Dice Rolling

Awful Green Things From Outer Space

The Eighth Edition is finely produced with thick cardboard counters and a sturdy thick game board. The rules are in full color (with cartoon) and very well done. This humorously entertaining game pits two players against each other aboard a spaceship. One plays the ship's crew, trying to kill the evil and rapidly-multiplying aliens controlled by his opponent. And although the crew members have several weapons available to them, they don't know what effect those weapons will have until they try using them in combat against the Awful Green Things. Originally appeared in the Dragon magazine #28. The Outside the Znutar expansion, published in Dragon magazine #40, is included in the box in the Steve Jackson Games versions of the game.

A similar but more serious game is The Wreck of the B.S.M. Pandora.

Supplemental articles were published in TSR's Dragon Magazine including:

"The Awful Green Things From Outer Space" Tom Wham - Issue 28 (page 26)
Addenda "Outside the Znutar" Tom Wham - Issue 40 (insert)

Prophecy

Prophecy (originally released as Proroctví) is a Talisman-style game by Czech designer Vladimír Chvátil. The players represent fantasy characters on a path through a land full of adventure with the goal of grabbing ancient artifacts from the claws of demons guarding the surrounding astral realms.

Instead of rolling dice to move around the game board, players in Prophecy use a variety of means of transport. The game includes an experience system and loads of skills and spells that your character can learn. A large number of monsters that you can meet and fight also await you, as do random events that will keep taxing your abilities because after you cast a spell or lose a fight, your strength or willpower declines until it is recharged by healing.

Whoever holds four of the five hidden artifacts wins the game and becomes the next king of the land.

Expanded by:

Prophecy: Dragon Realm (2003)
Prophecy: Water Realm (2006)

Pyramid Arcade

Pyramid Arcade is a compilation of 22 games that can be played with "Looney Pyramids" and assorted other components. Looney Pyramids are colored pyramids in three sizes that can nest together.

The plan for Pyramid Arcade is to focus on games that can be played with three or fewer trees of each color, and include ten colors of pyramids (ninety in all). Pyramid Arcade will also include numerous boards, nine dice, and a rulebook explaining all the games.

The individual games are:

Black Ice
Color Wheel
Give or Take
Hijinks (aka Pink Hijinks)
Homeworlds
IceDice
IceTowers
Launchpad 23
Looney Ludo (aka Martian Coasters)
Lunar Invaders
Martian Chess
Petal Battle
Petri Dish
Powerhouse
Pharaoh
Pyramid Shambo
Treehouse
Twin Win
Verticality
Volcano (aka Fiesta Caldera)
World War 5
Zark City

Tomb

Recruit a Party. Kill the Monsters. Take Their Stuff!

Tomb pits opponents against one another in a game of monsters, traps, treasures, and spells. Attempts to capture the dungeon crawl experience without hours of preparation. Assemble a crack squad of adventurers and enter the fabled Goldenaxe Catacombs in search of glory and hidden treasure. With Tomb’s unique set-up and character recruitment, you’ll never play the same game twice.

Fallen City of Karez

The city of Karez was once the crowned jewel in the vast kingdom of King Tyrial, but as he lost grasp on his kingdom, the city fell to ruins at the hands of the dark forces surrounding it. Now the king has died, and his heir, King Tyrial II, has decided to dispatch his finest lords to raise the fallen city and stand ground against all its enemies, within and outside the city walls.

In Fallen City of Karez, each player will take the role of a lord of one of the guilds who seek to tighten their grasp on the rising city. The players will strive to maintain a balance between keeping the city safe for its citizens by sending exploration parties to defeat any threats, and at the same time attracting to the emerging city new adventurers wishing to fill their pockets with fortunes and their names with glory.

In the action phase at the start of each of the eight turns, players can assign two citizens or one adventurer to act on their behalf in the various buildings of Karez, send an exploration party to remove any threats that lurk near Karez, or buy new equipment to reinforce their parties of heroes. Some guild houses may choose to erect their own private Dungeons (!) in an attempt to inflict havoc and dismay on the other houses. After everyone performs their actions, the players must check how these actions affected migration to Karez; the results of this phase will reflect on the growth of Karez towards a city state, which is the common aspiration of all players.

Players start with different initial possessions and owned buildings. In addition to the common goal of raising the city, each house also has some unique goals (ambitions), which will eventually determine the sole winner. That said, the game is semi-cooperative in that while each guild has its own ambitions, all players must succeed in raising the city by the end of the game or else everyone loses.