Science Fiction

Battlestar Galactica: The Board Game is an exciting game of mistrust, intrigue, and the struggle for survival. Based on the epic and widely-acclaimed Sci Fi Channel series, Battlestar Galactica: The Board Game puts players in the role of one of ten of their favorite characters from the show. Each playable character has their own abilities and weaknesses, and must all work together in order for humanity to have any hope of survival. However, one or more players in every game secretly side with the Cylons. Players must attempt to expose the traitor while fuel shortages, food contaminations, and political unrest threatens to tear the fleet apart.

After the Cylon attack on the Colonies, the battered remnants of the human race are on the run, constantly searching for the next signpost on the road to Earth. They face the threat of Cylon attack from without, and treachery and crisis from within. Humanity must work together if they are to have any hope of survival…but how can they, when any of them may, in fact, be a Cylon agent?

Battlestar Galactica: The Board Game is a semi-cooperative game for 3-6 players ages 10 and up that can be played in 2-3 hours. Players choose from pilots, political leaders, military leaders, or engineers to crew Galactica. They are also dealt a loyalty card at the start of the game to determine if they are a human or Cylon along with an assortment of skill cards based on their characters abilities. Players then can move and take actions either on Galactica, on Colonial 1, or in a Viper. They need to collect skill cards, fend off Cylon ships, and keep Galactica and the fleet jumping. Each turn also brings a Crisis Card, various tasks that players must overcome. Players need to play matching skill cards to fend off the problems; skill cards that don't match hinder the players success. Fate could be working against the crew, or there could be a traitorous Cylon! As players get closer and closer towards reaching their Earth, another round of loyalty cards are passed out and more Cylons may turn up. If players can keep their up their food stores, fuel levels, ship morale, and population, and they can keep Galactica in one piece long enough to make it to Earth, the Humans win the game. But if the Cylon players reveal themselves at the right moment and bring down Galactica, the Humans have lost.

Official Site, Rules & FAQ: http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_minisite_sec.asp?eidm=18&esem=4
Unofficial FAQ for really tricky questions: http://boardgamegeek.com/wiki/page/Battlestar_Galactica_FAQ

When venturing in Limbo at the edge of the galaxy, scouts found a new form of energy: Titanium. First experiments showed it could push back the frontiers of technology, and even open new horizons for human capabilities. This news was more than enough to stir up the greed of humankind's greatest factions. Each has sent fleets to take over nearby planets where Titanium is abundant – and even seems to be in constant expansion. From that point on, armed conflicts were bound to happen, and this war will be settled only by controlling the Titanium deposits...

As leaders of these great factions in Titanium Wars, players will purchase buildings to master new technologies and increase their earnings, build their own fleet of custom battleships to defeat their opponents, and expand their space empire. They will have to prove bold, insightful and tactful if they want any chance to win this fierce war.

Imagine that you're a supercomputer. Now imagine that you're bored. So you dream up a little contest for you and a couple of your supercomputing buddies. Your task is to move one of the stupid little robots out on the factory floor through a series of checkpoints scattered throughout the factory. The wrinkle, however, is that the factory floor is filled with all kinds of inconvenient (if not down-right deadly) obstacles located in various locations: conveyor belts, crushers, flame-throwers, pushers, teleporters, oil slicks, pits, et cetera. But the real fun comes when the robots cross each other's path, and suddenly your perfect route is something less than that...

In RoboRally players each control a different robot in a race through a dangerous factory floor. Several goals will be placed on the board and you must navigate your robot to them in a specific order. The boards can be combined in several different ways to accommodate different player counts and races can be as long or as short as player's desire.

In general, players will first fill all of their robot's "registers" with facedown movement cards. This happens simultaneously and there is a time element involved. If you don't act fast enough you are forced to place cards randomly to fill the rest. Then, starting with the first register, everyone reveals their card. The card with the highest number moves first. After everyone resolves their movement they reveal the next card and so on. Examples of movement cards may be to turn 90 degrees left or right, move forward 2 spaces, or move backward 1 space though there are a bigger variety than that. You can plan a perfect route, but if another robot runs into you it can push you off course. This can be disastrous since you can't reprogram any cards to fix it!

Robots fire lasers and factory elements resolve after each movement and robots may become damaged. If they take enough damage certain movement cards become fixed and can no longer be changed. If they take more they may be destroyed entirely. The first robot to claim all the goals in the correct order wins, though some may award points and play tournament style.

The game was reprinted by Avalon Hill (Hasbro/WotC) in 2005.

The Abyss power is once again vacant, so the time has come to get your hands on the throne and its privileges. Use all of your cunning to win or buy votes in the Council. Recruit the most influential Lords and abuse their powers to take control of the most strategic territories. Finally, impose yourself as the only one able to rule the Abyssal people!

Abyss is a game of development, combination and collection in which players try to take control of strategic locations in an underwater city. To achieve this, players must develop on three levels: first by collecting allies, then using them to recruit Lords of the Abyss, who will then grant access to different parts of the city. Players acquire cards through a draft of sorts, and the Lords of the Abyss acquired on those cards grant special powers to the cardholder — but once you use the cards to acquire a location, that power is shut off, so players need to time their land grabs well in order to put themselves in the best position for when the game ends.

In the card game Race for the Galaxy, players build galactic civilizations by playing game cards in front of them that represent worlds or technical and social developments. Some worlds allow players to produce goods, which can be consumed later to gain either card draws or victory points when the appropriate technologies are available to them. These are mainly provided by the developments and worlds that are not able to produce, but the fancier production worlds also give these bonuses.

At the beginning of each round, players each select, secretly and simultaneously, one of the seven roles which correspond to the phases in which the round progresses. By selecting a role, players activate that phase for this round, giving each player the opportunity to perform that phase's action. For example, if one player chooses the settle role, each player has the opportunity to settle one of the planets from their hand. The player who has chosen the role, however, gets a bonus that applies only to him. But bonuses may also be acquired through developments, so one must be aware when another player also takes advantage of his choice of role.