Tag: Variable Set-up

Borealis: Arctic Expeditions

| OTSG Staff

Become the leaders of scientific teams venturing into uncharted boreal territories to observe and photograph the Arctic’s most adorable inhabitants.

Play cards from your hand to one of 3 locations on your player board to snap a photo and send your scientists sliding to the left and to the right – but only if their colors match the ones printed on your card!

Line up vehicle symbols, race to claim objectives, and arrange animals in pre-determined end-game scoring patterns to earn the most points and gain everlasting fame at the Society for Polar Inquiry. Who knows? Maybe you’ll even get your own tiny snow-covered island named after you.

Game Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • ~45 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.00

Galileo Galilei

| OTSG Staff

“And yet it moves”, he said.

Galileo Galilei is a Euro-style game in which you take on the role of an astronomer who will discover new planets, find unknown star systems, develop their telescope, and make a scientific breakthrough in the difficult ages of obscurantism.

Use your telescope to select one of the five actions available, with you being able to evolve these actions into better ones. Collect cards of different planets and star systems. Collect lenses of the three main colors to make a discovery. Be wary of inquisitors as they might arrive unwelcomed and ruin your fame in no time. Better find a way to profit from their visit instead.

Game Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 50 – 100 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.04

Galactic Cruise

| OTSG Staff

Hello, and welcome to Galactic Cruise. Here, we offer our guests something special: the comfort of a luxury cruise with the innovation of space travel. As the first company to offer extended-stay space vacations, we are excited to have you working for us! As a supervisor of this company, you’ll be expected to not only build these ships and satisfy our guests, but also to help the company thrive by enhancing our company network, inventing new technologies, and growing our workforce. We are a united company, and you’ll often find that what another supervisor does will make your job easier. Let me be clear, though, this is a competition. Our current CEO will be stepping down in three years, and the supervisor who comes out on top will take his place.

On your turn, you will either place a worker to take two actions in the ever-expanding network, launch a ship and send one of your workers to space as a pilot, or recall all your earthbound workers to collect funding bonuses. Actions include acquiring blueprints, constructing ships, attracting guests, and building developments–connections between locations that increase action selection throughout the game. You will also be affecting resource markets that ebb and flow with the actions of all the players.

Throughout the game, you will also be competing with your fellow supervisors to complete company goals, which will earn you progress cubes throughout the game. Progress cubes are also placed when you launch ships, and when a certain number of cubes are placed onto the company’s progress track, the game ends, and the player with the most Victory Points becomes the new CEO of Galactic Cruise.

Do you still think you have what it takes to work for us? You do? Great. Let’s get started.

Game Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

  • 1- 4 Players
  • 90 – 150 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.99

Fox in the Forest Duet, The

| OTSG Staff

In the two-player, co-operative trick-taking game The Fox in the Forest Duet, players team up, helping each other move through the forest. Collect all the gems before the end of three rounds of play, and you win!

To set up the game, place gem tokens on the designated spaces of the game board and the team tracker token in the center of the movement path. At the start of each round, shuffle the deck of thirty cards — which contains three suits, each numbered 1-10 — and deal each player a hand of eleven cards. Reveal one card as the “decree” card to determine the trump suit. For each trick, one player leads a card, and the other must follow suit, if possible. The winner of the trick moves the team tracker toward them a number of spaces equal to the number of fox footprints on the cards played. If the tracker lands on a space next to a gem, the players collect one gem. If the tracker would move off the end of the path, return the tracker to the center of the path, then add a forest token to one end of the path, reducing the number of spaces upon which you can move (with you sliding gems next to this covered space next to the new end of the path).

The odd-numbered character cards have special abilities when played, allowing the trick winner to move the tracker in the direction of their choice or to ignore the footprints on one of the played cards so that you can land on just the right spot. One character allows players to exchange one card with each other, while another allows a player to change the decree card.

At the end of a round, you add five gems to designated spaces, add a forest space to shorten the path, then receive a new hand of eleven cards from a freshly shuffled deck. Collect all 22 gem tokens, and you win. Run out of time or head off the end of the path with no forest spaces in reserve, then you can just keep running in defeat or shuffle the cards and start the game anew.

Game Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

  • 2 Players
  • ~30 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.77

For All Mankind

| OTSG Staff

For All Mankind is a fast-paced game of strategic exploration, clever trades, and diplomatic shenanigans. Build your empire across the ever-changing solar system. (Careful, the planets move!) Gather, trade, and invest your resources — and do whatever it takes to stay ahead of the competition.

