Tag: Grid Movement

Grid Movement is a game mechanic where game pieces move on a predetermined grid in various patterns.

That Time you Killed Me

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That Time you Killed Me

That Time you Killed Me

You and your opponent are rival time travelers trying to erase each other from history. To prove you are the one true inventor of time travel, you must use your invention to find your enemy in time and murder them — before they get you!

Unfortunately, since your enemy has strewn many copies of themself across the timeline, you may have to do the terrible deed many, many times before it sticks. Just make sure you don’t get erased first!

That Time You Killed Me is an abstract narrative game of time and murder that introduces new scenarios with unique rules and components as you play. As with any game about mucking about across time, you must play through this content in a strict, unalterable order.

To set up, place three game boards in a row to represent past, present, and future. Each player starts with a player piece in the same location on each 4×4 board, with the start player having their focus token in the past while the other has it in the future.

On a turn, choose a single copy of yourself on the board where your focus token is located, then take two actions with this copy, with actions being movement to an adjacent orthogonal space, time travel forward to the next board (travel from the past to the future is not allowed), or time travel back to the previous board, leaving a copy of yourself in the current location when you do. Sure, you traveled to the past, but if you stick around long enough, you’ll be right back where you started, so now you’re there, too! At the end of your turn, move your focus token to a different board.

Under the basic rules, you murder a copy of your opponent by pushing them into the wall of the game board. You have a limited number of copies of yourself in reserve, and murdered copies don’t return to your reserve because that would be gross. If you run out of copies, you can no longer travel to the past since you can’t leave a copy of yourself behind.

If on your turn, your opponent has copies of themselves on only one board, you win!

Play through four chapters of escalating difficulty, adding more wild time-travel shenanigans and unlocking more content as you master the game!

Game Mechanics:

  • Abstract Strategy
  • Campaign
  • Grid Movement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 Players
  • 15 – 30 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.63

Starcadia Quest

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Starcadia Quest

Starcadia Quest

Starcadia Quest is a new standalone campaign game for 2 to 4 players. The dastardly Supreme Commander Thorne is looking to control the galaxy (at least a good portion of it) and each player leads a crew of two heroes flying through space on a quest to defeat him. While they share the same goal, the different crews are not exactly in league with one another. They will compete as much with each other as they do with Thorne and his army.

Game Mechanics:

  • Campaign
  • Dice Rolling
  • Grid Movement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • ~60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.75

Star Wars: Imperial Assault

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Star Wars: Imperial Assault

Star Wars: Imperial Assault

Star Wars: Imperial Assault is a strategy board game of tactical combat and missions for two to five players, offering two distinct games of battle and adventure in the Star Wars universe!

Imperial Assault puts you in the midst of the Galactic Civil War between the Rebel Alliance and the Galactic Empire after the destruction of the Death Star over Yavin 4. In this game, you and your friends can participate in two separate games. The campaign game pits the limitless troops and resources of the Galactic Empire against a crack team of elite Rebel operatives as they strive to break the Empire’s hold on the galaxy, while the skirmish game invites you and a friend to muster strike teams and battle head-to-head over conflicting objectives.

In the campaign game, Imperial Assault invites you to play through a cinematic tale set in the Star Wars universe. One player commands the seemingly limitless armies of the Galactic Empire, threatening to extinguish the flame of the Rebellion forever. Up to four other players become heroes of the Rebel Alliance, engaging in covert operations to undermine the Empire’s schemes. Over the course of the campaign, both the Imperial player and the Rebel heroes gain new experience and skills, allowing characters to evolve as the story unfolds.

Imperial Assault offers a different game experience in the skirmish game. In skirmish missions, you and a friend compete in head-to-head, tactical combat. You’ll gather your own strike force of Imperials, Rebels, and Mercenaries and build a deck of command cards to gain an unexpected advantage in the heat of battle. Whether you recover lost holocrons or battle to defeat a raiding party, you’ll find danger and tactical choices in every skirmish.

As an additional benefit, the Luke Skywalker Ally Pack and the Darth Vader Villain Pack are included within the Imperial Assault Core Set. These figure packs offer sculpted plastic figures alongside additional campaign and skirmish missions that highlight both Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader within Imperial Assault.

Game Mechanics:

  • Campaign
  • Dice Rolling
  • Grid Movement
  • Role Playing
  • Team Based
  • Wargame

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 5 Players
  • 60 – 120 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.30

Shards of the Jaguar

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Shards of the Jaguar

Shards of the Jaguar

Shards of the Jaguar is a competitive “dungeon-deduction” game, which requires both strategic and tactical thinking. It is about an initiation trial where you and your fellow initiates have to prove that you are worthy of your tribe’s legendary animal’s, the Jaguar’s power.

The Jaguar was the defender of the tribe in the ancient times, but on a fateful day it got struck by a terrible curse and was broken into crystal shards.

The Shards of the Jaguar are still to be found in the Sacred Temple among the mountains, and the initiation trial is about to seek them and incorporate their power. But your journey will not be that easy. The temple is filled with perilous traps, and you have to learn how to use them, if you want to acquire the Jaguar’s hunting instinct.

