Dark forces are looming over the merry town of Dungshire! It is up to you, and your somewhat brave team of ~~misfits~~ adventurers to be the first ones to secure enough Lore, Glory, Loot and Wenches, to be able to pack up your stuff and leave the damn place to its fate, before it's too late!

How-to-play

Each player is dealt 4 random adventurer cards at the start of the game. The adventurers have a Type (Word/Sword/Cloak/Sorcery) and an ability which is not advantageous. A number of quest cards are put into play and a corresponding number of monster+reward (combined) tokens are placed randomly on each quest card. Quest cards belong to one of the three evil factions (colors).

On his turn, the player has one action: + Draw 3 adventurer cards. + Go on a quest - to complete a quest player must match the type iconcs on all monster tokens with the ones on the card(s) he have played. If the player defeats all the monsters, he keeps all the monster/reward tokens to keep track of how many Lore/Glory/Loot/Wenches he has. If he can't defeat all the monsters, the defeated monsters remain on the quest card face-down - their rewards can be claimed by the next contender.

On each side of the quest card there's a number (3-0). At the end of round turn all quest cards 90 degrees. If the quest is already on its '0' side - it is failed.

First player to collect 10 of either Lore/Glory/Loot or Wenches wins. IF three quests of a single color are failed, everybody loses!

Example:

Arrowmiss the Elven Archer, Belcheburb the Barbarian and Uzelezz the Halfling Berserker are facing a quest to defeat an Ogre and a Giant rat who are serving The-Most-Vile-Cult-of-the-Five-Legged-Daemon-Monkey (red quest cards) which has been ignored for three rounds and now is on its '0' side.

If the ~~not so~~ mighty heroes fail, not only the Evil Cult will be one card closer to victory, but 2 more quest cards will be put into play (the additional effect for failing this quest) and make the prospects of leaving the damned town behind rather bleak. They will get to draw an adventurer card after the quest though (the added effect of the quest) and by defeating that Ogre they will rescue the Wench and earn some Glory (The rat grants no reward, but the Ogre grants 2 since he is level II monster)!

It takes 1 Sword and 1 Cloak adventurer to defeat an Ogre and 1 adventurer of any type to defeat a Giant Rat. Luckily, the Arrowmiss's type is a Cloak and the Belcheburb's type is a Sword, and noone cares which type the halfling has, since, come on, anyone can defeat a rat.

The trio completes a quest, alas, the Wench runs away from the Belcheburb, snatching all the Glory (the Barbarian has the (dis)Ability - Bad breath: Wenches would rather stay in captivity, than be saved by you - discard any Wench rewards.) and to make matters worse, the Arrowmiss shoots the new adventurer they've just met, and, since he was the only remaining card in the player's hand, another player also discards a card. (the Elf has the (dis)Ability - "Sorry, I had lag!": Discard an adventurer. If you have no cards left, choose another player to discard a card).

Bottom-line: ~~it's all halfling's fault!~~ Choose your party and quests wisely, to make sure you will claim rewards and don't wait until the quest reaches zero!

“There I was, knee deep in the thick mud of the Saigon jungles, my squad waiting in ambush. After hours of silence, Charlie comes running through the trees. My lieutenant gets pegged first, the young medic hot on his heels to patch him up. Shortly after they get hit by my grenade and the explosive expert takes a bullet to the jaw. He survived that somehow to set off the last our flares. I "accidentally" put a bullet in Jimmy. Now it’s all left in my hands; because you know the green, doe-eyed private aint doing a damn thing! For what seemed like hours, alone, I took out wave after wave of those gook bastards before the rescue helo arrived. And what do I have to show for it? A damned medal?........ You're damn right I do.“

Players take on the roll of satirical fame hungry soldiers trying to survive an onslaught by enemy forces while competing for a Medal of Honor.

Objective

Have the highest amount of life when the enemy deck runs out.

Components

• Deck of 15 enemy unit cards
• Deck of 6 soldiers roles with health limit and five abilities
• 15 cubes

Setup

• Shuffle the enemy deck and place it in the center of the table.
• Each player chooses a role card and places that role card in front of them, placing 3 cubes on the predefined ability slots.

Playing the Game

During each turn, the highest ranking role will reveal the top card of the enemy deck. Each card in the enemy deck has a health value, damage rank, and some have special abilities that trigger when revealed or destroyed.

