Dice

Omicron Protocol

In the year 2050, the utopian city of San Lazaro is locked down and crippled by a mysterious computer virus, turning once-ordinary people into maddeningly violent and unpredictable “CyMS”, Cyber-Memetic Sociopaths.

Omicron Protocol is an “intra-apocalyptic”, cyberpunk-themed miniatures skirmish board game for 1-4 players, where you control a squad of unique characters, and take turns controlling a 3rd party enemy to harass your opponent. Or play solo/cooperatively as a team to fight enemies, complete objectives, and survive!

Every character is represented by a detailed 32mm-scale miniature, possessing their own rich history and personality, as well as powerful cybernetic abilities! Play the competitive or solo/cooperative modes through various narrative scenarios to survive the crisis! With innovative game mechanics like the Action Store and Luck Tokens, every game is thrilling and exciting. Enjoy a deeply tactical game in under an hour and introduce your gaming friends to skirmish games with Omicron Protocol!

In the game, you play with a squad of 1-4 characters, either competitively against another player/team, solo, or cooperatively with friends. Each round consists of spending a shared pool of action points on your characters, activating them one-by-one, and using movement and tactics to survive the onslaught of the Cyber-Memetic Sociopaths (CyMS). All games are based on scenarios derived from the lore of the world (120K+ word collection of stories), and the game can be linked together into a light campaign in both competitive and cooperative modes.

In competitive scenarios, the team that scores the most victory points wins. In solo/cooperative scenarios, the players win if they reach the VP goal within a specified number of rounds.

Background:

Everything can change in a month. The cutting edge West Coast city of San Lazaro had been the epicenter of a cybernetics tech revolution in 2044, ushering all of humanity into the future...but in the year 2050, a mysterious viral menace the likes of which the world had never seen toppled the utopian city in a sea of infection and death. The disease could not be stopped; it evolved to surpass any countermeasure, mutated to answer any cure. In mere days San Lazaro was overwhelmed by the infected.

Martial law descended on the city immediately. Barricades and armed soldiers divided its streets into isolated sectors. Efforts to contain the outbreak were as useless as the attempts to control the surging numbers of mysteriously insane and violent residents, a second catastrophe on the heels of the first.. Dubbed ‘Cyber-Memetic Sociopaths’ by the media, with their actions being blamed on an over-immersion in virtual reality, these ‘CyMS’ were spreading across the city in a wave of mindless, indiscriminate violence. With the infection spreading and the murderous CyMS rampaging, the government abandoned San Lazaro and its people after a mere two weeks.

All that remains of the city now is a twisted hellscape. The few survivors have banded together in hopes of escaping, while gangs once suppressed by the government have seized control. The CyMS have grown into a constant threat on the streets, sowing fear and terror in their path. In this waking nightmare, your only chance of salvation is to join a faction powerful enough to dominate the foes that stand in your way.

Karvi

As a Jarl, you travel the northern seas to achieve immortal glory. Under the sails of your own ship, which is built like a karve (Karvi), you‘ll lead a crew, trade with foreign cultures and plunder other lands.

Strengthen the skills of your crew by upgrading your ship and hiring stronger warriors. Whether you wish to establish new trade routes to secure rare goods or battle distant settlements to plunder their riches, your path to glory is yours to choose. But make sure to remember to stock up on beer and bread, so you have enough supplies to outmaneuver the competing clans.

Successful planning will make you renowned throughout the lands, and secure your place in Norse legend as a fearless Jarl.

—description from the publisher

Als Jarl bereist du die nördlichen Meere, um unsterblichen Ruhm zu erlangen. Unter dem Segel deines eigenen Schiffs in der Bauart einer Karve (Karvi) führst du eine Crew an, handelst mit fremden Kulturen und plünderst Ländereien.

Verstärke die Fähigkeiten deiner Besatzung, indem du dein Schiff ausbaust und immer stärkere Kriegerinnen anheuerst. Ob du neue Handelsrouten etablierst, um dir seltene Handelsgüter zu sichern oder ob du gegen ferne Siedlungen in den Kampf ziehst und ihre Reichtümer plünderst, entscheidest du. Doch denke auch daran, dich mit genügend Vorräten an Bier und Brot
einzudecken, um die konkurrierenden Clans auszustechen.

