Macroscope features a funky box-shaped device covered with cardboard tokens, and this device comes loaded with two hundred double-sided cards, with each card featuring a black-and-white line drawing.
On a turn, a player rolls the two dice, then removes one or two tokens from the box that match the numbers rolled. When you remove a token, you see through a hole in the box that reveals part of the topmost line drawing. If the player wants, they can guess what the drawing represents, after which they pull the card out of the box to see whether they are correct, scoring points based on the number of tokens removed if correct and losing points otherwise.
After ten rounds, the player with the most points wins.
You’ve never seen a device like this! Peek through this curious contraption’s round holes at the image hidden inside. Can you tell a rhino from a pizza just from a few swirling lines? Take a good look at the partially revealed image, guess what it could be and score points if you are right! The fewer holes you need to open in order to recognize the image, the more points you get. The most perceptive player wins the game!
Ancient Balinese legend describes a host of powerful spirits who help poor rice farmers achieve success. These farmers have long used a sophisticated irrigation system to organize rice cultivation by integrating religious devotion and social responsibility with traditional farming methods. Even modern farmers seek to placate the spirit world in their quest to produce an abundant harvest.
In Spirits of the Rice Paddy, players must compete with fellow rice farmers to construct and tend rice paddies. Oxen can build walls and remove large rocks. Ducks can be employed to eat harmful pests and fertilize the fledgling crops. Weeds must be kept at bay. Most importantly, water must be conserved and released with the greatest of care. With a little luck, all that back-breaking labor will pay off in the end. The good news is that the spirits are eager to assist, granting many special abilities, blessings, and magic. The farmer who produces the most rice over seven rounds wins the game.
Compounded is a game about building chemical compounds through careful management of elements, a fair bit of social play and trading, and just a bit of luck. In Compounded, players take on the roles of lab managers, hastily competing to complete the most compounds before they are completed by others – or destroyed in an explosion. Some compounds are flammable and will grow more and more volatile over time; take too long to gather the necessary elements for those compounds and a lot of hard work will soon be scattered across the lab.
Although Compounded does involve a fair share of press-your-luck tension and certainly some strategic planning, the most successful scientists will often be those who strike a good trade with their fellow lab mates. Players are able to freely trade elements, laboratory tools, and even favors – if there is truly honour among chemists!
Evolution: Climate is a standalone game that introduces climate into the Evolution game system.
In Evolution: Climate, players adapt their species in a dynamic ecosystem where food is scarce, predators lurk, and the climate can swing between scorching hot and icy cold. Traits like a Hard Shell and Horns can protect your species from Carnivores while a Long Neck will help them get food that others cannot reach. Heavy Fur and Migratory can protect your species from the cold while being Nocturnal or Burrowing will provide protection from the cruel desert sun. With over 200,000 ways to evolve your species, every game evolves into a different adventure.
The Climate standalone game dramatically changes game play with several simple additions to the Evolution base set:
Players draw 4 cards +1 per species per round (instead of 3 cards + 1 per species).
Each species may have up to 4 traits (instead of 3).
The climate moves along a Climate Track based upon the food cards played each round.
There are additional trait cards that provide protection from the heat and cold.
Evolution: Climate changes Evolution from a two-dimensional game (dealing with the threat of Starvation and Carnivores) into a three-dimensional game (dealing with the threat of Starvation, Carnivores, and Climate effects) while increasing the vividness of the theme. It adds additional layers into what was already a dynamically strategic game.
Have you ever had the desire to walk the streets of Victorian London with Sherlock Holmes in search of Professor Moriarty? To search the docks for the giant rat of Sumatra? To walk up Baker Street as the fog is rolling in and hear Holmes cry out, “Come, Watson, come! The game is afoot!”? Now you can! You can enter the opium den beneath the Bar of Gold, but beware, that may be Colonel Sebastian Moran lurking around the corner. You can capture the mystery and excitement of Holmes’ London in this challenging and informative game. You, the player, will match your deductive abilities against your opponents and the master sleuth himself, Sherlock Holmes.
In Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective, you are presented with a mystery to solve, and it is then up to you to trace the threads of evidence through the byways and mansions of nineteenth century London. You will interview suspects, search the newspapers for clues, and put together the facts to reach a solution.
