Tag: Take That

Games with a “Take That” mechanic allows players to take actions that actively hinder an opponent’s progress in-game.

Citadels

| T3d-1978

In Citadels, players take on new roles each round to represent characters they hire in order to help them acquire gold and erect buildings. The game ends at the close of a round in which a player erects his/her eighth building. Players then tally their points, and the player with the highest score wins.

Players start with a number of building cards in their hand; buildings come in five colors, with the purple buildings typically having a special ability and the other colored buildings providing a benefit when you play particular characters. At the start of each round, the player who was king the previous round discards one of the eight character cards at random, chooses one, then passes the cards to the next player, etc. until each player has secretly chosen a character. Each character has a special ability, and the usefulness of any character depends upon your situation, and that of your opponents. The characters then carry out their actions in numerical order: the assassin eliminating another character for the round, the thief stealing all gold from another character, the wizard swapping building cards with another player, the warlord optionally destroys a building in play, and so on.

On a turn, a player earns two or more gold (or draws two building cards then discards one), then optionally constructs one building (or up to three if playing the architect this round). Buildings cost gold equal to the number of symbols on them, and each building is worth a certain number of points. In addition to points from buildings, at the end of the game a player scores bonus points for having eight buildings or buildings of all five colors.

Game Mechanics:

  • Action Drafting
  • Bluffing
  • City Building
  • Closed Drafting
  • Deduction
  • Set Collection
  • Tableau Building
  • Take That

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 8 Players
  • 30 – 60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.01

Brew

| T3d-1978

Bring balance back to the forest!

Time is broken and shattered. The seasons all exist at once, and day and night have no real cycle — they rotate at the whim of the forest. This enchanted land has been driven into chaos and it’s up to you, the cunning mystics of the forest, to tame extraordinary woodland creatures and use your magic to bring back balance.

In Brew, players must choose how to use element dice, either to take back control of as many seasons as possible in an area-control game or to procure goods at the local village in a worker-placement game. Recruiting woodland creatures and brewing potions can help offset chance die-rolls or create an engine to help you tame the lands.

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Majority / Influence
  • Open Drafting
  • Take That
  • Variable Player Powers
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 45 – 90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.40

Baseball Highlights: 2045

| T3d-1978

American baseball was on its last legs as a spectator sport. Football had become the predominant national pastime — that is until the year 2032, the year baseball decided to revolutionize the game and regain the throne!

Starting in 2032, baseball games were shortened to six innings. Pitchers were encouraged to have bionic arm implants to improve their pitching. These cyborgs, or ‘Borgs as they’re affectionately known, were immediately popular and soon ruled the league. In 2041, robotic players were introduced to get more offense back into the game. These robots were similar to designated hitters in that they were used only to bat and did not field. However, recent reports indicate fielding ‘Bots are on the way.

Now in 2045, human players are still in the game and known as Naturals. They are the best fielders by far but are sorely challenged when it comes to hitting and pitching. Some Naturals have learned to hit by swinging before the pitcher starts his windup, which gives them a chance to hit the ball. Although it’s hard for a Natural to get into the league, those who do are popular. Many Naturals have named themselves after the great players of pre-2032 baseball by taking a first and last name borrowed from different star players of the past. The fans love them, and their presence on the team ensures good revenue!

The stage is now set! The fans are energized and root fanatically for their new favorites, be they ‘Bots, ‘Borgs or Naturals!

Baseball Highlights: 2045 is like watching TV highlights of early 21st-century baseball games, with the gameplay being full of theme with no outs or innings and without bogging down in a play-by-play baseball simulation. In this quick and interactive game, two players build their teams as they play, combining both strategy (building your team) and tactics (playing the game) without any of the downtime. During each “mini-game”, each player alternates playing six cards to simulate a full game’s highlights. The mini-game includes defensive and offensive actions, and your single card play may include elements of defensive and/or offensive plays. Do you try to thwart your opponent’s pending hits, put up strong offensive action of your own, or use your better players to do both? Players buy new free agents after each mini-game to improve their roster, and the team who wins the most mini-games in the series is the champ!

Game Mechanics:

  • Deck Building
  • Hand Management
  • Open Drafting
  • Solo / Solitaire
  • Take That

Game Specifications:

  • 1, 2, or 4 Players
  • ~45 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.20

Bargain Quest

| T3d-1978

Bargain Quest is a game of adventure and capitalism for 2-6 players. Players will take the role of shopkeepers in an adventuring town plagued by monsters. Players must draft items and then secretly choose which items to place in their windows to attract wealthy heroes to their shops.

Once all heroes have been equipped, they venture out to battle against monstrous threats, earning money and prestige for the shop they represent. Throughout the game players will encounter new heroes and monsters while upgrading their shops and hiring employees. Once the third monster is defeated the player who has earned the most gold and prestige is the winner.

Game Mechanics:

  • Auction/Bidding
  • Closed Drafting
  • Hand Management
  • Open Drafting
  • Take That

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 6 Players
  • 30 – 60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.01

Arcadia Quest

| T3d-1978

In Arcadia Quest, players lead guilds of intrepid heroes on an epic campaign to dethrone the vampire lord and reclaim the mighty Arcadia for their own. But only one guild may lead in the end, so players must battle against each other as well as against the monstrous occupying forces.

