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Alcatraz: The Scapegoat

Alcatraz: The Scapegoat is a game about conflicted loyalties. On one hand, the players work together to bust out of the famous prison; on the other hand they all know that one of them will be left behind as the scapegoat.

Alcatraz is a peculiar game because while it is cooperative in some aspects, with players needing to work together to complete tasks, the game has loads of negative interaction as one player will always be the scapegoat. You don't want to be that guy. You don't "go all in," you don't always keep your promises, and you don't do "what's best for the group." Instead, you do everything you can to become indispensable, and "everything" is literal here – even if it means stealing from, betraying, and blackmailing other players.

In order to escape from Alcatraz, the players need to complete six parts of a plan. Each part is a "pick-up and deliver" task requiring specific items obtained in different parts of the prison. Once each part of the plan is completed, every player but the scapegoat moves a little closer to escaping, with the scapegoat being voted on each round by all the players – most likely the player who contributed the least to completing that particular task, but you never know. Thus, you could say that Alcatraz is a cooperative game – but with a twist.

The map of the prison constituting the play area is generated randomly each game, providing high replayability. Alcatraz is designed for 3-4 players, and due to its theme and complex gameplay is best suited for mature players.

Twilight Imperium: Shattered Empire

The first expansion for Twilight Imperium (Third Edition) features four new races that are unseen in previous editions, more balanced Strategy cards, more belligerent Objective cards, several new surprises for neutral planets, two more sets of plastic units, rules (with more than a dozen new optional variants), and enough additional systems for a fourth ring around Mecatol Rex. Now its 3-8 players. If you played TI3 and had some ideas for potential improvements, they are probably incorporated in Shattered Empire.

Drum Roll

In Drum Roll each player takes over the role of a circus owner in the early 1900s. Each player moves around Europe hiring performers and giving shows.

There are five main categories of performers: the Tamers, the Acrobats, the Bizarre, the Magicians, and the Jugglers. Each of them have different demands the player must fulfill in order to give their best performance.

The requirements, which vary between performers, are Rehearsal, Equipment, Supplies, Costumes, and Promotion. There are three levels of performances that each performer can end up doing in a show: a poor one, a good one, and an outstanding one. The higher the level of performance, the more requirements each performer will have to fulfill in order to achieve it.

The better the performance, the more each player can get out of it. When performers do outstanding performances, the player must choose between getting the maximum amount of benefit out of them, or getting the Prestige Points they are offering. There are also other ways to improve a circus such as trailers, investments, and personnel that will help your performers do their best.

Balderdash

A clever repackaging of the parlor game Dictionary, Balderdash contains several cards with real words nobody has heard of. After one of those words has been read aloud, players try to come up with definitions that at least sound plausible, because points are later awarded for every opposing player who guessed that your definition was the correct one.

Versions of the game as a parlor game go back at least as far as 1970, although Balderdash itself was not published until 1984.

Mattel republished Balderdash in 2006 in a form that derives its gameplay from the sequel Beyond Balderdash.

Re-implemented by:

Beyond Balderdash / Absolute Balderdash
Kokkelimonke Jubileum

Re-implements:

Beyond Balderdash*

In a peculiar situation, this game was reimplemented by Beyond/Absolute Balderdash and then combined back into the original title (Balderdash) but with the rules and cards from Beyond/Absolute; while Tactic re-published their version of Beyond/Absolute combined with the original Balderdash and called it Kokkelimonke Jubileum.