Try to foresee what the others will do and set clever traps against them. Collect precious crystal shards, mystical amulets and map pieces leading to the Heart of the Jaguar. Outsmart the others and be the best in this trial to become the heir of the Jaguar, the defender of the tribe!

Shards of the Jaguar has eight rounds, and in each round, each player sets a trap secretly (Poisonous Gas/Darts/Guards/Earthquake), and then each player moves their character in the temple spending action points. You can move, take crystal shards, perform rituals and heal yourself in your turn for the action points. But move carefully! Each space on the game board could contain a secret trap – activated by another player – so you have to pay attention to each other’s movements to be able to find out which traps will be activated and so which spaces are safe for that round.

After each player spent their action points, you activate the traps and check who got hit by them (gathering different negative effects). If you were able to hit another player with your trap, you get glory points, as you are worthy of the Jaguar’s hunting instinct. At the end of the game you count the points you get for the crystal shards, the glory points for the successful traps, and the player with the most points wins the game.

Game Mechanics:

  • Action Drafting
  • Action Points
  • Deduction
  • Grid Movement
  • Racing

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • ~90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.36

The Pirate Republic

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The Pirate Republic

The Pirate Republic

The year is 1713. A rare peace comes to the Spanish Main, but peace has its consequences. With thousands of demobilized sailors, piracy explodes in the West Indies where the port city of Nassau serves as its headquarters. This is the sunrise of the Golden Age of Piracy. It’s a time of conquest and riches, indomitable spirit and fat treasure galleons, pirate utopias and watery graves.

The Pirate Republic is a modular fully cooperative to fully competitive thematic deck building, open-world adventure game for 1–5 players. You are an infamous pirate captain working towards completing mission objectives over three rounds of play. Your mission: Forge the ultimate empire, The Pirate Republic.

– Players can cooperatively work to complete Flying Gang mission objectives to forge the ultimate democracy, the Pirate Republic
– Players who enjoy Hidden Traitor mechanics can add optional Captain Missions that make some captains wily saboteurs who are secretly attempting to sink other players’ ambitions
– Competitive mode creates a race to amass the most Swagger (Victory Points) through daring feats and plunder on the high seas

Devastate merchant shipping lanes, commandeer new ships, raid and conquer heavily defended towns, and plunder New World riches one seaport at a time. Attack, strike fear, and duel your way across the high seas with custom action dice and a deck of unique captain cards. Pillage treasure fleets, squash mutinies, sack forts, recruit crew, duel pirate hunters, and seal your notoriety among the greatest captains. Along the way, battle and bring an end to Spanish, British, Dutch, French, and Danish imperial powers infesting your waters. The Pirate Republic brings the piracy story to life in this swashbuckling blend of adventure and strategy. Even across the centuries, it reminds that if denied the chance to live in freedom, best to go ahead and make your own.

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Movement
  • Cooperative
  • Deck Building
  • Dice Rolling
  • Grid Movement
  • Hand Management
  • Open Drafting
  • Tableau Building
  • Team Based

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 5 Players
  • 60 – 90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.93

Mind MGMT

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Mind MGMT

Mind MGMT

Working from the shadows, Mind MGMT once used its psychically-powered agents to put a stop to global crises. However, absolute power corrupts absolutely, and Mind MGMT is now rotting from the inside. To tighten its iron grip on the world stage, Mind MGMT deploys covert operatives around the world to recruit other psychically-attuned individuals to their side. How can this enigmatic organization, hell bent on global domination, be defeated?

Thankfully, a few renegade agents have figured out that Mind MGMT has been compromised and have defected, turning their backs on the syndicate. They now use their own psychic abilities to prevent Mind MGMT from achieving its nefarious goals.

In Mind MGMT: The Psychic Espionage “Game.”, one player controls Mind MGMT and must scour the city for new recruits. They move around on a secret map, trying to visit locations that match one of their three randomly drawn feature cards. They can also use their four Immortals to protect locations from being exposed.

All other players control the rogue agents who must try to stop Mind MGMT before it’s too late! They ask questions to the Recruiter and deduce their whereabouts from the answers they receive. Rogue agents can use dry-erase “mental notes” to track all the information they’re given.

Mind MGMT wins by either collecting twelve recruits or surviving sixteen turns. The rogue agents can win only by capturing Mind MGMT, which they do when they believe they’re on the same block as Mind MGMT.

Game Mechanics:

  • Deduction
  • Grid Movement
  • Hidden Movement
  • Paper and Pencil
  • Team Based

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 5 Players
  • 45 – 75 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.84

Ierusalem: Anno Domini

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Ierusalem: Anno Domini

Ierusalem: Anno Domini

Jerusalem, spring 33 AD: A crowd gathers at the city gates to welcome Jesus of Nazareth as he prepares to celebrate the Passover seder with his apostles and followers. With a revolutionary message, he has garnered supporters everywhere but also looks of suspicion among religious authorities. The Last Supper will soon be celebrated, and the fate of one of the most influential characters in human history will be sealed.

