Here are a bunch of games that have graced our shelves during this frosty week! Some arrived a bit late due to the cold, but we have them for your weekend!

Arkham Horror The Card Game: The Circle Undone

Judgement. Temperance. Justice. The Tower.

The soothsayer’s tarot wove a tale of a grim future, hard to put out of your mind. But when you learn that four people have disappeared without a trace from an estate in French Hill, you begin to wonder if this cruel fate is meant only for you, or for the entirety of Arkham…

The Circle Undone is the fourth deluxe expansion for Arkham Horror: The Card Game. Here, your team of investigators delve into the mysteries of Arkham’s past, uncovering its macabre history and the motives of those who dwell in its shadows. This expansion contains a playable prologue and the first two scenarios of The Circle Undone campaign, along with new investigator and player cards to further customize your investigations in H.P. Lovecraft’s Mythos.

Twin It!

Twin It! challenges you to spot pairs of cards on the table as quickly as you can. To set up the main game, shuffle the double-sided cards, then give each player a similarly-sized stack. Players take turns revealing cards and placing them on the table, leaving all cards visible. As soon as someone spots matching cards, they place a finger on each card, then claim the pair, leaving them in a stack beside themselves. If another card of this type appears, anyone who fingers the twins claims all of those cards! Be the first to claim five twins to win.

You can also play Twin It!as a team game. When you spot twins, you place your finger on one of the cards and hope your teammate can finger the other before an opponent does, or else the opponent claims the twins instead of you!

Twin It! can also be played with the cards being held in hand facing away (and toward) each player.

Hànzì

Cang Jie is one of the legendary figures in ancient China. As legends foretold, he was inspired by the footprints of animals on the ground, and began to create all kinds of different symbols according to the forms of all things in nature, hoping to replace the conventional, yet unreliable, knot tying way of remembering things. For conveniences, Jie decides to name these symbols “Zi”, which means “character”. This is the origin of “Hànzì”, the “character from Han dynasty”.

In Hànzì, players travel back 3600 years and serve as one of the pupils of Master Cang Jie. As you learn from the Master, you will create new characters that serve as the foundation of modern Chinese culture.

In game terms, you lay out double-sided cards on the table that show the old letters on one side and the newer traditional letters on the other. On a turn, you choose a task card that shows a theme and score points by identifying two of the many kanji that match your theme from among the old letters. Whoever first earns ten points wins.

Gùgōng

China, 1570. China is under the reign of the Longqing Emperor, of the Ming Dynasty. He inherited a country in disarray after years of mismanagement and corruption. He resided in the Forbidden city, which was the seat of many emperors under the Ming Dynasty. Constructed from 1406 to 1420, the complex consists of 980 buildings and covers 72 ha (over 180 acres). It is also under the Ming Dynasty that the Great Wall of China was rebuilt, fortified, and expanded. Around this period, China was under heavy attack from the Mongols, so maintaining the Great Wall was essential. Most of what we now have left of the Great Wall, we owe to the Ming dynasty.

The country was already famous for its very intricate bureaucracy, but this also led to a lot of corruption. Even though the penalties for corruption were very high, the highest Officials of the Forbidden City would pretend to uphold the ban on corruption, by accepting gifts of petitioners, and returning one of seemingly lower value.

Gùgōng uses this extraordinary custom as its basis. Players take on the role of powerful Chinese families trying to gain influence and power by exchanging gifts with Officials. The gift cards you offer as a player have to be of a higher value than the one you receive, forcing you to make strategic choices regarding which actions you want to take each turn. You will travel around China, sail down the Grand Canal, purchase precious jade, help construct the Great Wall, secure advantages through decrees, influence the game through intrigue, and ultimately, receive an audience with the emperor. If only 1 player succeeds in doing so, he wins. If several players succeed, the player with the most VPs among those players wins the game.

A Feast for Odin: The Norwegians

The first large expansion for A Feast for Odin, The Norwegians includes four new islands (Isle of Man, Isle of Skye, Islay, Outer Hebrides) with Irish coastal viking-settlements on the backside (Waterford, Wexford, Cork, Limerick), where people from Norway came to stay through the winter (longphort), to trade at, and to settle nearby. This offers new strategies and new puzzle-pieces like horse (6VP, 2×5 spaces)/pregnant horse/leather(green)/vadmal(blue) and pigs (1 VP, breed every round; 2×3 – 1 = 5 spaces)/herbal (orange)/ antler (green)/tools (blue). The game will have a third box for the pieces and the four old islands, too (little different VPs and new graphic-aspects of mini-expansion islands Lofoten/Orkneys/Tierra del Fuego).

