Tag: Storytelling

Storytelling games present players with a narrative story that the players directly influence through their in-game actions.

Mortum: Medieval Detective

Mortum: Medieval Detective

Mortum: Medieval Detective

Mortum: Medieval Detective is a game of deduction and adventures that takes place in a grim world shaped in the image of medieval Europe, with its legends, superstitions and fears coming to life. Take on the roles of secret organization agents and investigate mysterious and thrilling events. You will solve mysteries and encounter fascinating characters in the course of three exciting scenarios, all part of a single storyline. Each case requires up to three hours to play.

You are free to explore the world of Mortum in any way you like, depending on which agents you chose. Put objects under surveillance or send agents to secretly search or interact with them in many other ways. Gather information by interrogating suspects or talking to them. Choose your own way to advance through the game, either using the “kick in the door” approach or by being stealthy and discrete, trying to avoid unwanted attention.

During each turn, a player chooses one of the cards available this turn. These cards can represent a Clue, a Location, Witness Interrogation, etc. Using the cards and Special Action, which were received during investigation, a player discovers what actually happened.

Only you and the choices you make decide how the events will unfold in the end. Tread carefully, and welcome to Mortum!

Game Mechanics:

  • Cooperative
  • Deduction
  • Storytelling

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 6 Players
  • 120 – 180 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.53

Forgotten Waters

Forgotten Waters

Forgotten Waters

Forgotten Waters is a Crossroads Game set in a world of fantastical pirate adventure. In it, players take on the role of pirates sailing together on a ship, attempting to further their own personal stories as well as a common goal.

The world of Forgotten Waters is silly and magical, with stories designed to encourage players to explore and laugh in delight as they interact with the world around them. It’s a game in which every choice can leave a lasting impact on the story, and players will want turn over every rock just to see what they find.

Forgotten Waters features five scenarios and a massive location book that provides players with tons of choices wherever they go.

Game Mechanics:

  • Campaign
  • Cooperative
  • Dice Rolling
  • Narrative Choice
  • Storytelling
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 3 – 7 Players
  • 120 – 240 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.10

Fog of Love

Fog of Love

Fog of Love

Fog of Love is a game for two players. You will create and play two vivid characters who meet, fall in love and face the challenge of making an unusual relationship work.

Playing Fog of Love is like being in a romantic comedy: roller-coaster rides, awkward situations, lots of laughs and plenty of difficult compromises to make.

Much as in a real relationship, goals might be at odds. You can try to change, keep being relentless or even secretly decide to be a Heartbreaker. It’s your choice.

The happily ever after won’t be certain, but whatever way your zigzag romance unfolds, you’ll always end up with a story full of surprises – guaranteed to raise a smile!

Game Mechanics:

  • Bluffing
  • Cooperative
  • Deduction
  • Hand Management
  • Limited Communication
  • Role Playing
  • Storytelling

Game Specifications:

  • 2 Players
  • 60 – 120 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.25

Escape the Dark Sector

Escape the Dark Sector

Escape the Dark Sector

The second game in the Escape the Dark series, Escape the Dark Sector is a simple, sci-fi adventure game with a focus on atmosphere, storytelling and player cooperation – perfect for newcomers to tabletop gaming. It takes about 2 minutes to set up, lasts around 45 minutes, and no two games are ever the same.

Playing as the beleaguered crew of an impounded starship, players find themselves confined to the detention block of a vast space station. Using a variety of advanced gear and weaponry, they will embark on a desperate mission to find their ship and blast their way home.

Along the way, the crew will have to overcome a variety of dangers, traps, and terrors. From cyborg guards and faulty replicators to killer alien organisms, each challenge is represented by a large, beautifully illustrated chapter card.

As these immersive chapter cards are revealed one by one, the game takes on the form of a shared storybook experience, with the players making decisions about what to do each chapter before using a combination of dice and item cards to complete the task before them.

The goal of the game is to complete every chapter, and then defeat the final boss. To win, you must keep each member of the crew alive; if any player is killed, the game ends immediately!

Game Mechanics:

  • Cooperative
  • Dice Rolling
  • Paper and Pencil
  • Push Your Luck
  • Role Playing
  • Storytelling

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 20 – 60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.82

Detective: Season One

Detective: Season One

Detective: Season One

Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game – Season One, a.k.a. Detective: Season One, is a fully co-operative, deeply immersive board game in which 1-5 players take on the roles of investigators trying to solve a crime.

Detective: Season One is a new product in the award-winning Detective line, one with a shorter playing time that’s tailored for a mystery game night with simpler family-friendly rules. The game consists of three standalone cases, and each of them can be played in around 90 minutes. Each of the cases challenges players with different settings and styles. The cases are:

• Blood, Ink, and Tears moves the action to Great Britain, where players visit an old mansion and discover family secrets from the past that lead them to clues behind the mysterious death of the family patron. Fans of Agatha Christie’s novels will find themselves at home in this rather funny case!

• Solid Alibi throws players in the middle of a bloody conflict between gangs and criminals in the Italian district. Players have to not only solve the crime and discover who killed Robert Parkson, but also witness growing tension in the district and find out who to trust in the spiral of violence and mutual accusations!

• Natural Causes takes players to a university campus in the U.S. Professor Calvin Higgs is found dead in his lab at the Biology Institute of Virginia University. Players need to find out whether his death is from natural causes, or perhaps there’s someone in his surroundings responsible for this horrible crime. But what could be the motive?

Game Mechanics:

  • Cooperative
  • Deduction
  • Storytelling

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 5 Players
  • 90 – 120 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.05

Destinies Sea & Sand

Destinies Sea & Sand

Destinies Sea & Sand

Embark on an epic journey to reach the sands of Mahdia, a pirate fortress on the shores of North Africa! Is your army strong enough to break through its walls? Or will the African heat, merciless pirate raiders, and the Ifrit, a creature of Arabic legend, see your dreams of glory sinking into the sea of sand forever?