Nur wenn du erfolgreich taktierst, wird man deinen Namen schließlich an genügend Orten kennen, um als Jarl in die nordischen Legenden einzugehen.

—description from the publisher (German)

20 Strong

20 Strong is a new deck-based game system from Chip Theory Games, capable of being played in about 30 minutes or less. We say “game system” because the idea behind 20 Strong is a small nucleus of simple, adaptable rules that can then be applied to a variety of unique decks, each with their own set of mechanics. We are launching 20 Strong with three such decks – one set in the world of Too Many Bones, one set in Hoplomachus: Victorum, and one in the new universe of the space-faring Solar Sentinels. We have more decks in development and plan to release them regularly if our customers are excited by them. For now, 20 Strong is a solo-only game, but even that could differ in future decks using the ruleset.

The object of a game of 20 Strong is to progress through a shuffled deck of cards, each card bearing a unique challenge. This challenge could be in the form of an enemy, a unique scenario, or some other requirement (for example, players of the Too Many Bones deck might expect to see a Lockpicking challenge or two). Challenges usually require a certain number of successes to complete, which you earn by rolling a set of 17 dice with different odds for a hit (these dice, along with three adjustable stat dice, make up the “20” in 20 Strong).

If you roll enough successes, you complete a card’s challenge and gain its rewards. If you don’t, you take damage and move on to the next card – unless, of course, your HP stat is reduced to 0, costing you the game. If you manage to make it through an entire deck, you take on one of the deck’s final bosses, attempting to score enough hits against this powerful enemy to claim ultimate victory.

Of course, it’s never so easy that you’d want to spend all of your dice on a single card. In addition to your HP Stat, you’re also keeping track of your Strategy (which controls how many rerolls and items you have) and your Recovery, which controls how many dice return to your pool after taking on a challenge. If you roll more dice than your Recovery, those dice are exhausted, lowering your pool for your subsequent challenges. It’s a game of pressing your luck, strategic decision-making, and resource management. We think you’re going to love it!

—description from the publisher

The Goonies: Never Say Die

It's our time, down here.

Embark on a perilous adventure full of dangerous booby traps and treacherous treasure-filled caverns! In The Goonies: Never Say Die, one player is the Goondocks Master, controlling fearsome foes from the outlaw family, the Fratellis, to the legendary pirate, One-Eyed Willie. The other players take on the role of the Goonies — Mikey, Mouth, Chunk, Data, and Sloth — and attempt to overcome cryptic puzzles and deadly challenges with teamwork, strategy, and Data's clever contraptions! Will the Goonies discover the legendary riches that will save their homes, or will they follow the fate of Chester Copperpot...and never see the light of day?

The game features nine adventures so that players can immerse themselves in the 1980s movie as well as brand new stories, and it includes eight sculpted miniatures of Mikey, Mouth, Chunk, Data, Sloth, the Giant Octopus, the Fratellis, and even One-Eyed Willie himself.

The Gig

In The Gig, players are members of a jazz group improvising their way through a song, vying for the spotlight, and trying to please the audience while working up mind-blowing solos!

The game takes place over six rounds, a.k.a. "songs". Each song, players count down, then roll and place dice in real time to gain symbols and create patterns. When one player has placed all four of their dice, they shout "Take it to the bridge!" and other players must stop re-rolling and place the remainder of their dice. After placing all of their dice, each player can add the shape that their dice formed to their instrument's unique solo board, each of which offers a different challenge and way of scoring. Players can use symbols gained via the song and their solo boards to quickly change their dice, keep them for endgame scoring, or spend them to buy audience cards, each of which represents a newly-gained fan who will give you another way of scoring points at game's end.

After the set list of six songs has been played, the player with the most points gained from their solo, audience cards, harmonies, and symbol sets and majorities wins.

The Gig includes a solo mode by Dávid Turczi.