In Ierusalem: Anno Domini, we represent one of the communities of followers of Jesus of Nazareth who, coming to Jerusalem from nearby towns and villages, want to approach the place of the Last Supper and position ourselves as close as possible to the seats of Jesus and his apostles. The closer we are, the more points we earn at game’s end. We also score for offering tokens and parable tiles we’ve accumulated.

Different locations are shown on the board: the market, the desert, the mountain, the lake, and the temple. After sending our followers to one of these locations, we obtain stones, bread, and fish, as well as denarii or cards that allow us to do more than one action. Among these actions, players can choose between listening to a parable, going to the table, changing seats, or doing a favor, among other things. All this happens while the patience of the Sanhedrin runs out. When this happens, as symbolized by a tile moving in a marker, the endgame is triggered.

However, the main element of the game is the cards. Each card has a symbol corresponding to one of five key locations in the game. As we play them, we form combinations that allow us to bring the apostles to the table of the Last Supper. The optimal placement of our followers around Jesus and the apostles will also be done through the management of letters, as well as various resources at our disposal.

Behind a very immersive theme, Ierusalem: Anno Domini will not disappoint lovers of good challenges. Players have a wide range of possibilities at their fingertips and multiple ways to earn points. Preparing the best strategies to get the most out of your followers will be one of the keys to victory. Devout gamers don’t need to look further: Here is your game!

Game Mechanics:

  • Deck Building
  • Gird Coverage
  • Grid Movement
  • Hand Management
  • Set Collection
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • ~90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.10

Honey Buzz

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The bees have discovered economics. The queens believe that if they sell honey to the bears, badgers, and woodland creatures, they will find peace and prosperity. Spring has arrived and it’s time to build the hive, find nectar, make honey, and, for the first time ever, set up shop.

Honey Buzz is a worker bee placement game where players expand a personal beehive by drafting various honeycomb tiles that grant actions that are triggered throughout the game. Each tile represents a different action. Whenever a tile is laid so that it completes a certain pattern, a ring of actions is triggered in whatever order the player chooses. A tile drafted on turn one could be triggered up to three times at any point during the game. It all depends on how the player places their beeples (bee+meeple) and builds their hive. After all, in the honey business, efficiency is queen.

As you continually expand your hive, you’ll forage for nectar and pollen, make honey, sell different varieties at the bear market, host honey tastings, and attend to the queen and her court. There’s only so much nectar to go around, and finding it won’t be easy. Players will have to scout out the nectar field and pay attention to other players searches to try to deduce the location of the nectar they need for themselves.

Game Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 45 – 90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.75

Chess 4

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Four-Player Chess (Four-handed chess, Chess-4, and 4-Chess) is often credited to Capt Charles Verney, who was the first known to have documented the game in England in 1881. Four-player versions of chess probably have existed for hundreds of years prior to Verney in one form or another. Verney’s four-player board consists of three rows added to each side of a standard 2-player board, and four complete sets of chessmen in four different colors. Modern four-player boards and colored pieces are available from several manufacturers.

In Verney’s version (1881), 4 player chess was a partnership game, and the object was to checkmate both opposing partners at the same time. In modern variants, four player games can range from partners, to cutthroat (every player for himself), to temporary alliances at will.

Starting configuration affects fairness (bias). The standard 2-player configuration of queen facing queen is biased in four player chess because there is only one axis of symmetry. Four player chess requires two axes of symmetry to be fair (unbiased). To avoid bias, Verney recommended a staring configuration of all queens on light (or all on dark) squares. Another unbiased starting configuration is all queens on the right (or all on the left) of the king.

For the most part, four player chess follows (or can follow) all the normal rules of two-player chess. Verney had special rules for partnership playing, disallowed castling, and pawns had to make it to the enemies last rank in order to be exchanged for another piece. Pawns could also march up and back down the board. Verney also had checkmate as the ultimate move.

In modern variations of four-player chess, partnering may not be required, but allowable, castling can be allowed, and actual capturing of a king a required move to eliminate a player. The Chess Federation does not recognize four-player chess in any form, and there are no official rules, so players are free to experiment with variations and make their own rules.

Game Mechanics:

  • Abstract Strategy
  • Grid Movement
  • Player Elimination

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • ~45 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.89

Ankh: Gods of Egypt 🟡

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Play as a god of ancient Egypt, competing to survive as society begins to forget the old ways, so that only you and your followers remain.

Build caravans, summon monsters, and convert followers in your quest to reign supreme in Ankh: Gods of Egypt. Deities, monsters, and the people of ancient Egypt have been lovingly reimagined and interpreted in beautiful illustrations and detailed miniatures, and players will truly feel like gods as they shake the very foundations of Egypt. All gameplay in Ankh, including combat, is streamlined and non-random. Compete and win solely on your godly wits alone.

Game Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 5 Players
  • ~90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.12