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Renaissance Man

In Renaissance Man, each player is an example of the title character – skilled as a scholar, a merchant, a knight, and a baker – and throughout the game will hire, recruit and train others with the goal of producing a Master of one of these four areas of study. Each round consists of players creating actions by combining a worker in play with a card from hand:

Merchants hire new workers.
Knights compete to recruit workers from the common pool.
Bakers offer their goods in exchange for workers’ actions.
Scholars train others in the ways of the Renaissance Man.

Instead of providing these actions for a player, a worker in play can be assigned to support higher-level workers. Two workers are required for support, and they are laid out as such in a pyramid-fashion. Five workers create a player’s foundation, and the first player to complete a pyramid structure of fifteen workers creates a single Master of study, thus winning the game. A little luck will help along the way, but the day will surely go to the player who finds the most clever ways out of the trickiest situations in Renaissance Man!

In the far future, humanoid empires of the universe turned to an intense study of ancient civilizations that existed on a planet known as Earth. They learned that these ancients simultaneously built pyramids towards the sky and had an extensive knowledge of the stars. It was rumored that perhaps they were the original colonizers and space-farers of the first human age.

Now, at the edge of a colossal black hole, a pyramid-craft known as the Zoneplex has emerged with legendary markings and glyphs of the deep past. The known empires have sent their elite warrior-monk mystics on a one-way mission to gain control of the Zoneplex, to emerge victorious and ultimately control the pathways of the universe and time itself.

Zoneplex is a game that combines a tile-laying/exploration mechanism, a collaborative battle system and a zone control system to create an intriguing adventure in an alien pyramid.

“Now the trumpet summons us again, not as a call to bear arms, though arms we need; not as a call to battle, though embattled we are – but a call to bear the burden of a long twilight struggle.” – John F. Kennedy

In 1945, unlikely allies toppled Hitler’s war machine, while humanity’s most devastating weapons forced the Japanese Empire to its knees in a storm of fire. Where once there stood many great powers, there now stood only two – the United States and the Soviet Union. The world had scant months to collectively sigh in relief before a new conflict threatened. Unlike the titanic struggles of the preceding decades, this conflict would be waged not primarily by soldiers and tanks, but by spies and politicians, scientists and intellectuals, artists and traitors. Twilight Struggle is a two-player game simulating the 45 year dance of intrigue, prestige, and occasional flares of warfare between the USSR and the USA. The entire world is the stage on which these two titans fight. The game begins amidst the ruins of Europe as the two new superpowers scramble over the wreckage of WWII and ends in 1989, when only the United States remained standing.

Twilight Struggle inherits its fundamental systems from the card-driven classics We the People and Hannibal. It is a quick-playing, low-complexity game in that same tradition. The game map is a world map of the period, whereon players move units and exert influence in attempts to gain allies and control for their superpower.

Twilight Struggle’s Event cards add detail and flavor to the game. They cover a vast array of historical happenings: the Arab-Israeli conflicts, Vietnam, the peace movement, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and other such incidents that brought the world to the brink of nuclear annihilation. Subsystems capture the prestige-laden Space Race as well as nuclear tensions, with the possibility of game-ending nuclear war. Can you, as the U.S. President or Soviet Premier, lead your nation to victory? Play Twilight Struggle and find out.

Gauntlet of Fools is an adventure game of skill and fortune for 2-6 that plays in under 30 minutes. Choose your hero from hundreds of possible combinations. You’ll make ridiculous boasts to get the best hero – but every boast comes at a cost. How awesome is your knight with a flaming sword after you boast that he’ll fight blindfolded with a hangover?

You’ll find out in the gauntlet: fifty encounters that will kill you. That’s right. You will die, fool! But even a fool wants his gold, and the monsters have it. Roll a handful of dice, slay a monster, get its treasure. Die with the most gold to win the game.

BioShock Infinite: The Siege of Columbia board game, based on the critically acclaimed BioShock Infinite video game, allows players to explore the world of BioShock Infinite–the atmosphere, the characters, the city of Columbia itself, and even contours of the game’s plot–from a tantalizing new perspective as the leaders of the Founders and Vox Populi factions.

Set during the same series of events as the video game, players take on the role of the Founders and Vox Populi factions, desperately seeking to seize control of Columbia. Gain points from staking your claim to the city’s territories and accomlishing other goals, all the while fighting your opponents and Booker while trying to influence Elizabeth and commanding an army of detailed miniatures as well as the Songbird and Airship!

In BioShock Infinite: The Siege of Columbia, each player uses their unique deck of cards to influence world events, build their army, fight off Booker, zoom around the city on the Sky-Line, and claw their way to ultimate control of Columbia.

In this collaboration between Bruno Cathala and Ludovic Maublanc, players must buy the favor of the gods in their race to be the first player to build two cities in the Ancient Greek island group known as the Cyclades.

Victory requires respect for all the gods – players cannot afford to sacrifice to only one god, but must pay homage to each of five gods in turn. Each turn, the players bid for the favors of the gods, as only one player can have the favor of each god per turn – and each player is also limited to the favor of a single god per turn.

Police Precinct is a cooperative/semi-cooperative game where players are tasked with solving a mysterious murder while simultaneously working to keep crime on the streets under control, and to keep the city from falling into chaos.

Players take on the role of police officers with different areas of expertise. The players work together to solve the mystery by collecting evidence and eventually arresting the suspect.

Complicating matters is the fact that there may or may not be a corrupt officer that is being paid off by the murderer to suppress evidence, the same evidence everyone else is trying to uncover.