Why were two lions murdered in Hyde Park? Who is responsible for the missing paintings from the National Gallery? Who murdered Oswald Mason and why? These are just a few of the cases that will challenge your ingenuity and deductive abilities.
This is not a board game: No dice, no luck, but a challenge to your mental ability. The game has been thoroughly researched for Holmesian and Victorian accuracy so as to capture a feeling of that bygone era.
At the bottom of the ocean, no one will hear you scream!
In Captain Sonar, you and your teammates control a state-of-the-art submarine and are trying to locate an enemy submarine in order to blow it out of the water before they can do the same to you. Every role is important, and the confrontation is merciless. Be organized and communicate because a captain is nothing without his crew: the Chief Mate, the Radio Operator, and the Engineer.
All the members of a team sit on one side of the table, and they each take a particular role on the submarine, with the division of labor for these roles being dependent on the number of players in the game: One player might be the captain, who is responsible for moving the submarine and announcing some details of this movement; another player is manning the sonar in order to listen to the opposing captain’s orders and try to decipher where that sub might be in the water; a third player might be working in the munitions room to prepare torpedoes, mines and other devices that will allow for combat.
Captain Sonar can be played in two modes: turn-by-turn or simultaneous. In the latter set-up, all the members of a team take their actions simultaneously while trying to track what the opponents are doing, too. When a captain is ready to launch an attack, the action pauses for a moment to see whether a hit has been recorded — then play resumes with the target having snuck away while the attacker paused or with bits of metal now scattered across the ocean floor.
Multiple maps are included with varying levels of difficulty.
Skelit’s Revenge….the most feared ship on the high seas….and you’ve finally taken it. Captain Fromm and his skeleton crew have amassed a massive treasure, and now is your chance to take it all. Players take on the role of Pirates who are boarding Skelit’s Revenge for one purpose….to take the loot. They must battle the flames, the skeleton crew, and their own fatigue if they hope to make it out alive.
Dead Men Tell No Tales is a co-operative game for 2-5 players. The game uses the common Action Point system to determine what a player does on their turn…with a twist. As players work together, they can pass their Actions on to their teammates in order to best utilize the assets that they have. Players will build the board as they play, ensuring that no two games will ever be alike. As they search the ship for the Treasure, they will encounter Enemies and Guards that they must battle, along with various items that will help them in their quest. all the while, battling the inferno that resulted when they took over the ship. Unique systems for tracking fire, enemy movement, and a player’s fatigue all combine into an interesting and unique cooperative gaming experience.
Do you and your crew have what it takes to make off with all of the treasure and live to tell the story? Or are you going down with the ship in Dead Men Tell No Tales?
Imperial Settlers: Why Can’t We Be Friends, the first Empire Pack for Imperial Settlers, includes new common cards for the central deck, new cards for each of the base game’s four factions, and two new cards for use in the solo game with some factions.
One new effect on the cards is “open production”, an ability that allows an opponent to visit your building for the resource produced there while giving you the worker who made that trek. Hope you can put him to use once again!
Imperial Settlers: 3 Is a Magic Number, the second Empire Pack for Imperial Settlers, introduces a new rule: SET. This new ability allows players to score and trigger new effects each time they build three cards in a particular color. With this rule, the drafting phase and the choice of the “right” card to draft becomes even more interesting.
This expansion includes new cards for the common deck as well as new cards for each of the five factions and two cards for use in the solitaire game.
Imperial Settlers: Atlanteans, an expansion that requires the base game to play, adds the option for playing Imperial Settlers with up to five players. The expansion includes a new faction board, the Atlanteans faction deck, technology tokens, and expansion cards for the original factions that complement the Atlanteans abilities.
The Atlanteans bring a new resource to the world of Imperial Settlers with technology that can unlock special abilities on faction cards and transform common buildings into powerful allies. The Atlanteans must use their abilities to find unique ways to score because their faction buildings sink at the end of the game and do not score points! While the other factions do not have the knowledge to use the technology of the Atlanteans, some buildings for each faction allow them to use some of that technology to their advantage.
