New Arrivals – June 2017
Sooo many new games have arrived in the last few weeks! Plus, we signed on with a new distributor who carries games we’ve long wanted to stock – games not carried by our primary distributors – which added even more games to the new arrival list. Here’s a quick run-down of our new offerings. All are in stock now! I’ve listed them alphabetically – I couldn’t think of a better way to do it.
Agents of SMERSH: 2nd Edition
Agents of SMERSH is a cooperative storytelling adventure board game set in the Cold War era with over 1600 written encounters! You play U.N. Secret Service Spies pitted against the newly formed and independent SMERSH, headed by the diabolical Dr. Lobo.
You and your companions will travel the world attempting to thwart the plans of Dr. Lobo and his minions. There are plenty of gadgets, guns, cars, and humorous references to James Bond.
The storytelling aspect of Agents of SMERSH is similar to Tales of Arabian Nights and Above and Below in that you read encounters from the nearly 300-page Book of Encounters. What I really like about Agents of SMERSH is that your particular skills actually seem to apply to the problem at hand. In Arabian Nights it seems random.
You may remember us having this in stock a few years ago. We had acquired a few directly from the publisher while attending Atlanta Game Fest. I’m so happy we’re able to offer it again.
Century: Spice Road
If you like Splendor, you should love Century: Spice Road. Game play is simple, straightforward and easy to learn. Your goal is to acquire and trade for particular sets of spices to complete orders, which are worth victory points. Some orders even award you gold or silver worth three or one additional point respectively.
For a more complete description, see my Century: Spice Road game review on The Glass Meeple.
Dresden Files: Cooperative Card Game
The Dresden Files Cooperative Card Game – Play Harry Dresden and his friends as they take on the cases from the bestselling Dresden Files novels in the ultimate what-if scenario. What if Harry was on the scene with allies who weren’t there in the books?
The core game includes Harry, Murphy, Susan, Michael, and the Alphas and plays through the first five novels as well as Side Jobs, a random scenario generator based on the short story collection of the same name.
Use your shared pool of action points called Fate points to take actions or generate more Fate points for the group. Solve more cases than there are foes remaining on the board to win!
The Dresden Files Cooperative Card Game. Make your stand against the darkness – together!
Escape Room Games
Escape Rooms are puzzle adventures you need to solve in specific amount of time – usually an hour or two. With the new EXIT and UNLOCK! series of games, you can have an Escape Room experience at home! Most can be played solo or by up to six players.
We recently got the first three adventures of the EXIT and UNLOCK! series’ in stock. Both series of adventure games are one-time plays. The EXIT series uses decoder wheels, while the UNLOCK! series relies on an app you’ll have to download before you can play. The app is free. You don’t have to be connected to the Internet when you play, just to get the app. The EXIT games are destructible, the UNLOCK! are not, so you can pass them on to someone else when you’re done. All of the escape-rooms-in-a-box are quite inexpensive – about the cost of one movie ticket, two if you go to a bargain matinee.
Which one do you want to play first?
EXIT: The Game – The Abandoned Cabin – Your car breaks down in the middle of nowhere and you’re looking for shelter to get through the night. Luckily, you find an abandoned cabin in the woods near the road. You enter thankfully and spend an uneventful night. The next morning, however, when you try to leave, you discover the door is locked! Iron bars on the windows prevent you from escaping. Searching the cabin for some means of exit, you discover a book and a strange disk…
EXIT: The Game – The Pharaoh’s Tomb – The hilight of your vacation to Egypt is the excursion to the Valley of the Kings! Unfortunately, while crawling through the narrow passageways, you lose touch with the rest of your tour group. As you enter a mysterious burial chamber, a massive stone door closes behind you. On the floor lies a dusty notebook and an ancient disk…
EXIT: The Game – The Secret Lab – You volunteer for a medical research study and report to a lab as instructed. But when you arrive, no one is there except you! You notice vapor rising from a test tube and start to feel dizzy. When you wake up, the door is locked and you discover a notebook and a strange disk…
UNLOCK! Escape Adventures: The Formula – Enter a scientist’s secret lab to recover a mysterious serum. Difficulty Level: 2 of 3.
UNLOCK! Escape Adventures: Squeek & Sausage – Thwart the plans of th despicable Professor Noside in this cartoon-style adventure! Difficulty Level: 2 of 3.
UNLOCK! Escape Adventures: The Island of Doctor Goorse – Visit the island of an eccentric antique collect or billionaire and overcome its traps! Difficulty Level: 3 of 3.
Fabled Fruit
Fabled Fruit is a Fable Game where the gameplay changes over time. The game starts in an initial, simple state, but as you explore deeper into the game system, the mechanisms and gameplay will evolve. Unlike in a Legacy game, however, the game is never permanently changed. A Fable Game remains just as playable on the 20th play as it was the first time you played!
Once upon a time there was a marvelous forest full of gorgeous fruits. These fruits could be squeezed and mixed into the most delicious juices… You live in this forest and are in search of the most savory fruits. Friendly forest dwellers will help you in this search. They give you fruits, trade for fruits, or help you in other ways. You are greedy and thirsty. Who will be the first to satisfy your appetite for Fabled Fruits?