After the top card of the enemy deck is revealed and any effects resolved, players must move one of the cubes on their role card to an open ability slot that doesn’t have a cube and resolve that ability in order from lowest rank to highest. Players cannot move the same cube they have moved the previous turn.

• If the total damage done by the squad each turn is lower than the health of the revealed enemy unit, all players suffer damage equal to the enemy units damage rank and the enemy unit is placed on the bottom of the enemy deck.

• If this total is higher than the health of the revealed enemy unit, the unit is destroyed without dealing damage to the squad.

Squad Member Abilities

• Low damage ranging from 1 to 5
• High damage ranging from 5 to 9
• First Aid: reduces damage tokens by 1
• Grenade: 10 damage to enemy unit and 1 damage to each squad member.
• Special Class Based ability

If a player’s role card reaches zero health, they are eliminated from the game.

Winning the Game

If the game ends because all members of the squad are eliminated: no player wins. OR If the game ends because the enemy deck is depleted: the player with the most health wins, or the only player left.

Main mechanics: Worker placement, card play
Theme: A prehistoric tribe trying to prosper in a hostile environment
Players: 4

Introduction

The tribe consists of a number of families, each a part of one of four groups: shamans, warriors, craftsmen and producers. Each player assumes command of one of these four groups. The goal of the game is to make your group the most influential one, while at the same time allowing the other groups, and the tribe as a whole, to prosper (somewhat).

About the different groups

No two groups contain the same number of families (meeples). The biggest group, the producers, have four times as many families as the smallest group, the shamans. However, each group also have different functions within the tribe: the producers need to provide enough food and supplies; the craftsmen makes tools and goods used for trade with other tribes; the warriors defends the tribe from threats such as wild animal attacks and other warring tribes; the shamans provide stability and spiritual support. Thus, even though the providers starts the game with many meeples, at the start of the game a significant number of the actions of this player have to involve food production in order to feed the whole tribe. This group also has to place its meeples last.

Game play

Each round, each player places ALL of his/her meeples, starting with the group with the least families, in action spaces (hut building, reproduction, resource gathering, etc). The actions are carried out. Then each player chooses one card from among a unique set of 10 cards associated with each group. The cards are played simultaneously. Each card then needs the support of at least one other group, and will have negative effects for at least one other group, as well as providing a bonus to at least one group. If support is not gained, the card is discarded and the player gains nothing. Lastly, each round is ended with a semi-random disaster card, for example that an animal attacks, or that there is bad weather. Each group must cooperate during this event, both to gain influence, but also to aid the tribe as a whole.

Card examples

1. The card “New wheat field” makes food acquisition easier for the producing player, but makes defending the tribe harder for the warrior group.
2. The warrior player may want to play the “Training camps” card, which makes his/her meeples better fighters, but which also makes them demand more food and tools, which puts pressure on the craftsmen and the producers.

Scoring

Players gain influence by fulfilling the duties of his assigned group, through action spaces, card play and event resolutions. The Warrior group wants many well fed fighters that have won many battles, for example. After the event of the fifth round, if the tribe as a whole is better off than during the start of the game, the group with the most influence wins. Otherwise, all groups lose.

Flavour The rumour is that following the office party scandal a management position is going to be opening up soon. If your team can out-perform the Parkdale branch, and if you can make it look like you worked harder than everyone else in your team, then that corner office could be yours.

Overview A card game for 3 to 5 players. Play alternates between ‘working on a project’ and ‘claiming credit’. Each player needs to balance playing cards of a high enough value to ensure that the team is successful, while also saving high value cards so that they can snatch credit for themselves. The team from the other branch is simulated by randomly drawing cards to see how well they did.

Setup Agree on the number of ‘projects’ to play (an included table will give suggestions based on the number of players).

Each player receives: * 3 cards * 5 Kudos markers

Game Sequence

Working on a project: * All players draw 1 card

• Declaring cards is split into two rounds, and the players choose which round they will declare in. For each round: ..* Players taking part place a card face down ..* Face down cards are revealed ..* The same number of cards are drawn from the deck to represent the team in the other branch

• After both rounds if the sum of all the players’ cards is greater than those drawn for the opposing branch, then the players won, and move to the ‘claiming credit’ phase. Otherwise the team lost and all players declaring in the second round lose 1 Kudos marker. If nobody declared in the second round then the player (or players if there is a draw) with the lowest value card loses 1 Kudos.

