Card Game

Princess Bride: Prepare to Die! Again!!

A party game in which players fill in the famous phrase "Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die."' with ridiculous names and activities.

You might say to yourself, "but wait, this game already exists!" and you would nearly be right ... but actually wrong.

Prepare to Die! Again!! is the exact same game as Prepare to Die, but with different cards.

Brutal Kingdom

The King is dead; long live the Queen! Or vice versa, really, as in the intriguing game Brutal Kingdom it's hard to tell what everyone is up to and who will have the greatest impact until it all ends. Yes, the bishop's poison has been touched, but has it been administered to the abbot or is it still waiting to be used? What's happening with the witch? And the executioner is waiting for his next job...

At the beginning of a round, each player has four character cards in hand. On your turn, you play a card in front of you and follow its instructions. With some cards, you can carry out actions on your opponent and bring an end to the round's influence — but only if you don't fall victim to your opponent in the process.

Times Square

An unusual, complex, yet tightly balanced board/card game for two from the prolific Reiner Knizia. The original title, "Auf der Reeperbahn...," alludes to a popular German movie from 1954.

Near the center of a 17-space track start the six game figures which the players compete to attract to their opposite ends of the board. You play as many cards of the same color on your turn as you wish, and much of the movement is a direct result of card play: e.g., by playing a red 4 you bring the red figure ("Rote Lola" or "Dancing Deb") 4 spaces closer to your end of the board.

However, there are special tricks and restrictions which must be learned and held firmly in mind before the sense of the game begins to emerge. The central green figure ("Brilli-Lilli" or "Saucy Sue") which wins for you if the game ends with her on your half of the board, for example, can only move within the bounds of her "bodyguards," two grey figures. The yellow figure ("Blonde Hans" or "Handsome Hal") can summon, without benefit of a card played, any of these three figures to his square. The companion green figure ("Schampus-Charly" or "Champagne Charlie") which can also win the game if you get him into one of the two spaces at your end of the board (your "nightclub"), only moves toward you if the board situation at the end of your turn involves both bodyguards on your half of the board and/or one of the other figures in your nightclub. And so on.

The game, part of the Kosmos two-player series, is one of attack and counterattack, defense and forward thinking, and can be won early or on the turn of the last card on the second time through the deck. At 10-15 minutes, it begs to be played again immediately.

Piepmatz

In Piepmatz, you skillfully play bird cards from your hand to collect seeds and birds at the bird feeder. Seeds and mated pairs of birds in your collection are worth points. Single birds score only if you have the most of their species. The course of play is the same for all numbers of players. On a turn, you go through these three phases in order:

Play a card — Select a bird card from your hand and place it face up at a perch of your choice.
Resolve effects — Compare the birds on the ground with the bird at the perch. Take a seed card or add a bird to your collection. Move a bird to the feeder.
Draw new cards — Replenish your hand.

The game end is triggered when you are supposed to draw a card from an empty feeder deck. Play continues until all players have had an equal number of turns. Each player now chooses two bird cards from their hand and discards them face down. Once all players have done this, add your remaining two bird cards to your collection and commence the scoring. You score points for seeds, mated pairs of birds, and species majorities. Whoever has the most points wins.

Aye, Dark Overlord! The Red Box

Aye, Dark Overlord! is a fantasy party game filled with humor that's fast to play and easy to learn.

Each player is an evil goblin servant of the evil Dark Overlord — Rigor Mortis, the Master of all Evils — and all of them are gathered at the Dark Overlord's knees to explain why they brought that last important mission, ordered by "His Evil Excellence" himself, to failure again. Panic wraps you in its freezing grip; what can you do to save your poor skin? Could you say you are not the one to blame, but your inept companions? Yes, of course, that's the solution! There is only one little problem: They've probably got exactly the same idea...and the Dark Overlord is not known for his mercy...

This roleplaying game is all about telling lies and shifting the blame on your poor fellow ones, so the righteous wrath of your Master can give them what they deserve!

Aye, Dark Overlord! The Red Box is the most recent name of this game, to distinguish it from The Green Box, which is both a standalone game and an expansion for this one.