Honors include: 2017 Spiel des Jahres Recommended,2016 Golden Geek Most Innovative Board Game Nominee, 2016 Golden Geek Best Family Board Game Nominee and 2016 Golden Geek Best Card Game Nominee.
Freedom: Underground Railroad
Freedom: The Underground Railroad is a challenging cooperative game pitting the players against the institution of slavery during the early 1800’s thru the Civil War. Players work together for the Abolitionist cause, raising funds and helping slaves as they move from the Southern States to freedom in Canada. But every move risks alerting the slave catchers who roam the board trying to return the runaway slaves back to the plantations.
Freedom is an engaging game about a pivotal time in American history. Players become familiar with the important historical figures, political agendas, and crucial events that unfolded to change American history and begin to bring freedom to an enslaved people.
Features
- Teamwork – Players strategize together to achieve their objectives and win against the game.
- Fun – Easy rules with continual involvement by all players.
- Educational – Players take on the roles of important historical Abolitionist characters and learn about this important chapter of American history between 1800 and 1865. Freedom Teacher’s Manual available separately.
Awards & Honors include: Dice Tower Co-op Game of the Year, Game Quest Best Thematic Game of the Year, The Wargamer Historical Game of the Year, 2014 Origins Awards Best Historical Board Game Nominee, 2014 International Gamers Award – General Strategy: Multi-player Nominee, and 2013 Golden Geek Best Thematic Board Game Nominee.
Great Western Trail
Hanamikoji
Hanamikoji is a beautiful and elegant game for two players, both restaurateurs vying for the favor of seven graceful and adored geisha. Compete to earn the favors of more geisha masters to increase your business, by collecting essential items and giving away those less important.
Welcome to the most well-known geisha street in the old capital, Hanamikoji. Geisha — the graceful women elegantly mastering in art, music, dance, and a variety of artistic performances after years of training — are greatly respected and adored. Geisha may be translated to “artist” and they dance, sing and entertain everyone.
In Hanamikoji, two players compete to earn the favors of the seven geisha masters by collecting the performance items with which they excel. With careful speculation and sometimes a few bold moves, you may earn the essential items by giving away the less critical ones. Can you outsmart your opponent and win the most favors of the geisha?
Featuring incredible artwork, fluid gameplay, and a quick 15-30 minute playtime, dive into Japanese culture and curry favor with the greatest number of geisha to make your restaurant the most revered of them all!
Honors: 2016 Golden Geek Best 2-Player Board Game Nominee.
In The Year of the Dragon: 10th Anniversary Edition
In the game, In the Year of the Dragon, each player takes on the role of a Chinese prince, seeking to maximize the prosperity and prestige of his province in the ancient China of approximately 1,000 A.D.
To assist in these endeavors, the princes must call upon the diverse talents of their courtiers, from scholars and monks to warriors and craftsmen. These loyal subjects will lend their expertise to the struggle to shield their rulers from the often disastrous consequences of the myriad untoward events that plague the populace from month to month.
Be it drought, contagion or Mongol invasion, only foresight and planning will spare the princes and their subjects from these fates. The better a player can manage his province and withstand the seemingly unending onslaught of hazardous events, the more honor and victory points he will have to show for it in the end.
In the Year of the Dragon: 10th Anniversary Edition includes In the Year of the Dragon base game plus the The Great Wall of China and The Super Events expansions that first appeared in the alea Treasure Chest.
Kraftwagen: V6 Edition
In Kraftwagen: V6 Edition, players advance the state of automobile development and production by playing as start-up companies. They must research new technologies and build improved chassis and engines. Early Grand Prix races provide the young companies with prestige and money, but the players must maintain a key balance of fulfilling the demand preferences of buyers at the lowest possible price.
Kraftwagen: V6 Edition includes the V6 Expansion, a new set of tiles, featuring the next technology available at the time, the V6 Engine.
Stronghold Games: Great Designer Series #3. Honors include: 2015 International Gamers Award – General Strategy: Multi-player Nominee.
Notre Dame: 10th Anniversary Edition
In Notre Dame, designer Stefan Feld artfully combines card drafting and area influence to make an excellent tactical and strategic game set in the shadow of the Notre Dame cathedral.
Players take on the roles of the heads of influential families in Paris at the end of the 14th century. Each family controls one of the 3 -5 boroughs that surround the site of Notre Dame. As head of his family, each player tries, through clever use of his action cards, to advance the power and prestige of his family, but penalties are assessed those who do not take care of the health of the people who live in their borough. The player with the most prestige at the end is the winner.
Notre Dame 10th Anniversary Edition includes the Notre Dame base game, New Persons I & II expansions, plus The Trading Routes expansion for Castles of Burgundy.
