Bluffing Games 3 - Shut Up & Sit Down

Insider

Do we really have free will? Who decides this? Are we controlled by what we hear and what we see, even while thinking we decide freely? Insider is a game that deals with these questions. While communicating to others, you have to find the right answers to a quiz or find the “insider” who is manipulating the discussion. The insider will do everything to hide their identity while misleading the others.

In more detail, players are assigned roles at random. One player is the “master”, and they secretly select a word from a set given in a deck of cards. (In a variant given in the rulebook, they can freely select and write down a word.) The “insider” player, whose role is not known to the other players, will then secretly view the word. The rest of the players are known as “commons”. The commons then have approximately five minutes in which to ask the master “yes” or “no”-type questions so that they can deduce the secret word. The insider attempts to secretly lead the commons towards the correct word. If the commons fail to guess the correct word, everyone loses.

If, however, the word is correctly guessed in the allowable time, the master flips the sand timer, and the commons and master have until the sand runs out to discuss the game and deduce the identity of the insider. If they guess correctly, they win the game together; if they do not, the insider wins.

Impulse is a quick-playing 4X (explore, expand, exploit, and exterminate) game set in space with the game board being composed of cards that have actions on them. Players also have cards in hand, and in addition to featuring one of ten possible actions, these cards have a color (red, yellow, blue or green) and a size (1, 2 or 3, as indicated by the number of icons on the card). Each card also has six edges, and these edges connect adjacent cards in the hex-shaped playing area.

The cards in the playing area start face down, with each player controlling a card(their Home) on a corner of this area. Each player has two transport ships in the center of his Home card and a cruiser on an edge. Cruisers are used to patrol sectors of space and destroy opposing transports, while transports let you activate sectors that you enter.

On a turn, a player adds a card to the Impulse from his hand, then (optionally) performs an action for a tech in his playing area, then (optionally) performs all the actions in the Impulse, then draws two cards and adds them to his hand. The Impulse is a line of cards shared by all players that changes turn by turn as players add cards to it and as cards fall off once it reaches maximum size. Thus, players need to feed the Impulse with actions that benefit them more than opponents, but that’s easier said than done.

When you perform actions – whether from moving transports to them or using the Impulse – you can boost them by having minerals of the same color or lots of transports. Each action has a single numeral on it, e.g., “Command [1] ship for one jump” or “Build [1] cruiser at home”; when you boost an action, you increase that numeral.

Players score points by destroying enemy ships (one point per ship), by controlling edge spaces on the central card (one point per edge), and by taking other actions via cards. The first player to score 20 points wins!

Obscurio is a family game, an original mix between an image-based communication game and a secret role game in which the players have to be careful when sharing ideas with their team. The Grimoire guides their team towards the exit using images, upon which they point at certain details. Working together, the other players have to find the exit as quickly as possible while avoiding picking the wrong cards. However, a member of the team is a traitor looking to lead the other players astray. A wide variety of traps are on your way to the exit of the library, making player communication harder!

Detective Club is a board game for players who enjoy party, with simple rules that take just a minute to explain. Intrigue, sudden revelations, limitless creativity, and tons of fun await you in this game! Lead the investigation as a detective, or cover your tracks as the infiltrated conspirator. Discuss, accuse, object and try to convince everyone.

In Detective Club, on each round, one of the players secretly teams up with another — the Conspirator — and tries to make them guess a secret word using just two illustrated cards! Other players are detectives, who also know the word, but don’t know the identities of each other. Detectives have to find out who the conspirator is, making sure they don’t get accused by their fellow players!

Called to an exclusive competition on an offshore oil rig by an eccentric billionaire, the world’s best brawlers, and martial artists will compete for lavish prizes and the glory of proving that they are the strongest and most skilled. In Combo Fighter you will play as one of these fighters competing to become the ultimate champion. You … Read more

In the late 17th Century, mighty ships sailed the seas and brought all manner of goods back to port. As a savvy captain, you must skillfully utilize your crew to fill your ship’s hold with the best combination of treasure, cannons, and (ahem) other items to earn gold. In the end, the player who amasses the biggest bounty will be declared the greatest smuggler…uh, SEA CAPTAIN…of all time!

In ShipShape, 2-6 players each control a ship. Over the course of three voyages (rounds), you bid using numbered crew cards to claim unique crate tiles off the central stack. Fill your hold with gold, cannons, and contraband and cover up what you don’t want. At the end of each voyage, score coins by comparing your holds with everyone else, looking only at what is visible in your hold.

Imagine you can control the forces of a noble family, guild, or religious order on a barren planet which is the only source for the most valuable substance in the known universe. Imagine you can rewrite the script for one of the most famous science fiction books of all time. Welcome to the acclaimed 40-year-old … Read more

The country of La Guerre des Moutons (the war of sheep) is full of fields and forests. There are sheep in the fields and wolves and hunters in the forests. Each player tries to make the largest pens with his own sheep inside by placing his own tiles. You can easily close small pens, or you can be ambitious and try to build large farms… but if you cannot enclose the fields, your sheep are likely to be eaten by the big bad wolves roaming in the nearby forests. Each player’s animal is secret at the beginning of the game, but the soonest you reveal it, the more points you get.

The City Council recently approved the zoning map for a new urban development — The Estates — featuring high-end infrastructure and a modern atmosphere for its citizens. Soon after, the banks awarded millions of dollars in loans to six real estate investment firms to help develop this new area. The zoning map for The Estates calls for two rows of four buildings each, located between the River and Main Street. The meadows on the other side of the River are to remain a recreational area for the City.

But, with hopes of larger profits, investors and building tycoons entirely ignore the City Council’s demands and begin developing three rows of buildings instead. The Mayor catches wind of the potential for profit and begins planning a new mansion in The Estates, which would double the value of one of the building rows! With some sketchy building permits, investors begin developing buildings on the other side of the River, beyond the designated building zone. However, the City Council takes rigorous steps to put an end to the racketeering with an ultimatum: As soon as the first two rows are completed, the buildings in the uncompleted row will be torn down, resulting in a huge loss for all who invested there. At the end of the day, the investor with the highest-valued buildings will come out on top.

The players take on the role of investors seeking to make the most money by developing buildings in The Estates. Players will bid for the various building pieces and place them in The Estates to their benefit. All buildings in completed rows score positive points, while all buildings in incomplete rows score negative points. It is possible to have zero completed rows of buildings.

A game of The Estates lasts around 40 minutes and can be played in several rounds to experience a shifting economy.

A mysterious alien plague has crept aboard the spacestation and is transforming the human crew into horrendous monsters! The remaining crewmen desperately try to save their lives by escaping from the derelict spaceship, but in the darkness the aliens are lurking… HUNGRY FOR HUMAN FLESH! This a game of strategy and bluff set on a … Read more

Insider

Impulse

Obscurio

Detective Club

Combo Fighter

ShipShape

Dune

Wooly Wars

The Estates

Escape from the Aliens in Outer Space

Feeds