Science Fiction

Steam Works

Inventors and tinkerers abound in the Victorian era, harnessing the power of clockwork, steam, and electricks to build machines capable of anything to give glory to Queen Victoria!

In the steampunk worker placement game Steam Works, you'll put your mechanics to work collecting components and power sources, then you'll literally build devices by assembling those sources and components. What's more, those devices in turn become action spaces for other players to use!

Each player takes on an inventor persona with unique starting components or special abilities accessible only to themselves. But the heart of the game is in assembling modular component tiles into a device for other players to use. Sources may provide one or more of the three power types — clockwork, steam, or Tesla-style electrickal power — to the components connected to them, which in turn provide a wide range of effects for gaining resources, prestige points, or more component tiles. Devices start simple with just two components (one source and one component), but devices with three, four or more components will become possible — as soon as the players assemble a device to let it be possible. Because of the modular mix-and-match nature of the components, the available action spaces vary widely from one game to the next, providing great replayability: each game players will create devices never seen before!

Jump Drive

Description from the publisher:

With the invention of Jump Drive, the race for the galaxy begins! Develop new technologies and settle worlds to build a space empire. Find winning card combinations!

Race for the Galaxy: Jump Drive is a fast-paced card game that introduces players to the Race for the Galaxy universe. Can you build the most prosperous galactic civilization?

Jump Drive is a standalone game and offers simpler rules and a shorter game than its older brother Race for the Galaxy.

Colony

In Colony, each player constructs and upgrades buildings, while managing resources to grow their fledgling colony. In a clever twist, dice are used as resources, with each side/number representing a different resource. Some resources are stable, allowing them to be stored between turns, while others must be used right away. Buildings provide new capabilities, such as increased production, resource manipulation, and additional victory points. Using dice-as-resources facilitates a dynamic, ever-changing resources management mini-game while players work to earn victory points by adding building to their tableau on their way to victory.

Colony includes 28 different building card types, of which only seven are used each game in addition to the fixed buildings that are used each time that you play.

New Angeles

Description from the publisher:

The largest, richest, and most diverse city on Earth, New Angeles is home to the Space Elevator that rises along its buckyweave tether and connects us to Luna and its invaluable Helium-3 deposits. It is here, in New Angeles, that you'll find the global headquarters for the worlds' most powerful megacorps: Haas-Bioroid, Globalsec, Jinteki, Melange Mining, NBN, and the Weyland Consortium. And it is here, in this shining beacon of human achievement and advancement, that these powerful megacorps enjoy a uniquely fertile breeding ground for their projects and their rivalries.

In New Angeles, you gain control of one of these megacorporations, then you use your wealth and influence to create more wealth and more influence. To do this, you cut deals and forge temporary alliances. You leverage your credits and assets to gain financial superiority over your corporate rivals. All the while, you also need to keep an eye toward the masses, striking deals with the other corps as necessary in order to keep a lid on crime, disease, and unrest. If you want to maximize your profit, you need to keep New Angeles open for business!

Awful Green Things From Outer Space

The Eighth Edition is finely produced with thick cardboard counters and a sturdy thick game board. The rules are in full color (with cartoon) and very well done. This humorously entertaining game pits two players against each other aboard a spaceship. One plays the ship's crew, trying to kill the evil and rapidly-multiplying aliens controlled by his opponent. And although the crew members have several weapons available to them, they don't know what effect those weapons will have until they try using them in combat against the Awful Green Things. Originally appeared in the Dragon magazine #28. The Outside the Znutar expansion, published in Dragon magazine #40, is included in the box in the Steve Jackson Games versions of the game.

A similar but more serious game is The Wreck of the B.S.M. Pandora.

Supplemental articles were published in TSR's Dragon Magazine including:

"The Awful Green Things From Outer Space" Tom Wham - Issue 28 (page 26)
Addenda "Outside the Znutar" Tom Wham - Issue 40 (insert)