world of Azeroth, where the races of the Alliance and the Horde — including Orcs, Dwarves, Trolls, and Worgen — clash in a world-consuming conflict. In the game, players choose combinations of special powers and races from the Warcraft universe, such as Portal Mage Pandarens or Herbalist Goblins, and vie for control of Azeroth. To help them achieve dominance, players will occupy legendary terrains and seek control of powerful artifacts. However, all empires must eventually fall, so players need to be ready to put an overextended race into a state of “decline” and lead a new one to rule Azeroth.

In more detail, on each turn either you use the multiple tiles of your chosen fantasy race to (normally) occupy adjacent territories, possibly defeating weaker enemy races along the way, or you give up on your race and let it go into decline. A race in decline is designated by flipping the tiles over to their black-and-white side. At the start of the game or after you go into decline, you choose a new race/power combination at the start of your turn, with the 16 races and 20 powers being paired randomly each game.

At the end of your turn, you score one coin for each territory your races occupy. You may have one active race and one race in decline on the board at the same time. Your occupation total can vary depending on the special abilities of your race and the territories they occupy. After the final round, the player with the most coins wins.

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Control
  • Area Movement
  • Dice Rolling
  • Team Based

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 5 Players
  • 40 – 80 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.50

Small World

Small World

Small World

In Small World, players vie for conquest and control of a world that is simply too small to accommodate them all.

Designed by Philippe Keyaerts as a fantasy follow-up to his award-winning Vinci, Small World is inhabited by a zany cast of characters such as dwarves, wizards, amazons, giants, orcs, and even humans, who use their troops to occupy territory and conquer adjacent lands in order to push the other races off the face of the earth.

Picking the right combination from the 14 different fantasy races and 20 unique special powers, players rush to expand their empires – often at the expense of weaker neighbors. Yet they must also know when to push their own over-extended civilization into decline and ride a new one to victory!

On each turn, you either use the multiple tiles of your chosen race (type of creatures) to occupy adjacent (normally) territories – possibly defeating weaker enemy races along the way, or you give up on your race letting it go “into decline”. A race in decline is designated by flipping the tiles over to their black-and-white side.

At the end of your turn, you score one point (coin) for each territory your races occupy. You may have one active race and one race in decline on the board at the same time. Your occupation total can vary depending on the special abilities of your race and the territories they occupy. After the final round, the player with the most coins wins.

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Control
  • Area Movement
  • Dice Rolling

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 5 Players
  • 40 – 80 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.35

Skate Summer

Skate Summer

Skate Summer

It’s summer, and you’re riding the sun-drenched half-pipes of Pelican Park. Locals know there’s no ledge too high, no rail too long, and no ramp too dangerous for you and your crew. Nail rad trick combos and show off your skills, but be careful — the longer you stay on your board, the more likely you are to bail!

The object of Skate Summer is to score the most points by doing trick combos, collecting goal tokens, and visiting S-K-A-T-E-R locations. The game is played in rounds. Each round has the following phases:

1. COMBOS: Players simultaneously play trick cards, earn rewards, and roll dice to check their balance.
2. SKILLS & POINTS: Players simultaneously improve their skills and score points for combos.
3. MOVES: Players take turns navigating the park, picking up goals and gear.
4. ROUND END: Each player resets their board and draws up to their hand size, then the “Pro Skater” first player marker passes to the left.

If any player’s score has hit or passed the endgame token at the end of the round, the game ends and players count up their endgame points. The player with the highest score wins!

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Movement
  • Dice Rolling
  • Push Your Luck
  • Set Collection

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 5 Players
  • ~45 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.17

The Siege of Runedar

The Siege of Runedar

The Siege of Runedar

Since time immemorial, the mines of Runedar have supplied gold to generations of dwarves. Today, only a handful of them remain, guarding the fortress surrounding the entrance to the old, depleted mine… or so it was thought. This group of dwarves have been fortunate enough to accidently stumble upon a new vein of the purest gold and have managed to extract a small treasure. Unfortunately, just as they were about to set off to the safety of the nearest stronghold, they discover that the old fortress of Runedar is surrounded by orcs who are willing to do anything to get their hands on the precious metal. Now, the dwarves not only need to defend the fortress, they also must dig a tunnel under the mountain to escape and get their hard-earned gold to safety.

The Siege of Runedar is a co-operative game for 1-4 players who take on the role of dwarves charged with defending the walls of Runedar and the treasure they keep within. They will have to face orcs, goblins, and trolls, fighting in hand-to-hand combat against those who manage to get past the walls and shooting from a distance at those who try to enter. A deck-building system allows players to upgrade their weapons and tools as they must hold off the raiders long enough to build a tunnel to escape the terrible siege they have been subjected to and get the treasure to safety.

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Movement
  • Cooperative
  • Deck Building
  • Dice Rolling
  • Open Drafting

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 60 – 90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.33

Risk

Risk

Risk

Possibly the most popular, mass market war game. The goal is conquest of the world.

Each player’s turn consists of:
– gaining reinforcements through number of territories held, control of every territory on each continent, and turning sets of bonus cards.
– Attacking other players using a simple combat rule of comparing the highest dice rolled for each side. Players may attack as often as desired. If one enemy territory is successfully taken, the player is awarded with a bonus card.
– Moving a group of armies to another adjacent territory.

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Movement
  • Dice Rolling
  • Player Elimination
  • Set Collection
  • Wargame

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 6 Players
  • ~120 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.08