Expand: Grow your empire with colonies (more loot!), research (more power!), and espionage (more nukes!).

Scheme: All is fair in interplanetary domination, but you would never double-cross a friend…right?

Profit: Be the first to reach 10 points, and see your name etched in the stars forever!

Learn to play in about 15 minutes.
Finish a game in about 60 minutes.
The most fun you’ll ever have blowing up your friends in space, guaranteed!

Game Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

  • `1 – 4 Players
  • 60 – 90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.00

Formaggio

| OTSG Staff

You are an Italian cheesemaker in the early 20th century making, aging, and selling your artisanal cheeses. Become the most prestigious cheesemaker in all of Italy by running a highly successful creamery and crafting exceptional cheese. Formaggio is a standalone expansion for Fromage. With both games put together, you can combine any 4 board quadrants, and draft any combination of structure tiles for more variety and more paths to victory.

Formaggio is a simultaneous worker-placement game where players place Workers to make cheese and gather resources from the quadrant of the board facing them. Once all players have placed their Workers, the board rotates, aging any cheese that was made, and presenting each player with a new quadrant to place Workers into. Score Prestige Points by selling cheese to the four locations, and by efficiently managing and upgrading your creamery.

Formaggio features 4 new board quadrants with all new puzzling mini-games:
• Pair your cheese with the wines at the Vigneto.
• Sell cheese to restaurants along the Venetian canals and attract customers.
• Distribute cheese across the Regioni of Italy.
• Deposit cheese in the Banca. (Yes, there is a real bank in Italy that accepts cheese as collateral for loans!)

Other new features:
• Platinum-tier cheeses.
• Reap various rewards in each of the Seasons.
• All new abilities on the Player Boards and Structure tiles.

Game Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 30 – 45 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.53

Fit to Print

| OTSG Staff

Fit to Print is a puzzly tile-laying game about breaking news, designed by Peter McPherson and set in a charming woodland world created by Ian O’Toole!

Thistleville is the world’s most bustling little town — it’s a challenge to keep up with everything going on, from who took home first prize for their baked goods at the community fair to who has been digging in Mrs. Brambleberry’s carrot patch.

As an editor at one of the local newspapers, your job is to tell their stories!

The front page is due in just a few hours and you have no time for perfection. Grab the big stories before the other papers get a chance, and make sure you get the right photos too. A newspaper is a business, so the money has to come from somewhere — don’t forget the ads! After you’ve picked out a combination of stories, photos, and ads, it’s time to lay out the front page. Did you take enough tiles to fill the paper, but not so many that things have to be cut? Over the course of three hectic days, your skills will be tested as you compete to be the most newsworthy editor!

Fit To Print is a tile-laying game for the whole family. Players simultaneously collect newspaper tiles, stacking them on their desks until they think they have what they need to make the perfect front page. Then, they will yell “Layout!” and begin to lay out the page by carefully considering the placement of centerpieces, articles, photographs, and advertisements. When everything is just right, they yell “Print” to be the first off the press and gain their choice of centerpiece for the next round! This hectic spatial puzzle features over 100 unique newspaper tiles, 6 characters with their own special abilities, as well as 3 decks of Breaking News cards — so that each and every time you play you will be solving a new puzzle!

If real-time games aren’t your style, Fit to Print has a number of alternative modes to satisfy every type of puzzle gamer. In Slo-Mode players take turns drafting tiles from a shared market and arranging them on their front pages. In Puzzle Mode, take a specific set of tiles and piece together the highest-scoring arrangements. Whether you enjoy relaxing solo puzzles on your own, or frenetic action for up to 6 players, you will have a blast helping the critters of Thistleville tell their stories!

Game Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 6 Players
  • 15 – 30 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.12

EGO

| OTSG Staff

We are not alone! It is the 23rd century, and proof of alien life has finally been discovered beyond our solar system. In fact, recent developments in technology have triggered a cascade of discoveries throughout the galaxy; intelligent life and advanced civilizations are now known across many planets, moons, and asteroids in the Milky Way. Now the race is on to establish interstellar relations with the aliens. The only chance we have of reaching alien life is by pooling our resources to build the required Super Ship. In an unprecedented, albeit uneasy, co-operation between the planetary governments, the peoples of our solar system have finally built the first of these Super Ships. Now, the coalition known as the Extraterrestrial Greeting Organization — EGO — is now ready to launch our first mission.