The Destinies: Sea of Sand expansion comes with three scenarios that form a campaign that should be played in the suggested order. We recommend playing the whole campaign with the same group of players, but this is not mandatory. Scenarios are linked together, and each unveils the next steps of a bigger plot, but each scenario is a separate story, and knowing previous scenarios should not give a player any unfair advantage.

Sea of Sand also adds new dungeon and maze mechanisms, alongside the use of “sub-maps” to represent the vast distances of the Saharan desert and the locations players will visit.

Game Mechanics:

  • Dice Rolling
  • Role Playing
  • Storytelling
  • Tile Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 3 Players
  • 90 – 150 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.00

Destinies

Destinies

Destinies

Destinies is a competitive, story-driven, game of adventure and exploration, mixing an app and a board game.

The first in a series of games using a brand-new system called Destinies. This game is set in a dark medieval-fantasy universe.

The Destinies system offers a fully story-driven, app-supported, RPG-like board game experience, without the need for a game master. Each scenario depicts a part of a vivid world, full of dark stories, epic NPCs and mysteries to solve. Each player takes the role of a hero on a quest to fulfill their destiny. Each destiny is a final goal of the character and has at least two, completely different paths to victory, composed of branching series of quests. Players compete with each other to push the world towards their own destiny.

The game uses an app and the Scan&Play technology to offer players a unique story-driven experience full of dynamic events, epic adventures, and an ever-changing game world. Each turn players discover new parts of the world presented on tiles, explore them and pick one point of interest to visit. There they learn more about the story and make crucial choices of how they want to interact with people, creatures or situations faced there. The consequences of each choice are meaningful and often change the state of the world forever.

Game Mechanics:

  • Dice Rolling
  • Role Playing
  • Storytelling
  • Tile Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 3 Players
  • 90 – 150 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.93

Chronicles of Crime

Chronicles of Crime is a cooperative game of crime investigation, mixing an app, a board game and a touch of Virtual Reality.

With the same physical components (board, locations, characters and items), players will be able to play plenty of different scenarios and solve as many different crime stories.

Players start the app, choose the scenario they want to play, and follow the story. The goal being to catch the killer of the current case in the shortest time possible.

Using the Scan&Play technology, each component (locations, characters, items, etc.) has a unique QR code, which, depending on the scenario selected, will activate and trigger different clues and stories. That means players will be able to get new stories way after the game is released simply by downloading the app’s updates, without any shipping of new physical components involved.

The VR experience only requires a mobile phone. Players simply put the VR glasses (optional buy) onto their mobile device, and put the VR glasses on their nose, holding their mobile device in front of their eyes, to immerse themselves in the game’s universe and search for clues in a virtual world.

The game comes with 1 tutorial and 5 scenarios, but more can be downloaded directly inside the app!
Each session last around 1h to 1h30 minutes and many scenarios are connected to each other in order to tell a much bigger story.

 

Game Mechanics:

  • Campaign
  • Cooperative
  • Deduction
  • Storytelling

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 60 – 90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.08

Call to Adventure: Epic Origins

In this hero-crafting card game, 1-4 players compete to earn the highest Destiny score while cooperating to defeat the Adversary. Like the original Call To AdventureEpic Origins is a tableau-building game where players draft cards, cast runes, and overcome challenges to score victory points.

For players familiar with Call To Adventure game system, Epic Origins introduces a high fantasy theme inspired by classic dungeon-crawling RPGs. The new Heritage card type provides options like Elf, Halfling, and Dwarf. Class cards allow you to invest Experience to “level up” your character. High fantasy themes and challenges can be found throughout the game’s 150+ unique cards.

This game also features overhauled Solo and Co-Op play. Double-sided Adversaries provide an evolving challenge: face a lower-level Adversary at the end of Act II, then the Final Adversary at the end of Act III. In Campaign Mode, players can unlock new cards by defeating each new Adversary. The game incorporates more rewards for cooperative play while still incentivizing individual achievement.

While points decide the winner of the game, Call To Adventure encourages storytelling at the end of the game. Epic Origins also includes a guide for converting your final tableau into a 5th Edition D&D character.

Game Mechanics:

  • Deck Building
  • Open Drafting
  • Role Playing
  • Solo / Solitaire Game
  • Storytelling

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 30 – 60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.38

Call to Adventure

Make your fate! Inspired by character-driven fantasy storytelling, Call to Adventure challenges 1-4 players to create the hero with the greatest destiny by acquiring traits, facing challenges, and overcoming adversaries.

Call to Adventure features a unique “rune rolling” system for resolving challenges, a point-based system that encourages storytelling, and over 150 unique cards. Players begin each game with an origin card that provides their backstory as well as two “starter” abilities. Each round they may either acquire trait cards from the board or face a challenge. Challenges each have two possible paths a player can choose from. For example, players who encounter the Thieves’ Guild may choose to train as a spy, or train as a killer. Each challenge has a difficulty that must be overcome by rolling successes on carved runes. The more a player has of the abilities required to overcome the challenge, the more runes they will be able to cast.

Failed challenges lead players to acquire experience points that may be spent to “push” through tougher challenges. But beware, while some negative experiences will help your hero grow, too many tragedies set them on a dark path.

As players’ heroes grow in ability and experience, they move on to harder challenges, eventually facing deadly adversaries and acquiring more and more destiny points. The player whose hero has the highest destiny score wins the game.

Game Mechanics:

  • Deck Building
  • Set Collection
  • Solo / Solitaire Game
  • Storytelling

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 30 – 60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.01