Tag: Variable Player Powers

Critter Kitchen

| kithorning

In Critter Kitchen, you are a proud restaurant owner determined to set yourself apart during Restaurant Week at Bistro Bay! You’ll do this by completing various ingredient-related challenges over the course of the week and hopefully impressing the celebrity critics with a grand meal at the end of the week. However, you can’t be everywhere at once, meaning you’ll have to rely on your chefs to gather as many ingredients (and rumors!) as they can throughout Bistro Bay. Each round players will simultaneously and secretly decide where to send their workers, and deciding who goes where. Some chefs are fast but can only carry one item, whereas others are slower but can carry much more! Wow the critics and establish yourself as the best restauranter in this adorable game.

Game Mechanics:

  • Contracts
  • Programmed Movement
  • Variable Player Powers
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 5 Players
  • 60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.51

Colt Express

| T3d-1978

It is July 11th, 1899, in Folsom, New Mexico. The Union Pacific Express has just departed, full of precious jewels, wallets, and suitcases – right into the trap set by you, one of many bandits ready to rob these citizens blind! A bandits life isn’t easy sailing, though. You’ll have to compete with other bandits to get the biggest score, not even to mention avoiding the Marshall and navigating the 3D train.

Colt Express takes place over 5 rounds, with two phases each round. In phase 1, “Schemin'”, you and your fellow bandits will prepare your actions a play cards to form a deck. Then, in phase 2, “Stealin'”, all the action cards are carried out as you and your fellow bandits wreak havoc on the train. Avoid bullets, and hope that no one else ruins your plans.

Game Mechanics:

  •  Action Queue
  • Hand Management
  • Memory
  • Programmed Movement
  • Take That
  • Variable Player Powers

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 6 Players
  • 40 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.83

Car Wars: Starter Set

| T3d-1978

Car Wars is a game featuring arenas and freeways of the future in which the right of way goes to those with the biggest guns.
Players build their vehicle — complete with weapons, armor, suspension, and upgrades. Then they take them onto the road or into the arena. Sixth Edition is a streamlined update of the classic Car Wars. Quicker to build your car, quicker to learn to play, quicker to jump right in.

Game Mechanics:

  • Race
  • Simulation
  • Variable Player Powers

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 60 – 180 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.38

Captain Is Dead, The

| T3d-1978

Imagine that you are one of the crew in your favorite science fiction TV show. Now imagine that in the last 10 minutes of the show things have gone so badly that the captain is dead and you and the surviving members of your crew have to pull together and save the day yourselves!

The Captain Is Dead is a co-op game for 2 to 7 players. All you have to do is get the ship’s engines (aka “Jump Core”) back online and you win, but because there is a hostile alien ship trying to destroy you, that is easier said than done.

You have an impressive star ship full of useful systems that will help you fend off the aliens, and get the Jump Core back online. Each system gives you an advantage while it remains online. The assault from the hostile alien ship tends to keep knocking those systems offline however. So you need to balance your time between keeping the ships system’s online, fending off the alien threat, and completing your objective.

Each member of your crew has special abilities and skills. You need to work as a group to maximize the potential of each role. If someone tries to be a hero, you’ll all die.

Game Mechanics:

  • Cooperative Game
  • Hand Management
  • Open Drafting
  • Variable Player Powers

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 7 Players
  • 60 – 90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.39

Anachrony 🟠

| T3d-1978

It is the late 26th century. Earth is recovering from a catastrophic explosion that exterminated the majority of the population centuries ago and made most of the surface uninhabitable due to unearthly weather conditions. The surviving humans organized along four radically different ideologies, called Paths, to rebuild the world as they see fit: Harmony, Dominance, Progress, and Salvation. Followers of the four Paths live in a fragile peace, but in almost complete isolation next to each other. Their only meeting point is the last major city on Earth, now just known as the Capital.

By powering up the mysterious Time Rifts that opened in the wake of the cataclysm, each Path is able to reach back to specific moments in their past. Doing so can greatly speed up their progress, but too much meddling may endanger the time-space continuum. But progress is more important than ever before: if the mysterious message arriving through the Time Rift is to be believed, an even more terrible cataclysm is looming on the horizon: an asteroid bearing the mysterious substance called Neutronium is heading towards Earth. Even stranger, the scientists show that the energy signature of the asteroid matches the explosion centuries ago…

Anachrony features a unique two-tiered worker placement system. To travel to the Capital or venture out to the devastated areas for resources, players need not only various specialists (Engineers, Scientists, Administrators, and Geniuses) but also Exosuits to protect and enhance them — and both are in short supply.

The game is played in 4-7 turns, depending on the time when the looming cataclysm occurs — unless, of course, it is averted! The elapsed turns are measured on a dynamic timeline. By powering up the Time Rifts, players can reach back to earlier turns to supply their past “self” with resources. Each Path has a vastly different objective that rewards it with a massive amount of victory points when achieved. The Paths’ settlements will survive the impact, but the Capital will not. Whichever Path manages to collect most points will be the new seat for the Capital, thus the most important force left on the planet…

Game Mechanics:

  • Economic
  • Open Drafting
  • Set Collection
  • Solo / Solitaire Game
  • Variable Player Powers
  • Variable Set-up
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 30 – 120 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 4.01

Burning Banners: Rage of the Witch Queen

| T3d-1978

In the five centuries since the Wound was closed, the kingdoms of Kalar have struggled to rebuild their shattered societies. A resurgent Empire spread across the great sea, bringing civilization to the untamed eastern continent of Kheros. But Lilith, one of the immortal sorcerers responsible for the Worldwound, arrived first, preparing the way for the return of her dark mistress. For nearly six hundred years she has plotted and schemed. In 588 (2023 Gregorian), the wait is over.

