Dice Rolling

Santa Maria is a streamlined, medium complexity Eurogame in which each player establishes and develops a colony. The game features elements of dice drafting and strategic engine building. The game is low on luck and has no direct destructive player conflict; all components are language independent.

In the game, you expand your colony by placing polyominoes with buildings on your colony board. Dice (representing migrant workers) are used to activate buildings; each die activates a complete row or column of buildings in your colony. The buildings are activated in order (left to right / top to bottom), then the die is placed on the last activated building to block this space. It is therefore crucial where you put new buildings in your colony, and in which order you use the dice.

As the game progresses, you produce resources, form shipping routes, send out conquistadors, and improve your religious power to recruit monks. When you recruit a monk, you must decide if it becomes a scholar (providing a permanent special ability), a missionary (for an immediate bonus) or a bishop (for possible end game points). The player who has accumulated the most happiness after three rounds wins. The available specialists, end game bonuses and buildings vary from game to game, which makes for near endless replayability.

The march of humankind’s progress threatens the survival of many species. It's up to you and your team to save them!

Work with your fellow conservationists to save tigers and sea otters from extinction. Influence the UN to save the animals and stop environmental destruction. If four UN ambassadors vote yes on the resolution then the players win. But until the vote takes place, players need to keep the destruction at bay, and keep the animals alive!

Each turn players will roll the dice they can allocate to action cards. After actions are taken, mating pairs will have a chance to procreate, and destruction tiles will enter the board, possibly killing already scarce animals.

Play as the Zoologist, Philanthropist, TV Wildlife Host, Lobbyist, or Environmental Lawyer, each with a special ability.

Time is short. Can the animals be saved while also influencing the Ambassadors' votes? Or will threatened animals be lost forever?

Take on the role of an artist managing an atelier, or art studio, during the 19th century. Roll dice, manage your assistants, collect needed paint, and complete famous works of art. Will you be a prolific artist completing many works for your patrons, or will you be known for just a few masterpieces that stand the test of time?

Atelier: The Painter's Studio is played in rounds. During each round, players take turns using one or more of their dice to accomplish tasks. Turns proceed clockwise around the table until all players have used all four of their dice. Once the round is over, all players recover their dice, pass the starting player token clockwise, and start the next round. Players use their dice to collect students, paint colors, and ultimately complete paintings. The completed paintings contribute to their studio's reputation, which will in turn open up additional actions that can be taken.

When any player has completed their third painting with the masterpiece symbol, the game enters the final round. Players then total the victory points from their paintings, patrons, and "First Master" token to determine the winner.

Marvel Strike Teams puts players in the role of some of their favorite Marvel Universe heroes and villains. Two to five players face off in a classic battle of good versus evil. Everyone gets a character with a HeroClix combat dial to track their level and build points. One player is the villainous mastermind and is able to guide the direction of each encounter; the rest are the heroes who each control a single hero for the mission and must work together by combining their vast array of powers and abilities to complete various objectives, such as infiltrating an enemy warehouse or saving hostages.

Each hero is unique with individual play styles, giving players multiple options to play the way that best suits them. The environment also lends to the game play, putting obstacles in the way of players and granting them objects they can use as weapons. A wooden crate may block Captain America's path, but he can pick it up and hurl it at enemy Hydra soldiers. Players will quickly pick the role that best suits their team and lead the heroes to victory — or at least they hope so!

Aside from standalone missions, Marvel Strike Teams includes a campaign-based game in which the players can improve their heroes over the course of several missions. With randomly generated scenarios, multiple map tiles, and thousands of possible encounters, each mission will feel like a fresh experience!

From the publisher's website:

Once again, our unfortunate friends find themselves foreigners trapped within the frightful Fortress Furor of the fanged Prince Fieso who would, with felicity, see them flounder and faint. These fine fighters could feasibly face their finish in this forbidding fortification, whose fearsome floors even now flow frighteningly from beneath their feet as the famished Furunkulus forages the fringes, fixing to feast on the foreigners’ flesh. Forthwith, must our fighters fashion their flight from this foulest of fates! But what’s this? By the light of their fallow and flickering flares, our friends find the depths fraught with the most furious of fiends and the fiercest of freaks! With fleet feet, the fearless foreigners follow these ferocious fellows through the fortress, with its multifarious footpaths and their frustrating forks, forging fervently forward toward freedom and fame. Our fighters must not falter from whatever feud or fracas would foil their function: to finally furnish the forlorn Faerie Fabula her freedom from feckless Fieso’s fists!

Theme
Formidable Foes is a light-hearted dungeon crawl. The players all take the role of heroes competing with each other to amass the greatest hoard of treasure. They do this by exploring the dungeon and fighting monsters.

Goal
The goal is to collect as much gold as possible. The winner is the richest player.

Gameplay
On each turn, a player either moves twice; moves once and fights a monster; or collects 'power tokens' which allow a player to improve their dice rolls in subsequent turns. In the early part of the game, the monsters are fairly weak and easily defeated. Defeating a monster increases a character's 'wisdom' which allows them to fight and defeat ever-harder monsters. Fighting monsters involves rolling a dice and then adding power tokens to improve the roll if required.