The expansion includes another mountain-strip, more two-silver coins, meat/beans and runes/oil and a “little emigration” piece that covers one food instead of two. You get it on a new action-plan for giving away a whaling boat. The plan has three pieces that can be turned around for different numbers of players (version for 1-2, 3, and 4 players), which increases the chances of players getting in each other’s way. It contains new opportunities like butchering, elk-hunting, fishing, and thievery, along with changes for some old actions. It’s now easier, for example, to play an animal strategy, also because you can now get two of the same animals in one action. There is also a new fifth row to make a (better) action with your last viking. You can smith, for example, now a grey piece with maximum of eight swords by using an ore and only one action. Also for this, there are five new grey puzzle-pieces like pan, hauberk or anvil and a little board for smith-able pieces with fewer than nine swords.

Totally new is also the idea of a random start-building. Everybody gets one of the six boards and can build the front or back with one wood and one action. These buildings offer, covered like stonehouse and longhouse, some stuff (pieces, weapons, commodities), VPs and one silver (horse stable 2 silver), so everybody has another different start-opportunity – like the profession card. In this expansion, you choose the best of two cards to start with. Another new option is, that instead of puting a profession card into the game, you can throw it away for a VP-chip. A nice little competitive element, because there are only two 4-VP-chips, six 3-VP-chips and eight (endless) 2-VP-chips.

As before, the expansion includes an almanac about game-elements and their viking-history, again written by Gernot Köpke as a “historical-science”-journalist and learnd lokal newspaper editor.

Herbaceous Sprouts

Everyone has a green thumb when playing Herbaceous Sprouts. Unwind while enjoying this beautiful and thoughtful game of collecting seeds, using tools, and growing sprouts in the community garden. Gather your seeds and tools from the shed, but don’t take too long or your friend might become the Head Gardner first.

Become the Head Gardener by collecting herb and flower seeds and using your garden tools to plant in the community garden and scoring the most points. Each round, gardeners take turns collecting herb and flower seeds (represented by dice) which they place and save in their wheelbarrow, as well as tools (represented by cards) which they use to plant sprouts. Players can plant quickly for low point spots, or push their luck saving their seeds for premier spots in the garden.

The Call of Cthulhu For Beginning Readers

We ask you… what if Dr. Seuss wrote The Call of Cthulhu?

The most merciful thing in the world, I believe is humanity’s failure to fully conceive the cosmical horrors we’ve yet to reveal, and which up until now I have tried to conceal. The iconic H.P. Lovecraft 1928 story, The Call of Cthulhu, is now a children’s book. Seamlessly and gracefully told in anapestic tetrameter by “genius poet-artist” RJ Ivankovic. The late Professor Angell’s research has been discovered by his grand-nephew, Francis Wayland Thurston. Francis delves into the papers and discovers a bas-relief depicting an odd creature with an octopoid head, spurring him to read on. He learns of the raid led by Inspector Legrasse and the voyage of the Vigilant, captained by Gustaf Johansen. This glorious full color 102-page adaptation of the H.P. Lovecraft story was written and illustrated by R.J. Ivankovic.

The Witcher Roleplaying Game

In the midst of the 3rd Nilfgaardian War Geralt of Rivia, the White Wolf, scours the Continent for traces of his lost love! But this is not the only tale. A million other stories play out across the vast continent and you are right in the middle of one of them!

The Witcher Pen & Paper RPG allows you to tell your own story in the world of The Witcher! Adventure across the Continent, interacting with living legends and influencing the politics of the land! Fight in the brutal and horrific Third Nilfgaardian War. Or play out your own adventure as you avoid death and dismemberment!

Featuring

  • 9 Unique Classes: Play as Bards, Craftsmen, Criminals, Doctors, Mages, Men At Arms, Merchants, Priests, & Witchers.
  • A Bestiary of Vicious Monsters: Traverse the wild and hunt everything from the troublesome nekker to the hulking, hypnotic fiend.
  • Numerous Spells & Invocations: Call upon the chaotic magic of the Witcher world to summon tornadoes, leave hidden messages, and more.
  • A Visceral Combat System: Skill & tactics rule the day and a wrong move can mean ruptured organs or more.

Pokémon: Sun & Moon Team Up

The Pokémon are working together! We have all the latest incarnations of this hot new set, including booster packs, booster boxes, Elite Trainer kits and theme decks!

Yu-Gi-Oh! Savage Strike

Heat things up this winter with Savage Strike, the first 100-card booster set of 2019! Cybernetic Horizon revitalized Ritual Summoning, and Soul Fusion created powerful Fusion Summoning strategies. Now, Savage Strike is primed to do the same for Synchro Summoning strategies!