Horror

Horrified: Greek Monsters

Pandora's Box has been opened, and Greece's most notorious monsters have escaped.

Horrified: Greek Monsters is a standalone game that features gameplay similar to 2019's Horrified. In this co-operative game, players become avatars of the Greek gods and must work together to re-capture these monsters.

To do that, they must first uncover the monsters' lairs. Medusa, Cerberus, Chimera, and Minotaur are hidden in locations that must be discovered: the Statue Garden, Underworld Door, Chimera's Cave, and Labyrinth. Similar to the myths that inspired the game, uncovering the lairs comes with a cost: Players must discard three color items before the lair token can be flipped over to reveal which monster's hideout they've discovered.

Horrified: Greek Monsters includes six monsters, each with unique abilities, and the more monsters in the game, the harder the challenge, with players needing to use their unique powers to figure out how to defeat each monster.

The Stifling Dark

The Stifling Dark is a one-vs-many hidden-movement horror board game with an innovative line-of-sight mechanic for 2-5 players. One player takes the role of the adversary, whose goal is to prevent the other players (the investigators) from escaping through a variety of unique actions. As an investigator, your only goals are to survive and escape.

Investigators move around the board in a point-to-point fashion using their base movement speed. They may sprint to move more quickly, but they need to keep an eye on their stamina so they don't become exhausted. Additionally, investigators can pick up and use items, lock and unlock doors, or use their flashlights to try and find the adversary. Meanwhile, the adversary is secretly moving around the board, trying to stop the investigators from escaping. There are a variety of investigators to choose from, each with their own special abilities. The adversary also has multiple attacks and abilities that change how you play the game.

Will you fix the car and drive out, or will you override the gate and try to sneak out? The investigators will need to decide if they want to stick together to watch each other's backs, or split up to race towards the exit. Either way, they must move quickly - the longer the game takes, the more chances the adversary has to stop them!

The game ends when either all of the investigators escape (meaning the investigators won) or the adversary achieves their win condition (which is different for each adversary).

Cosmoctopus

Welcome, devotees! The celestial gaze of the Great Inky One falls upon you; do you have what it takes to be the most dedicated follower?

Cosmoctopus is an engine-building, tentacle-gathering board game for 1 to 4 devotees. Guide Cosmoctopus through the Inky Realm, a flexible configuration of tiles, to gather resources and obtain powerful cards that represent relics, scripture, hallucinations and constellations. Harness the power of these bizarre objects and experiences, craft potent card combinations and be the first to gain 8 tentacles to win!

Your turns are simple; the game’s excitement and depth lie in working out how best to use an ever-powerful hand of cards. Unlike some other engine-builders, you’ll be straight into the fun, upgrading your engine from turn one. With variable setup, easy ways to alter difficulty and optional solo and co-operative modes, Cosmoctopus offers a versatile tabletop experience, whatever your gaming tastes.

—description from the publisher

Beast

Welcome to the Northern Expanse, a place where nature is still unexplored, mystical and dangerous. When the humans first arrived, they thought they found an unspoiled paradise, filled with bountiful forests, lakes swimming with fish and cold freshwater flowing from the mountains. But as their settlements expanded and the surrounding forests grew thinner, nature itself pushed back. Great creatures known as Beasts emerged, and with their fangs, claws and mystical powers, they proved an incredible threat to the humans. In order to protect the settlements, humans enlisted specialised hunters, tasked with tracking and killing the Beasts before too many of their kin perish.

The Beast uses a deck of direction cards to move over forests, swamps and caverns, using guile and deceit to hide its track from the hunters. However, whenever a hunter moves over a location where the Beast has previously been, a trail appears. Only when a hunter searches a location or the Beast itself attacks an unsuspecting target is the Beast's actual position revealed. More so, each hunter has but one chance of searching each round, making it a tense and difficult decision. Hunters seldom have full information whether the trail they’re pursuing contains the Beast’s actual location, or if the trail has already gone cold.

Each action you perform in this game is done by playing a card from your hand (up to a maximum of two cards per turn). This means that if a player wants to search, attack or move, they need to have a card in their hand that lets them do that. Before each round, both hunters and Beast participate in a draft for the most important cards. All action cards can be used by both Beast and hunters alike.

In order to win this game, you either need to cooperate every step of the way if you play as a hunter, or skillfully outmaneuver your opponents if you play as Beast. On their own, hunters are never stronger than the Beast. Only when hunters communicate, strategize and combine their actions can they bring down the Beast before it’s too late.

—description from the designer

Vagrantsong

You trainhop aboard the Silver Ferryman, chasin’ a dream or runnin’ from the past. What you find is a welcomin’ hand - white glove, stretched skin… and a fiddle player in the distance, playin’ a tune that’s awfully inviting. Makes you never wanna leave.

In Vagrantsong, a cooperative and story-driven boss battler, you will take on the role of a Vagrant trapped on a supernatural ghost train. Face off against ghosts lingering on the train (called Haints), adjust your playstyle with Skills and Junk acquired along the way, and uncover the secrets of the Silver Ferryman in this spooky and challenging adventure.

In each of the 20+ Scenarios in Vagrantsong’s campaign, players will take turns spending their 3 Coins to take actions, such as: moving around the train board, investigating the unknown, and rummaging for items that might help them get out of a tight spot. Additionally, players can spend their Coins on more exclusive actions to remind a Haint of their lost Humanity, all in the hopes of freeing the spirit from the ghost train’s bone-chilling grip, and winning the Scenario in the process. But be careful! Each Haint has their own bag of tricks and gameplay mechanics. They will stop at nothing to make sure that the players lose all of their Humanity and stay aboard forever.

After each Scenario, players will have a moment to rest, allowing them the opportunity to change out their Skill and Junk cards, heal their Vagrant, and prepare for their next encounter aboard the Silver Ferryman.

—description from the publisher