Board Game Posts

A world of beautiful colors comes alive as players complete commissions that picture some of the finest European and American art works from the past six centuries.

The word pastiche is used in the fields of literature and art to refer to something that is an imitation or recreation of an earlier work, often as a respectful homage or tribute to the original. In this game, players are making pastiches by mixing colors and recreating some of the palette colors used to create the original paintings of the masters. …

Any fool can charge the enemy with an axe. Killing quickly and efficiently though, that's the thing that takes guts and skill. And with zombies, well, not every hit will do the trick. Hack a man's arm off, and he's down for the count. Hack a zombie's arm off, and he can still get you with t'other. You gotta be swift and sure, or you'll wind up as one of them.

When a Survivor executes a Melee, Ranged or Magic Action to attack Zombies, roll as many dice as the Dice number of the weapon (or Combat spell) being used. …

Basic Set: The Starship

Story

A peaceful village is suddenly raided by soldiers of the empire. Their aim is to capture a nameless girl.

The girl has a narrow escape with the help of a wandering swordsman, and learns that she has an untapped ability to awaken an ancient artifact called the Legacy.

A general of the empire, who engages in secret maneuvers, and a band of thieves after a treasure, both chases her persistently. As she flees from their pursuit, the girl, as her fate would have it, arrives at the ruins. …

Having appropriate Items will often make the difference between life and death for a Character. Items may be obtained in a few different ways:

• Each Character starts the game with 1 dedicated Item card ( Weapon).

• Each Character starts the game with 2 Quest Items. These 2 cards are placed face down on their horizontal side. Once their requirements are fulfilled, the cards are flipped face up on their verti- cal side and become normal Item cards.

• During the game, a Character may also find various Items in the Rooms, using the Search Action card. …

Each player tries to position his spheres as accurately as possible. During each game round, six task cards are revealed. These cards indicate conditions you must follow when placing the spheres - for example, which spheres must not be on top of other spheres or must not touch each other.

If you complete the tasks correctly, you receive points, and if you have the most points at the end of the game, you win.

Components

• 4 Player trays
• 12 Self-adhesive feet for the underside of the player trays
• 60 Spheres (orange, blue, green, black, and white; 12 of each color)
• 60 Task cards
• 90 Point tokens
• 30 Bonus tokens
• 4 Overview tiles

Setup

• Each player takes a player tray and places it in front of himself or herself. …

The Board

The map of the island is only required during a Coup d'État. The neighborhoods, army bases, police precincts, embassies, and the five Important Power Centers are clearly demarcated locations.

At the top of the board is a row of squares listing the phases of the political (card) game, indicating which phase is currently in play.

The Deck of Politics Cards

• 

  Assassins enable an assassination attempt in Phase 6.

  
  
• 

  Bribes enable the control of Units or hinder an assassination. In order to play these cards, one needs cash in hand. …

Teaching the game to new players can be daunting! What do you explain? When do you explain it? Here's the path that we use when we demo and explain Innovation:

Staging

Set up the piles, achievements, and create boards for two players with some age 1 cards. Good cards to use include Writing, The Wheel, and Archery. Make sure all five colors are out.

Overview

Explain that all the cards are innovations from throughout ten ages of history, from The Wheel all the way to The Internet. Achievements from the ages are how you win, and you can claim them by scoring points, which some card effects allow. …

Progress tokens provide their owner a positive benefit, whether during the game or at game's end. A token's type determines when a player can use that benefit. The 3 types of progress tokens are:

1. 
   
   

   This benefit applies for the token's owner for the remainder of the game.

2. 
   
   

   This benefit can be used by the token's owner only once; flip this token face down after using it.

3. 
   
   

   This benefit applies only once for the token's owner during final scoring.

Here are detailed descriptions of each progress token: …

One-on-one

Two archaeologists are competing, trying to find as many Scarabs as possible in one shared Archaeological Site.

Setup

• Take one set of components (1 Frame, 4 Boards, 12 Tiles, and 8 Rocks) and set up the 4 Boards inside the Frame to create an Archaeological Site. Place the Rocks on any open rock spaces.

• Then, place the site and the Tiles in the center of the table.

• Shuffle the Mission Cards and place them face down in a pile. Make sure the pile of Scarab Tokens is accessible to both players. …

Setup

• Set up the land board and lunar board, and place the year marker on "year 1" of the score chart.

• Separate cards into 8 decks (3 territory, 5 command); remove any "wild MOD" and blank cards.

• Devastated lands: randomly draw four land territory cards and place devastation markers on them. These land territory cards are set aside for the rest of the game.

• Each player receives: 3 one-point energy chips; army units (3/35; 4/30; 5/25); a Land Commander, a Diplomat Commander, and one Space Station.

• Roll a die to determine order for placing units. …