In EGO, players proceed through a sequence of major and minor events including auctions, drafts, risks, and more. Risks and egos are the lifeblood of this game as players will frequently find themselves in a game of chicken with their rival ambassadors as they try to impress various alien civilizations and earn political power. At the end of the game, players earn significant bonus points or suffer serious penalty points depending on how offensive the aliens find them to be. Ultimately, the ambassador with the most prestige and respect will earn a seat in the Galactic Senate and be crowned the winner of the game.

EGO is a drastic reimagining of the strategic, push-your-luck auction game, Beowulf: The Legend and introduces many innovations by:

  • Revamping the polarizing risk mechanism while preserving its excitement and drama
  • Increasing the set-up variety with a randomized sequence of interchangeable civilization boards
  • Streamlining the endgame push-your-luck token system in which players can score big or suffer immensely
  • Introducing exciting new features such as currency cards and transmission events
  • Balancing the bidding tie-breaker system with the simple solution of ranked cards
  • Speeding up the playtime with a condensed and focused sequence of events
  • Doubling the number of unique special cards that can be drafted as rewards
  • Spicing up the risk events with varying rewards and penalties
  • Sharpening the endgame hand management decisions with tempting rewards following a climactic final auction
  • Broadening the appeal of the theme and presentation with vivid galactic artwork by Marie Bergeron

Game Mechanics:

  • Auction / Bidding
  • Hand Management
  • Modular Board
  • Open Drafting
  • Push Your Luck
  • Variable Set-up

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 5 Players
  • 40 – 80 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.40

Federation

| OTSG Staff

The universe is organized into many federations which trade, intrigue, develop… One of these federations, still not fully developed yet (5 member planets so far) wants a new delegation to join them, but you are not the only one having your sights set on the federation. The Federation challenges you to prove your worth for 5 years. During these 5 years, you must develop strategies, deploy tactics, take the best opportunities but also form the right alliances at the right time… In the end, only 1 delegation will be chosen: the one with the most prestige!

Federation is an interactive Eurogame with innovative double-sided worker placement mechanic..

Federation is played over 5 rounds. Each round is divided into 2 main steps. The first step is player turns where each player plays an Ambassador’s pawn and send a spaceship on a special mission. Once all players have completed their turn, the Executive Phase starts, where players receive their income, fund Major Projects and pass laws.

At the end of the 5th round, the game ends. The Player with the most prestige points wins the game and joins the Federation. In case of a tie, the victory is shared.

Your individual board is composed of the 5 federated actions, 1 spy action, some senate actions and some special senate actions giving prestige points.

Game Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 60 – 120 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.75

Ezra and Nemahiah

| OTSG Staff

In his first year as king of Persia, Cyrus the Great issued a decree in writing to the Israelite exiles living under his rule:

The God of heaven has given me all the kingdoms of the earth and has appointed me to build a temple for Him in Jerusalem. Any of his people may go up to Jerusalem in Judah to build the temple of the Lord, the God of Israel. And in any place where survivors may now be living, the people of Persia are to provide them with silver, gold, goods, livestock, and offerings for the temple of God in Jerusalem. – Ezra 1:2-4 (paraphrased).

Decades later, in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes reign, the king noticed a sadness in his cupbearer, Nehemiah. When asked why he looked so ill, Nehemiah replied:

May the king live forever! Why should I not look sad when the city of my ancestors lies in ruins, and its gates have been destroyed by fire? If it pleases you, and if I have found favor in your sight, let me go to the city in Judah where my ancestors are buried so that I may rebuild it. – Nehemiah 2:3-5 (paraphrased).

The aim of Ezra and Nehemiah is to be the player with the most victory points (VP) at game’s end. Points are gained primarily by building the temple, rebuilding the city walls and gates, and by teaching the Torah to the returning exiles. Players may also seek to develop their land, travel to settlements outside the city walls, or stoke the altar’s fire to keep it burning day and night. The prophets Haggai and Zechariah will be doing their part to keep the people focused on what is most important.

Over three weeks (rounds), players will use their hand of cards, workers, and resources to do their part in rebuilding the great city of Jerusalem. After six days of work comes a Sabbath day of rest when food will be needed, and the week’s work will be reflected upon. The game ends after the third Sabbath has been completed.

Game Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 90 – 120 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.83