Burning Banners: Rage of the Witch Queen is a fantasy wargame for two to six players. Fast playing and intuitive, a whopping 29 scenarios range from short campaigns with 2 Kingdoms and one map, to the entire 12-year war, in which 6 kingdoms battle over four maps. The rules include a quick-playing Basic Game as well as an Advanced Game which introduces Magic, Heroes, and Monsters guarding powerful treasures.

March 1” Armies and Heroes through huge, lovingly detailed hexes. Explore a vast, detailed fantasy world encompassing four mounted game maps with six unique kingdoms and dozens of troop types. Designed and illustrated by acclaimed fantasy artist, Christopher Moeller!

Game Mechanics:

  • Deck Building
  • Campaign
  • Team-Based Game
  • Variable Player Powers
  • Variable Set-up
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 6 Players
  • ~60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.22

Boss Monster: The Dungeon Building Card Game

| T3d-1978

Inspired by a love of classic video games, Boss Monster: The Dungeon Building Card Game pits 2-4 players in a competition to build the ultimate side-scrolling dungeon. Players compete to lure and destroy hapless adventurers, racing to outbid one another to see who can build the most enticing, treasure-filled dungeon. The goal of Boss Monster is to be the first Boss to amass ten Souls, which are gained when a Hero is lured and defeated — but a player can lose if his Boss takes five Wounds from Heroes who survive his dungeon.

Playing Boss Monster requires you to juggle two competing priorities: the need to lure Heroes at a faster rate than your opponents, and the need to kill those Heroes before they reach your Boss. Players can build one room per turn, each with its own damage and treasure value. More attractive rooms tend to deal less damage, so a Boss who is too greedy can become inundated with deadly Heroes.

Players interact with each other by building rooms and playing Spells. Because different Heroes seek different treasure types, and rooms are built simultaneously (played face down, then revealed), this means that every “build phase” is a bidding war. Spells are instant-speed effects that can give players advantages or disrupt opponents.

As a standalone card game with 155 cards, Boss Monster contains everything that 2-4 players need to play.

Game Mechanics:

  • Hand Management
  • Take That
  • Variable Player Powers

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • ~30 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.85

Big Book of Madness, The

| T3d-1978

So far your first year at the Elementary College has been slightly disappointing. They taught you to light a flickering flame at the tip of your finger, but other than that you’ve spent much more time reading books than learning powerful spells as future great wizards like you should.

So when you heard about the Big Book of Madness hidden in the great school library, you couldn’t help but to sneak in and peek in this intriguing tome in spite of your professors’ warnings. When you slowly lift the cover of the terrible book, dozens of dreadful creatures rush out, threatening to destroy the world itself! This was your mistake, and only you can fix it now! Learn from the library to fight back against the monsters, and try not to sink into insanity…

The Big Book of Madness is a challenging co-operative game in which the players are magic students who must act as a team to turn all the pages of the book, then shut it by defeating the terrible monsters they’ve just freed.

Each player has their own element deck that they build during the game and use for several purposes, such as learning or casting a spell, adding a new element to their deck, destroy or healing a curse. Spells allow you to support your playmates, improve your deck, draw cards, etc. — but the monsters from the book fight back. Each comes with terrible curses that are triggered every turn unless you dispel them in time. They will make you discard elements, add madness cards to your deck, or lose spells…

If you manage to turn six pages and defeat all of the monsters, you win the game!

Game Mechanics:

  • Cooperative Game
  • Hand Management
  • Player Elimination
  • Variable Player Powers

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 5 Players
  • 30 – 60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.68

Battletech: Beginner Box

| T3d-1978

In this introduction to the BattleTech game and universe, players each take control of one giant walking war machine (a BattleMech, aka ‘Mech) and battle until one is destroyed or until the scenario objectives being played are completed.

BattleTech is the world’s greatest armored combat game, filled with a myriad of epic stories and gaming experiences to satiate any player: miniatures to RPG play, hobby painting to fiction, and beyond. The BattleTech Beginner Box is the first step on that fantastic journey and includes everything you need to get started: two high-quality miniatures, quick-start rules, a mapsheet, cards to represent your MechWarrior’s unique skills, dice, and more.

Game Mechanics:

  • Dice Rolling
  • Miniatures
  • Paper-and-Pencil
  • Player Elimination
  • Variable Player Powers
  • Wargame

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 2 Players
  • ~120 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.43

Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood of Venice

| T3d-1978

Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood of Venice is a co-operative miniature board game taking place in the heart of the Italian Renaissance through a story-driven campaign of 26 “memories” in Venice, in 1509. Choose your assassins according to their unique abilities, level up during the campaign, and unlock new skills for each of them.

Fight or stay incognito thanks to the equipment found in chests or manufactured by Leonardo Da Vinci. Evade your pursuers by climbing on roofs and towers, then synchronize to reveal new game elements. Bribe your enemies, use secret hideouts to escape patrols, and flip mechanisms to change the level layout. After each memory, fall back to your headquarters to heal your wounds, grow your brotherhood’s fame, and craft special equipment. The game features a save system that allows the number of players to vary between each campaign and the level of play adjusts according to the number of players.

The retail edition of Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood of Venice features the same scenarios as the original Kickstarter release and therefore the same gameplay experience. What has changed is that all of the miniatures other than the five detailed assassin figurines have been replaced with standees, so the game includes 5 miniatures, 139 standees, 6 secret envelopes, 41 tiles, and more than 400 cards.

Many surprises await in the sealed envelopes. Meet the many famous personalities you’ve encountered in the Assassin’s Creed video games as well as four unique ones created especially for this game.

Game Mechanics:

  • Cooperative Game
  • Modular Board, Campaign
  • Solo / Solitaire Game
  • Storytelling
  • Variable Player Powers

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 30 – 90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.13