Arcadia Quest is a campaign-based game for 2 to 4 players, where each player controls a guild of three unique heroes, facing off against the other players and the various monsters controlled by the game. Players need to accomplish a series of quests in order to win each scenario and choose where to go next in the campaign.

Players are able to choose the path their campaign takes, navigating through six out of eleven available scenarios, so each time the campaign is played it can have a different configuration of scenarios. As the campaign progresses, the heroes are able to acquire new weapons, equipment and abilities that give them powerful options to tackle the obstacles ahead. Furthermore, by fulfilling specific quests in a scenario, players unlock exclusive features in subsequent scenarios.

Game Mechanics:

  • Campaign
  • Dice Rolling
  • Grid Movement
  • Take That
  • Variable Player Powers

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • ~60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.53

A War of Whispers 🟢

| T3d-1978

A War of Whispers is a competitive board game for 2 to 4 players. Five mighty empires are at war for the world, but you are no mighty ruler. Instead, you play a secret society that is betting on the results of this war while pulling strings to rig the results and ensure their bets pay off. A War of Whispers is a game of deep strategy, hidden agendas, and shifting loyalties.

You start the game with five loyalty tokens, each corresponding to one of the five different empires, bet randomly on a loyalty value. Your primary goal is to ensure that when the game ends, the empires you are most loyal to control the most cities across the globe. Gameplay consists of turns broken down into four phases:

  1. Deploy agents phase: In player order (starting with the first player and proceeding clockwise), each player removes, then deploys agents to empire councils, the positions on the board marked Sheriff, Steward, Marshall, and Chancellor.
  2. Empire turns phase: Each council position on each empire council will take an action. If a player has acquired cards, they may play them during this phase.
  3. Cleanup phase: Add the turn marker to the next space on the turn tracker, then each player discards down to the hand limit of five cards.
  4. Swap phase: In player order, each player may swap two of their unrevealed loyalty tokens. If you choose to do so, you must reveal both of the swapped loyalty tokens. They remain revealed for the rest of the game.

Gameplay repeats itself in this order four times. When the last space on the turn track is filled, the game ends immediately and scoring commences. The player with the most points based off their empire loyalties and the cities they control wins.

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Control
  • Bluffing
  • Take That
  • Wargame
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 30 – 60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.57

Survive: Escape from Atlantis!

| T3d-1978
Survive: Escape from Atlantis!

Survive: Escape from Atlantis!

Survive is a cutthroat game where players seek to evacuate their pieces from an island that is breaking up, while remembering where their highest-valued pieces are located to maximize their score.

An island made up of 40 hex-tiles is slowly sinking into the ocean (as the tiles are removed from the board). Each player controls ten people (valued from 1 to 6) that they try and move towards the safety of the surrounding islands before the main island finally blows up. Players can either swim or use boats to travel but must avoid sea serpents, whales and sharks on their way to safety.

Game Mechanics:

  • Action Points
  • Bluffing
  • Dice Rolling
  • Grid Movement
  • Memory
  • Take That

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 45 – 60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.70

Stop Thief!

| T3d-1978
Stop Thief!

Stop Thief!

An alert pops up on your smartphone: A crime has just been committed! Grab your investigator’s license and your keen powers of deduction and hunt down the suspect. But watch out because you’re not the only private eye on the hunt, and only one of you can slap the cuffs on the suspect and claim the reward. Get enough reward money, and you can finally leave this rat race behind and retire to a sunny tropical beach in the Caribbean.

Stop Thief is a family game of logical deduction for 2-4 players. An invisible suspect commits a crime. Only the sounds they make give them away. Listen to the clues and figure out where they are hiding. Play cards from your unique deck to move around the board, sneak through a window, or even get a private tip. Once you have the suspect pinned down, swoop in and make the arrest.

The obvious first step in this restoration was taking the electronic device and turning it into an app. Doing that allows for better sound quality and a more dynamic platform for different modes of play. Next step was ditching the roll-and-move mechanism and, in general, stripping out some of the luck and adding in a healthy dose of strategy. By replacing the dice with decks of movement cards, it also allows asymmetrical decks, which increases the fun and replayability. Game effects were also added to the suspect cards to further spice things up.

Game Mechanics:

  • Cooperative
  • Deduction
  • Hand Management
  • Hidden Movement
  • Memory
  • Take That

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 30 – 60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.53

Sequence

| T3d-1978
Sequence

Sequence

Sequence is a board and card game. The board shows all the cards (except for the Jacks) of two (2) standard 52-card decks, laid in a 10 x 10 pattern. The four corners are free spaces and count for all players equally.

The players compete to create rows, columns or diagonals of 5 connected checkers placed on the cards that the player has laid down. Two-eyed Jacks are wild, while one-eyed Jacks allow an opponent’s checker to be removed. The game ends when someone has reached a specified number of connections.

Game Mechanics:

  • Abstract Strategy
  • Card Game
  • Hand Management
  • Pattern Building
  • Take That
  • Team Based

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 12 Players
  • 10 – 30 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.33