deduction

I, Spy

I, Spy is an exciting contest of disguised intentions, political manipulation, and spy games spanning an espionage-wracked pre-war Europe. Deceive your opponents as an agent secretly working for a European power, recruiting key assets, buying off politicians, and instigating sabotage against foreign capitals. However, you will need the reluctant (or unwitting) support of your opponents to position your homeland for European domination, so tread carefully and do not reveal your true identity.

Game Overview:
At the start of the game, you receive an Alignment Token, which tells you which one of the competing European nations you secretly work for.

The rest of the game unfolds over the course of 14 rounds, with each player (spy) performing 3 Actions per round. These actions include moving around the map, acquiring resources in the form of Supply Tokens, improving your abilities by recruiting Assets, manipulating the otherwise-random Politicians to your advantage, or even directly harassing opposing spies.

But any action you take will directly affect at least one Nation, in the form of gains or losses in Influence points. Your mission during the game is to generate Influence for your own Nation, while at the same time preventing your opponents’ Nations from gaining too much—if you can deduce which Nations they are!

Influence is tallied and compared during Scoring Phases, which take place at set intervals throughout the game. In a Scoring Phase, each Nation receives Power points based on how much Influence it has accumulated so far.

At the end of the game, players reveal their Alignment Tokens, and the player whose Nation has the most Power is the winner.

Apotheca

Players craft potions in a secret marketplace. Hide ingredients to deceive opponents, and use magical powers to mix concoctions. But beware - your opponents are brewing schemes of their own!

Apotheca is played on a 4x4 grid. Players gain points by making matches of three potions of the same color in a row. The first player to make three matches wins. It's easily learned, but the combination of asymmetric powers and secret facedown potions make the game a delicious challenge.

On each turn, players take 2 of 4 possible actions:

Reveal: Reveal a secret potion and gain a gem of that color
Restock: Draw, look at, and place secret potions on the board until there are exactly 3
Power: Use one of your active apothecary powers
Hire: Spend gems to hire new apothecaries

Whenever a player makes a match, they must place it on one of their apothecaries. This removes that apothecary's power for the rest of the game, so it's important for players to keep revealing potions, collecting gems and hiring new apothecaries... all while keeping their opponents at bay!

Deduction is key to Apotheca. Players trap each other with clever spatial moves, bluffing and misdirection. The action economy is very well balanced, so every turn offers an opportunity for strategy and tough decisions.

The feeling of the game differs with every number of players:

2 player is the most cerebral and controlled
3 player is the most chaotic, yet still within your grasp
4 player is played in teams, offering neat collaborative gameplay

Booze Barons

Booze Barons is a quick, team-based hidden identity and deduction game set during U.S. Prohibition where you are bootlegging a particular type of booze and secretly delivering it to speakeasies all over the city. Each time you make a delivery, you get a coin, but also reveal information about the type of booze you are bootlegging. Expose bootleggers of opposing mobs and help those who are in your mob since the mob with the most coins at the end wins!

Perspective

Perspective is a competitive game of memory, deduction, and limited knowledge.. There are unique sets of rules for two, three, and four players. The winner is the player who manages to match the colors on the back of their double sided cards with their goal pattern. You must maintain the perspective of the cards so that you never see the back side of your own cards.

Perspective can be played with 2 to 4 players or as a solitaire game. 2-4 player games are played with a hand of 3 cards. Each card is double-sided, so when held one side is facing toward the player and the other is facing their opponents. The front side of the cards will determine what actions a player may take. When a card is played, it is placed into the Used Pile with the front side of the card face up.

Each player has a goal card placed in front of them on the table, their objective is to get the Back Side of their hand to match the colors and order of their goal hand. At any point during a player’s turn, they may lay down their 3 cards without tampering to see if their goal is met. If the player’s cards do not match the goal card, they are eliminated from the game.

Sun, Moon, & Stars

Sun, Moon, & Stars is a fast playing, easy to learn game of deduction. Each of the four great totem spirits, Wolf, Deer, Owl, and Serpent, chase their favored celestial bodies through the heavens to be the first to capture them and prove they are the greatest of their peers, The Sun, Moon, and the Stars circle the table, mirroring how they move across the sky. In whose domain will they finally come to rest?

Sun, Moon, & Stars is played with 4 totem animal cards used as hidden roles by the players during the game. There are 11 action cards which move the Sun, Moon, and Stars tokens among the players until one achieves their victory conditions or the game ends. The game is quite short, taking 5 minutes or so to play; players are invited to play until one wins 3 to 5 games.