Variable Set-up

Phoenix: New Horizon

In the year 2021, after years of seclusion underground, humanity emerges onto the surface, propelled by the development of groundbreaking new technology. Decades of catastrophic fallout from a nuclear disaster during the Cold War have laid waste to the known world, compelling civilization to seek shelter beneath the earth. The pressing task now is the construction of regenerators, which will generate new habitats to facilitate the resurgence of life and the reclamation of the Earth. A world brimming with hope awaits aboveground.

Phoenix New Horizon is a Euro-style board game in which players assume control of a team of commandos tasked with the mission of recolonizing Earth. Throughout the game's four rounds, players accumulate victory points by constructing regenerators and buildings, bolstering the planet's population, and achieving diverse objectives that vary between playthroughs.

Players must adeptly allocate their commandos to various actions throughout the game while also specializing them to enable more potent abilities at the expenses of versatility. Fulfilling missions assigned by the governing authorities yields additional actions on a player's turn.

The White Castle Duel

Following the arrival of the Portuguese in Japan, daimyos competed for control of foreign trade and technology. Himeji Castle, a symbol of feudal power, became a strategic center for clans seeking to gain influence.

In The White Castle Duel, two clans compete to exert their influence in the White Heron's court, managing resources and building engines. On each turn, you will use their lamp tokens to obtain resources and activate actions. Among the actions available, you can buy and upgrade influence cards, place clan seals on gardens and training grounds, move your courtier between circles of influence, or trade with the Portuguese. These actions will allow you to accumulate a series of icons — flags, katanas, kabutos, and origami figures — that will reward you with points, and whoever ends up with the most points wins.

Propolis

Propolis is a worker-placement, engine-building, area-control, and tableau-building game. Players take on the role of competing medieval bee colonies and take turns deploying worker bees to collect pollen, fortify their positions, and construct their hives to appease their queen and become the most glorious in the land!

As bees compete over the realm's floral landscapes, they will be collecting pollen to create the propolis they need to build their hives. Attaining dominance in different realms provides additional glory and building materials. As hives expand, new structures provide additional resources, new scoring opportunities, and the prerequisites to construct a glorious palace for the queen. The player who dominates the realm and builds the most prestigious home wins.

Galileo Galilei

"And yet it moves", he said.

Galileo Galilei is a Euro-style game in which you take on the role of an astronomer who will discover new planets, find unknown star systems, develop their telescope, and make a scientific breakthrough in the difficult ages of obscurantism.

Use your telescope to select one of the five actions available, with you being able to evolve these actions into better ones. Collect cards of different planets and star systems. Collect lenses of the three main colors to make a discovery. Be wary of inquisitors as they might arrive unwelcomed and ruin your fame in no time. Better find a way to profit from their visit instead.

—description from the publisher

Earthborne Rangers

Earthborne Rangers is a customizable, co-operative card game set in the wilderness of the far future. You take on the role of a Ranger, a protector of the mountain valley you call home: a vast wilderness transformed by monumental feats of science and technology devised to save the Earth from destruction long ago. The story of Earthborne Rangers is presented as a branching narrative campaign consisting of a main storyline and a multitude of side stories. In it, you can choose to follow the critical path or to strike off on your own to discover the Valley's many engaging characters, mysterious ruins, and beings both familiar and strange.

You begin by building a deck that reflects your Ranger's interests, personal history, and personality. Then, as you explore the open world and your story takes shape, you augment your deck with improved equipment, refined skills, and the memories of your journey.

Each game session represents one day in the Valley, and you'll pick up in the same location on the map where you rested the night before. Your goal is to either complete one of your available missions or to explore the open world. The session ends when you're either forced to rest (through either fatigue or injury), or you choose to rest for the night.

An individual game session is played in rounds, and those rounds consist of turns. On your turn, you perform one action: either play a card from your hand, or choose an action from a card on the table. Each action allows you to interact thematically and narratively with the world, and each time you take an action, the world comes to life around you. Predators stalk their prey, rain pours from the sky, rocks tumble down the mountain to block your path, and much more.

—description from the publisher