It’s Wednesday and here are some new (and recent) games!

Alien Artifacts

Alien Artifacts is a 4X-style card game in which you play as an interplanetary faction, sending your research vessels into uncharted space to expand your knowledge and power. Build powerful ships, develop new technologies, and explore distant planets for anything — or anyone — you can exploit.

Alien Artifacts is built on a Resource engine – each turn you will have 3 Resource cards in your hand and you will decide how best to spend them. Each resource card has two different resource types for you to use. You can only use one side and only two cards per turn! Using these resources, you will build Ships, develop Technology, discover Planets, or Trade for currency!

New Ships allow you to attack the aliens and gain their valuable artifacts which provide huge bonuses.
With each new Technology card in your Empire, you will have access to more actions, bonuses, and scoring opportunities.
Each Planet you explore provides valuable resources for future actions.

There are two sides to each of these cards, and as you build them you will decide:

Logistics – play cards on this side to gain ongoing bonuses that will make your Empire stronger and help you build faster.
Operational – play this side to gain a new way to score victory points (and yes, you will be able to activate your operations more than once, if you play well).

Manage your Resources, build the right cards, make wise choices. Win!

Hero Realms: The Ruin of Thandar Campaign Deck

Choose your character, team up with your friends, and start your adventure! Gain experience points on each mission. Spend your experience points between missions to improve your character with awesome new skill and gear cards. The 144-card The Ruin of Thandar Campaign Deck contains:

Rules for solo and cooperative Campaign play
Three different missions, each designed to be more challenging than the last!
Skill and gear cards to improve and customize your character

The White Box

The White Box is a learning, planning, and prototyping tool for tabletop game designers. It contains a book of 18 essays on game design and production, covering subjects like where to find a great concept, how to use randomness, what to ask playtesters, and whether it’s wise to self-publish.

It includes an abundance of components to get you started right away, from cubes and meeples to dice, discs, and chits.

Maybe you have a golden idea inside you burning to come out. Maybe you want to tell a story or explore a problem. Do you dream of seeing your name on a box at your local game store? Or perhaps you see game design as a path to fame, fortune, and a satisfying career.

The White Box is for aspiring professionals, creative young people, and literally anyone who’s ever wanted to build their own game without having to plunder their game library for bits.

If you believe creating games is awesome, The White Box is for you.

Includes:

The White Box Essays, a 128-page perfect bound book about how to make games
Two punchboard sheets of custom counters and markers, some blank, others pre-printed with numbers, actions, elements, icons, and more
100 standard wooden cubes (25 each of red, green, yellow, and blue, 8 mm each)
24 standard wooden meeples (6 each of red, green, yellow, and blue, 12 mm each)
4 giant wooden cubes (1 each of red, green, yellow, and blue, 25 mm each)
40 plastic discs (10 each of red, green, yellow, and blue, 12 x 3 mm each)
50 plastic discs (25 each of gold and silver, 12 x 3 mm each)
8 standard six-sided dice (2 each of red, green, yellow, and blue, 16 mm each)
…and more!

Dominion: Nocturne

You’ve always been a night person; lately you’ve even considered becoming a vampire. There are a lot of advantages: you don’t age; you don’t have to see yourself in mirrors anymore; if someone asks you to do something, you can just turn into a bat, and then say, sorry, I’m a bat. There are probably some downsides though. You always think of the statue in the town square that came to life and now works as the tavern barmaid. The pedestal came to life too, so she has to hop around. The village blacksmith turns into a wolf whenever there’s a full moon; when there’s a crescent moon, he turns into a chihuahua. That’s how this stuff goes sometimes. Still, when you breathe in the night air, you feel ready for anything.

Dominion: Nocturne, the 11th expansion to Dominion, has 500 cards, with 33 new Kingdom cards. There are Night cards, which are played after the Buy phase; Heirlooms that replace starting Coppers; Fate and Doom cards that give out Boons and Hexes; and a variety of extra cards that other cards can provide.

Nations: The Dice Game – Unrest

Beware! Unrest may manifest itself in the worst possible situation. New benefits await the Nations that act quickly. Build the greatest Nation from your unique starting conditions!

Unrest, the first big expansion for Nations: The Dice Game, includes eight new nations. Four additional new concepts are included: Green dice – Unrest (which makes dice rolling a bit more challenging), Star rerolls (these respond to dice showing Unrest icons), Bonus tiles (something else to aim for each round), and Pass first tiles (get more benefits). Together with the 36 new Progress cards, the replayability is increased significantly. This expansion is recommended when you are experienced with the base game.

It’s Wednesday and here are some new (and recent) games!

Alien Artifacts

Hero Realms: The Ruin of Thandar Campaign Deck

The White Box

Dominion: Nocturne

Nations: The Dice Game – Unrest

Past Rants