Honors
- 2007 Deutscher Spiele Preis Best Family/Adult Game 2nd Place
- 2007 Golden Geek Best Board Game Artwork/Presentation Nominee
- 2007 Golden Geek Best Family Board Game Nominee
- 2007 Golden Geek Best Gamer’s Board Game Nominee
- 2007 International Gamers Awards – General Strategy; Multi-player Nominee
- 2007 Spiel des Jahres Recommended
- 2007 Tric Trac Nominee
- 2008 Boardgames Australia Awards Best International Game Nominee
- 2008 Golden Geek Best Gamer’s Board Game Nominee
- 2008 JoTa Best Light Board Game Nominee
Potion Explosion
Potion Explosion – A game of potion-crafting and marble-crashing for 2 to 4 Sorcery students.
It’s senior year at Horribilorum Sorcery Academy for Witty Witches and Wizards. All the hard work and studying comes down to this: the final exams! Under the helpful, tutelage of the Headmaster, players have learned how to handle volatile ingredients and turn them itno fantastical potions!
In Potion Explosion you’ll handle the powerful (and unstable) Ingredient marbles needed for your Recipes to create magical Potions. By pulling ingredients like Unicorn Tears and Fairy Dandruff, represented by marbles, out of the potion dispenser, the higher up ingredients slide down to fill in the gap.
Players try to make the same ingredients smash together causing explosions and big turn combinations. Triggering big Explosions will help you gather Ingredients quicker, and drinking the Potions you completed earlier will unleash their power!
Once all the necessary ingredients have been collected, players complete the potion for points and special abilities. The player with the most points graduates head of the class! Are you ready to brew the most difficult (and valuable) Potions and grab the Student of the Year Award?
Railroad Revolution
In America in the 19th Century, the U.S. government passes the Pacific Railroad Acts and opens up the interior of the continent to railroad companies. Now the race is on to lay rail across the Great Plains and the Continental Divide and truly unite the United States of America.
In Railroad Revolution, you play the head of a small railroad company on the East coast, competing with other, rival, companies to expand your railroad West. You’ll build train stations in strategic cities and help develop the first transcontinental telegraph system.
The Railroad Revolution has begun! 2016 Golden Geek Best Strategy Board Game Nominee. Read Tina’s full review.
XCOM: The Board Game
Paris has fallen. New York is a pile of rubble spilling into the Atlantic. Alien attacks against Nanjing and Changzhou prompt widespread panic throughout the streets of Shanghai. Defense satellites detect UFOs in orbit over Mexico, Russia, and Brazil. Military responses have proven ineffectual. Fear and anxiety lead to widespread riots. Human civilization stands upon the brink of collapse…
You are humanity’s last hope.
In XCOM: The Board Game, you and up to three friends assume the roles of the leaders of the elite, international organization known as XCOM. It is your job to defend humanity, quell the rising panic, and turn back the escalating alien invasion coordinated by the game’s innovative, free digital companion app.
Where the world’s militaries have failed to stand against the alien invaders, you must succeed. To do so, you must make strategic use of the resources available to you. You must launch Interceptors to shoot down alien UFOs, assign soldiers to key missions, research alien technology, and use that technology to defend your base, all while you try to keep the world from collapsing just long enough that you can coordinate one final mission to repel the invaders for good.
Destroy UFOs. Research alien technology. Defend your base. Uncover the alien invasion plan. Should you fail, humanity is doomed.
Requires FREE Digital Companion App. Available for iOS, Android, and most web browsers.
Honors include: 2015 Golden Geek Most Innovative Board Game Nominee, 2015 Golden Geek Best Thematic Board Game Nominee and 2015 Spiel der Spiele Griffin Scroll Winner.
Yamatai
The latest game from Days of Wonder!
For Queen Himiko’s Smile – Queen Himiko has tasked every builder in the kingdom with a prestigous mission: build the capital of Yamataï and make it th jewel of the archipelago.
Your task: surpass your competitors and build the most prestigious city of them all, using resources from the fleets that travel through the kingdom. Prepare your strategy, recruit specialists, and do whatever is necessary to become the best builder and be rewarded by Queen Himiko for your work. In the end, only one name will be remembered as the greatest builder of Yamataï!
In Yamataï, two to four players compete to earn prestige points using a variety of strategies. Clear the different islands of the archipelago to recruit powerful specialists that will assist you, or use the resources carried by the boats that navigate between them to construct buildings on the islands! And, if you’re skilled enough, try creating prestigious buildings such as high temples or rare torii.
However, you are not alone in competing for Queen Himiko’s favor… will you manage to surpass your opponents?
Yokohama
Yokohama – Play a merchant in the Meiji period. Build shops and trading houses, broaden your sales channels, and learn new technologies, to gain fame and make your business successful.
Once Yokohama was just a fishing village, but now at the beginning of the Meiji era it’s becoming a harbor open to foreign countries and one of the leading trade cities of Japan. As a result, many Japanese products such as copper and raw silk are collected in Yokohama for export to other countries. At the same time, the city is starting to incorporate foreign technology and culture, with even the streets becoming more modernized. In the shadow of this development was the presence of many Yokohama merchants.