Claiming credit: * All players draw 1 card * All players place a card face down * Face down cards are revealed * The player (or players if there is a draw) with the highest value card gains 2 kudos. If only 1 player had the highest card then the player (or players if there is a draw) with the second highest value card also gain 1 kudos.

The Cards All cards have a single value ranging from 1 to 5; but two sets of flavour text - one for each phase. Text for the project phase (from low to high) could be along the lines of:

• Did it in the lunch break
• 16:00 on Friday
• Of course I remembered
• Gave it 110%
• Spiral bound with a hard-cover

Text for the credit phase (from low to high) could be along the lines of:

• Daydreaming
• In the toilet - you missed the pat on the back
• Drop some hints - talk loud enough and someone might “overhear”
• Got the last edit - everyone else’s names seem to have disappeared
• Don’t stop talking - Presentation or meeting; if you talk the most you did the most

Broken Unicorn

A semi-cooperative space-themed worker-placement game for 2-4 players.

In 2222, the charismatic cult leader M. Son Brokard left Earth with his followers aboard the colony ship USSC Brokard’s UNICORN. Now, sixty years and 10,000 AU later, Brokard is dead and the ship is falling apart. The crew of Broken Unicorn (as they call it) needs a new leader.

In The Broken Unicorn, you lead one of four worker castes in a struggle to maintain the ship while jockeying with the other players to be Brokard’s successor.

Gameplay snapshot

Each cycle,…

1. Acting Brigadier (AB) makes a public announcement
2. AB may distribute resources from their pool to other players.

3. Players take turns...

   1. placing workers to gather resources, maintain the ship, and advance politics.
   2. contributing to active malfunction cards.
   3. drawing their own event cards, which can trigger new malfunctions or provide other bonuses.

4. Critical rooms fail if inadequately crewed.

5. Auction for new AB.

Each player promotes their secret philosophy using hidden politics. Halfway through the game, the philosophies divide into parties. At the end of the game, the party with the most influence wins the Election, and the player with the most resources in that party wins the game.

Components: caste workers, generic workers, event cards, philosophy cards, room tiles, resource tokens, philosophy tokens, player screens, opaque bags (event, philosophy), 30-second timer, ‘AB’ marker.

Philosophies: Players draw one of five philosophies from a deck of ten cards. Four of these look to the future, and must reach the Election to finish and win the game. The fifth are nihilistic Voidists who only win by reducing morale to zero.

Win condition: The player from the winning Party who has the most resources wins.

Game Features:

Interdependent resources The four castes--Water, Food, (raw) Material, and Systems--each depend on two others (to produce Water, for instance, requires Material and Systems support). Each resource is also required by the caste whose resource it doesn’t need (Food requires Water, but Water does not need Food). This interdependence demands lots of trading and negotiating.

Constant problems Many event cards introduce ship malfunctions. If the group resolves the malfunction, a new room is added, providing varying benefits to players. If they fail, that room is lost and additional penalties may apply.

Changing leadership The Acting Brigadier (AB) goes first, gets an extra communication phase, and can distribute resources to other players. At the end of the cycle, players bribe the current AB to become the new one.

Limited communication Players may only discuss game strategy or offer trades during the 30-second period after they place a worker in the board room, and then only with players who also have a worker in the board room. The AB also gets a speech at the beginning of a cycle.

Alternate rules Broken Unicorn works best with four players, but has alternate rules for three and two.

Theme

After years of sending in audition tapes you've finally been selected to compete on the world's top reality TV show, Escape Reality. You will be dropped into the middle of a walled habitat covered with a variety of treacherous terrains and forced to work with a wild cast of strangers to ensure everyone escapes before time runs out. You must beware as new obstacles and challenges can be thrown at you without warning. If you (or anyone else) hope to claim the million dollar prize everyone must get out together, but only one person gets the money. You can't just think about yourself or you'll be too selfish to win, but you also need to make a name for yourself or you won't stand out enough to win. The challenge is finding the right balance.

Basic Idea

As you play cards, you're constantly faced with the same fundamental choice: help yourself or help the team. Each card can always be played either way. There are two scoring tracks on the board, one for helping yourself and a second for helping the team. Your final score is the lower of the two, so the winner is the highest lower score.

