Science Fiction

Far Space Foundry

The Far Space Federation is leading an ongoing peacekeeping mission. The crew on the front lines are in constant need of new supplies and equipment, so the Federation has set up a massive supply line network. This network is composed of massive space stations called Foundries. Some Foundries are specialized in mining and processing ore from asteroids. Other Foundries are equipped with robotic manufacturing and repair facilities. Their job is to keep the flow of supplies going efficiently as possible.

The gameplay in Far Space Foundry occurs in two distinct halves: Space Foundry Alpha and Space Foundry Beta.

At Space Foundry Alpha, you mine skyrite (blue crystals) and rubion (red ore) and process the two to make galactium (purple metal). On your turn, you play a card that allows you to either land a shuttle on a docking bay or take off from one. The shuttle will transport raw materials either from the asteroid or to your freighters. Each docking bay has a special ability if activated that turn, like ore processing or galactic traders. At this foundry, you must also build a fleet of freighters to haul your items. To do this, you must visit the cantina to recruit help from various alien captains (with unique abilities). Once everyone has played all of their cards, it's time to head off to a new board...

At Space Foundry Beta, you take all of your acquired materials and transport them down to the station. There the robots will use that material to make various products of varying worth. Besides manufacturing, you may also upgrade your freighters or charge up your existing products for more points. Once the freighters are filled back up again, it's time to transport the items to their final destination for final scoring!

Flatline: A FUSE Aftershock Game

Description from the publisher:

Flatline is a co-operative dice game set in the Fuse universe. Players must roll their dice and work to combine them with other players in order to properly treat arriving patients. Every round, players race against a one-minute timer and must deal with the needs of wounded crew members as well as other emergencies within the ER. Time is running out!

Planetarium

Matter swirls around a new born star, coalescing on the planetoids that orbit it. Planets evolve, grow and migrate in their orbits, forming a unique solar system by the end of every game. Planetarium is a game of creation, chaos and terraforming on the grandest scale.

Players are competing to crash combinations of elements onto planets that then allow them to play cards to evolve the planets in a variety of ways, with each player looking to evolve planets in the system to suit their own secret endgame goals.

On a turn a player will firstly move a matter or planet token in a clockwise direction around the star. The board is mapped with a series of lines, tracing orbits around the star, and it is along these lines that the tokens are moved. If a matter token moves onto a space occupied by planet token then the matter token is placed on the player's mat (on the respective planet). In the same way, planets can also be moved onto matter tokens, placing the matter tokens on the player's mat.

In the second part of a turn a player can play Evolution cards from their hand at the cost of the matter tokens they have collected on their player mat (some cards have other special requirements to play). If a player plays a card, they score the cards points and check to see if their card has changed the state of the planet from hostile to habitable by checking the total habitable and hostile points played to the planet (some end game goals require planets to be hostile or habitable). The player may then draw a card from one of three decks, Low Evolution (cards that score less points but require less matter to play), High Evolution (cards that score more and are harder to play), and Final Evolution (cards that can only be played on a player's final turn).

The thematics of the game have been developed with an eye on the science, led by a scientist working on NASA's search for life on Mars. Evolution cards thematically include all kinds of planetary phenomenon, from asteroid impacts, atmospheric effects, to geological events. Final Evolution cards mark the relatively stable state a planet is in at the end of the solar system's development and include classifications for the final planets such as Hot Jupiter or an uninhabitable frozen dwarf planet.

The game consists of a beautiful game board with handfuls of matter tokens, approximately 36 Evolution cards and 16 Final Evolution cards (all with unique space art and flavor), player mats, and player and score markers.

Saltlands

The Earth has dried out and civilization with it. Some of the survivors have managed to eke out a living on the Saltlands: plains left behind by a once great ocean. Adapting to their environment they use land sails with wheels on these flats. But the Apocalypse is not done with the Saltlands, from the west a storm of raiders, a terrifying Horde on gas guzzling machines approaches in search of their lost God. Only those among the first to escape have a chance!

In Saltlands, the first group of players to find and reach an exit point wins, leaving the rest to the Horde. There are no fixed teams, players can decide to co-operate or backstab each other as they see fit. Each player starts the game with a single captain but may increase his crew as the game progresses. Each crew member represents an extra life and an action each turn. Players move with their land sails according to the wind direction: being able to criss-cross slowly upwind or speed in the fastest direction, sailing on a broad reach. Each player can choose which group of raiders to move at the end of their turn until all raiders have moved. This allows players to help each other or force confrontation with the raiders. Players can fight the raiders and take their vehicles as an alternate mode of transport.

Steam Works

Inventors and tinkerers abound in the Victorian era, harnessing the power of clockwork, steam, and electricks to build machines capable of anything to give glory to Queen Victoria!

In the steampunk worker placement game Steam Works, you'll put your mechanics to work collecting components and power sources, then you'll literally build devices by assembling those sources and components. What's more, those devices in turn become action spaces for other players to use!

Each player takes on an inventor persona with unique starting components or special abilities accessible only to themselves. But the heart of the game is in assembling modular component tiles into a device for other players to use. Sources may provide one or more of the three power types — clockwork, steam, or Tesla-style electrickal power — to the components connected to them, which in turn provide a wide range of effects for gaining resources, prestige points, or more component tiles. Devices start simple with just two components (one source and one component), but devices with three, four or more components will become possible — as soon as the players assemble a device to let it be possible. Because of the modular mix-and-match nature of the components, the available action spaces vary widely from one game to the next, providing great replayability: each game players will create devices never seen before!