variable player powers

Inkwell

The abbey at Iona is famed for its illustrious manuscripts, replete with gold leaf and remarkable calligraphy. In fact, through talent and discipline, you have joined their ranks as a master illuminator!

In Inkwell, each player will either take supplies from a shared mat, or choose to score and move on to a new page of their own codex. Supplies include colored ink cubes, gold leaf, and technique cards with special powers and effects. Everything you take must fit on your manuscript card, and if you empty the last inkwell of a certain type, the abbot ticks down the game time towards ending the game. If you choose to turn the page, you score for all your completed work, and collect your ability cards on the side to benefit you the rest of the game, building an 'engine' of learned skills. You also get a reward of gold leaf and a chance to pick your next page to work on. Just beware that if the abbot becomes upset, he may force you to move forward before you are finished.

A strategic and tactical game with few rules and lots of choices, Inkwell is designed to celebrate beautiful historical manuscripts and surprisingly tricky gameplay for groups or even solo play.

Winds of Numa Sera

A Kingdom-Building Strategy Board Game for 3-4 players that shares the same world and characters as the acclaimed graphic novel from Dark Horse.

Each player controls a different asymmetric kingdom that comes with a trio of unique heroes to play as and customize. There are four distinct paths to victory, and whoever is first to achieve any 2 of them, wins the game.

Vast, beautiful, and dangerous, the world of Ethera is full of unique cultures and kingdoms all vying for control of the landscape. From the ordained bloodline of Numa Sera to the valiant knights of Dena Vale, the majestic “cat people” of Meran, and the pillaging hordes of Siaa De’e, each force will stop at nothing to advance its power.

As the leader of your people, your goal is to amass resources and create the most powerful kingdom in all of Ethera so your name will be remembered long after you are gone. There are several ways to achieve this: by conquering strongholds, slaying your
opponents’ heroes, mastering skills, or earning new class titles. You can rule benevolently, cruelly, or anything in between. The choice is yours.

Whichever path you take, you will need to acquire assets to advance your heroes and grow your kingdom. Through exploration of Ethera’s many distinct environments, you will uncover rare items and enlist new allies to assist in your campaign. But exploration also has its risks: Ethera is a dangerous place, full of ancient secrets and hidden obstacles.

So be ever vigilant…

The winds of Numa Sera are blowing.

Etherstone

Nobura is a forgotten planet shrouded in mystery. The story told that a cosmic being sacrificed its divine essence to breathe life into its desolate lands. Etherstones shaped the planet's biomes and interconnected all living beings with nature. Yet, the lurking threat of the Vacuous, a parasitic force born from the depths of Nobura, poses a challenge to life on the surface, weaving a tale of divine sacrifice. Nobura has always been part of a paradoxical loop of life and death, where the forces of creation and destruction dance in an eternal cosmic struggle.

In Etherstone, players embody faction leaders uniting forces to avert the impending extinction, striving to gain the most victory points through various means, such as summoning cards, overcoming threats, and utilizing their abilities as effectively as possible.

The first stage of the game will be drafting your hand of 7 cards and your leader card. Alternatively, for the first few matches, players can take a pre-made hand of cards with the matching Leader. Leaders have a set number of life points, a strength value, and a persistent asymmetric ability.

During your turn, you can take only one action among the following: Dice Draft, Summon, Attack, Rest, Void Pact.

Players will win by gaining victory points while doing several different actions and the game will end if any of the end-game conditions are met:
The active player has no cards left in their hand.
There are no cards left in the Threat deck.
The victory point pool has no more tokens in it.

Castle Nightingale

Castle Nightingale looms out of the night, both intimidating and full of promise. Three ninjas have slipped inside, searching for the fabled treasure hidden within...yet a vigilant samurai patrols the halls, watching and listening for intruders.

Two players face off in Castle Nightingale, with the ninja player trying to steal five relics before the samurai player can capture the three ninja thieves. The castle is comprised of an inaccessible garden surrounded by four double-sided floor boards, each showing two secret passage spaces and areas in five colors.

Each turn, the ninja and samurai each choose one of three action cards in hand, with the samurai also choosing a nightingale tile not used on the previous turn. The ninja player resolves their action, then moves across the floor, marking each space of their movement with a footstep token. If they step on a colored space matching the samurai's hidden nightingale tile, the ninja stands revealed; otherwise, next turn the ninja can treat any of their footsteps as their starting space.

If the ninja picks up a vase, the samurai can still recover it on their turn by either closing the final secret passage or landing on the ninja's space...as long as the ninja has been revealed that turn. While the ninja moves space to space, the samurai treats each colored area as a single space, allowing them to move quickly within the castle.

Each player has specialized one-shot equipment they can use at any time, starting with one item and gaining more as they play certain cards. Each player has ten cards that they'll cycle through until either the samurai has captured all three ninja or the ninja have stolen five of the six relics hidden in the eight vases.

Pagan: Fate of Roanoke

Pagan: Fate of Roanoke is an expandable deduction card game set in the colonial America of 1587.

The essence of this asymmetrical game is a witch's struggle against a witch hunter. As the witch strives to complete a ritual of renaturation, the hunter tries to discover her true identity among nine villagers. Each turn, the two players use their action pawns on active villagers to draw cards, play cards, and gain influence. Each player has their own variable card deck of fifty cards; with these cards, the witch can brew powerful potions, improve their familiar, and cast enchantments and charms, while the witch hunter enlists allies, claim strategic locations, and ruthlessly investigates the villagers.

As the witch, your objective is to collect enough secrets to perform a ritual so potent that the entire region will fall under your spell and Mother Nature will reclaim the island. As the hunter, you gather all the allies and support you can muster to bring the witch to justice before her fatal ritual comes to fruition.

The prototype won the Danish design award Otto at the Fastaval for best game of show in 2018.