How it Works

The group must overcome a bunch of obstacles/challenges in order to escape over the wall, under it, or through it before the marker on a Time Track reaches the final space. Each obstacle/challenge requires a different combination and quantity of aptitudes to complete. There are five aptitudes in play: strength, endurance, survival, problem solving, and mechanical. Player's aptitudes are initially set by rolling three dice and allocating each to one of the five aptitudes (you get one re-roll and cannot have multiple sixes). Players will pool aptitudes and supplement with cards to meet the requirements of the obstacles/challenges.

Mechanics

Each player's pawn is a D6 (starts at 6) and the marker on the time track is also a D6 (starts at 1). The two added together dictates how much energy you have for your turn (called Energy Pips, EP). Functionally, this is similar to an action point allowance system, but when you use EP from your die, it is not automatically reset next turn. Turns consist of some combination of: drawing cards, playing cards, and moving. The more you do, the more EP it uses. Cards can be played for immediate benefit (like more EP) and points for yourself or the team. Alternatively, cards can be collected to complete a challenge/obstacle (faceup for the team, face down to complete one by yourself). Some cards, when drawn, force you to roll a D6 called the "Game Changer." It introduces new obstacles and challenges, decreases the time marker D6 or moves you along the Time Track.

Sample Card

Catch a Chicken:
Help the team (1 point) - Increase community D6
Help Yourself (1 point) - 2 extra EP this turn and next
Used for obstacle/challenge - 1 Strength, 1 Endurance

Minions!

2-4 players, 60 minutes.

Do you have what it takes to be an Evil Overlord? Vie for the title among your fiendish peers by growing in Infamy and evilnicity. As your Infamy grows, so will your following of Minions. Extend your influence over Locations within the realm through traditional corruption and bribery, as well as good old-fashioned conspiracies. Decide whether you want to cooperate or work against other players, or a little of both. Is there honor among Overlords? Is that a dagger up your sleeve? Is the realm big enough for more than one supreme ruler? Find out, in Minions!

Includes:

Tiles: Locations (board extensions)
Card Decks: Skill, Conspiracy, Mischief, Luck, Action
Bits: Gold, Gems, various Counters

Mechanics and game play:

Successful conspiracies require an investment of resources, specific board conditions, and sending a Minion safely to the correct destination to trigger it.

The key game concept is hybrid cooperation. Cooperative players spread affluence to all, as well as generating future dividends for themselves. If all players work against each other, resources become scarce. Any player lacking rent money triggers Bank foreclosure on all Evil Overlords, and everyone loses.

Minions are not hired or fired; reputation attracts them to your Evil Lair. Due to the chaotic nature of Minions, they don’t always do what they’re told. Minions are prone to switching sides, running away, doing brilliant work, or even recruiting their friends.

A complimentary mechanism of Minions! is an adjusting economy. The game rewards cooperation through a limited supply of gems that players invest through cooperative decision making. Cooperation increases the supply of resources for all (economic growth), and makes advanced conspiracies possible. However, stingy choices net you a one-time bonus, making communal decisions a constant value judgment.

Locations—represented by fixed and purchased corruption tiles—define the game world and available actions within it. Locations produce Gold, Gems, Bribes, and Waivers. Gems are only obtained by constructing a 4-tier stack of escalating corruption/locations. Cost, rent, and productivity are correspondingly greater on higher tiers. Locations disappear after producing 5 resources. If not immediately replaced, all tiers attached to it are also removed from the board. Player ‘attack’ may consist of strategically crumbling the Location structure (feeling evil yet?), while proper maintenance boosts the evil schemes of all Overlords.

Other game mechanics:

• Get one random skill at the beginning of the game, and learn more at the University, giving each player a unique persona.
• There is always one frequently-changing Chaos Rule that affects the availability and effectiveness of specific actions.

Turn Summary:

Turn actions include Minion and Location deployment and maintenance. Players draw Mischief (usually bad) and Luck (usually good) Cards each turn. Other players may force a redraw with a Waiver. These cards present choices that engage all players out-of-turn, and reveal just how evil you really are!

Scoring:

Once a player successfully ‘hatches’ 10 conspiracies at the Chicken Coop, the game goes 1 additional round. High score wins.