Players move around the city searching through randomly shuffled investigation cards for evidence in relation to the murder. The number of investigation cards drawn depends on the character’s rating as well as how many player cards are added by other players to boost the character’s rating for the current “search”. There are four decks of investigation cards (Interview Witness, Collect Crime Scene Evidence, Examine Body and Locate Murder Weapon) to be searched. These decks are shuffled and placed in different locations. So, a player might search the cards in one area and not find any evidence at all… or maybe the bribed cop, if there is one, did the searching and just said no evidence was found.

Players have to find all of the evidence cards from the investigation decks to be able to arrest the murderer.

At the end of each player’s turn they draw an event card. These cards represent growing crime and emergencies that are happening in the city. Each one piles on top of the other, and if the cops don’t stay on top of things, they will be buried in crime! These Event cards are placed on the game board at the locations where they occur. Some of them have “unknown circumstance” tokens placed face-down upon them, adding even more tension.

If too many criminals are located in one area, a gang is formed. Each gang has it’s own power and can cripple the police efforts if not handled quickly and carefully.

So, not only are the players investigating the murder, but they must also arrest street criminals and handle emergencies.

Sometimes when a character successfully completes a task, that character is rewarded with a doughnut token. These tokens can later be used to help with tasks. However, if the character does not complete the task in time, the city crime track advances. The track can also advance if street crimes grow so large that no more street criminals can be placed, when called for. If the Crime Track advances to the end, the murderer escapes justice and the good cops fail the game.

To add to the tension even further, The good cops only have so many days to complete the investigation. If time runs out, once again the murderer shall escape justice!

The pressure is great and the stakes are high!

Risk Legacy represents what is if not a new, at least a rare concept to boardgaming: campaigning. At its core, the game, particularly at first, plays much like regular Risk with a few changes. Players control countries or regions on a map of the world, and through simple combat (with players rolling dice to determine who loses units in each battle) they try to eliminate all opponents from the game board or control a certain number of “red stars”, otherwise known as victory points (VPs).

What’s different is that Risk Legacy’ changes over time based on the outcome of each game and the various choices made by players. In each game, players choose one of five factions; each faction has uniquely shaped pieces, and more importantly, different rules. At the start of the first game, each of these factions gains the ability to break one minor rule, such as the ability to move troops at any time during your turn, as opposed to only at the end.

What makes this game unique is that when powers are chosen, players must choose one of their faction’s two powers, affix that power’s sticker to their faction card, then destroy the card that has the other rule on it – and by destroy, the rules mean what they say: “If a card is DESTROYED, it is removed from the game permanently. Rip it up. Throw it in the trash.” This key concept permeates through the game. Some things you do in a game will affect it temporarily, while others will affect it permanently. These changes may include boosting the resources of a country (for recruiting troops in lieu of the older “match three symbols” style of recruiting), adding bonuses or penalties to defending die rolls to countries, or adding permanent continent troop bonuses that may affect all players.

The rule book itself is also designed to change as the game continues, with blocks of blank space on the pages to allow for rules additions or changes. Entire sections of rules will not take effect until later in the game. The game box contains different sealed packages and compartments, each with a written condition for opening. The rule book indicates that these contain the rule additions, additional faction powers, and other things that should not be discussed here for spoiler protection.

The winner of each of the first 15 games receives a “major bonus,” such as founding a major city (which only he will be allowed to start on in future games), deleting a permanent modifier from the board, destroying a country card (preventing it from providing any resources towards purchasing troops in future games), changing a continent troop bonus, or naming a continent, which gives that player a troop bonus in future games. Players who did not win but were not eliminated are allowed to make minor changes to the world, such as founding a minor city or adding resources to a country.

Initial games take approximately 30-90 minutes to play, which includes a brief rules explanation and setup.

In the aftermath of his stunning triumph at Chancellorsville, Robert E. Lee decided to carry the war to the North in the hopes that a victory on Northern soil would win the war for the Confederacy. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia was as close in numbers to its antagonist, the Army of the Potomac, as it had ever been, and that army was in a leadership crisis that would result in a new commander, George Meade, being appointed in the middle of the campaign.

Only two days after Meade’s taking command, a Union cavalry division outside of the town of Gettysburg came under attack by Confederate infantry. The engaged commanders of both sides called for reinforcements, and without orders from either Lee or Meade, more and more units from both armies rushed to the scene. Without anyone having planned or intended it, the decisive battle of the campaign, and perhaps the war, was underway.

The Guns of Gettysburg recreates that historic battle. Derived from the system used in the acclaimed Bonaparte at Marengo and Napoleon’s Triumph, the game, still in development, will retain the striking appearance, simple rules, and fast play of its predecessors. The system will, however, have numerous changes to reflect differences between the Napoleonic and American Civil War periods and also the special characteristics of the battle of Gettysburg.

Android: Netrunner - Creation and Control

Who will write the future? Creation and Control pits a new wave of enigmatic Shapers against the latest and greatest of Haas-Bioroid’s developments in artificial intelligence, efficiency, and security. The first deluxe expansion for Android: Netrunner The Card Game, Creation and Control introduces 165 new cards (three copies each of fifty-five individual cards), that will instigate dramatic new strategies and high-stakes battles for the control of valuable files and the futures outlined within them.

Creation and Control focuses on the struggles between the executives at Haas-Bioroid and those Shapers who are driven to tinker with their programs and hardware by an almost-religious compulsion, but fans of every Android: Netrunner faction will find plenty of great uses for their influence, as well as twenty-seven neutral cards (three copies each of nine individual cards) that can sharpen the focus of any deck.

Renaissance Man

Zoneplex

Twilight Struggle

Gauntlet of Fools

BioShock Infinite: The Siege of Columbia

Cyclades

Police Precinct

Risk Legacy

The Guns of Gettysburg

Android: Netrunner – Creation and Control

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