variable player powers

In Augustus, you vie with your fellow players to complete "objective" cards for special powers and ultimately for victory points. Each card has 2-6 symbols which you must populate with legionnaire meeples in order to complete the card. These symbols are drawn one at a time from a bag, with all players gaining the benefit equally, but interestingly, the bag contains more of some symbols than others.

So the pivotal skill you'll deploy is in making your choice of which three objectives you'll start the game with (you're dealt six) — balancing potential difficulty of completion against value of the reward — and then which of five available objectives you'll add to your plate each time you complete one of your three. The game ends when someone completes seven objectives.

Game description from the publisher:

Gear up for a thrilling adventure to recover a legendary flying machine buried deep in the ruins of an ancient desert city. You'll need to coordinate with your teammates and use every available resource if you hope to survive the scorching heat and relentless sandstorm. Find the flying machine and escape before you all become permanent artifacts of the forbidden desert!

In Forbidden Desert, a thematic sequel to Forbidden Island, players take on the roles of brave adventurers who must throw caution to the wind and survive both blistering heat and blustering sand in order to recover a legendary flying machine buried under an ancient desert city. While featuring cooperative gameplay similar to Forbidden Island, Forbidden Desert is a fresh new game based around an innovative set of mechanisms, such as an ever-shifting board, individual resource management, and a unique method for locating the flying machine parts.

Levy. Maneuver. Conquer.

The Duke is a dynamic, tile-based strategy game with an old-world, feudal theme, high-quality wooden playing pieces, and an innovative game mechanism in its double-sided tiles. Each side represents a different posture – often considered to be defensive or offensive – and demonstrates exactly what the piece can do within the turn. At the end of a move (or after the use of a special ability), the tile is flipped to its other side, displaying a new offensive or defensive posture.

Each posture conveys different options for maneuver and attack. The full circle is a standard Move, the hollow circle the Jump, the arrow provides for the Slide, the star a special Strike ability and so on. Each turn a player may select any tile to maneuver, attempting to defend his own troops while positioning himself to capture his opponent's tiles. If you end your movement in a square occupied by an opponent's tile, you capture that tile. Capture your opponent's Duke to win!

Players start the game by placing their Duke in one of the two middle squares on their side of the game board. Two Footman are then placed next to the Duke. Each turn a player may choose to either move a single tile or randomly draw a new tile from the bag. With twelve different Troop Tiles, all double-sided, and sixteen total pieces for each player, the variety of game play is limitless.

Beyond the endless variety of the basic game, Terrain Tiles introduce a variety of game play options, altering the game board. These rules also include several alternate objectives, such as the challenging Dark Rider game which pits five Pikeman against a lone Knight.

Escaping from the zombie-overrun town of Woodinvale, a handful of survivors make their way up into the mountains – but as they reach the small logging and mining town of Timber Peak, they discover that a new nightmare has just begun!

Last Night on Earth: Timber Peak is an action-packed standalone game as well as an expansion for Last Night on Earth. Introducing the brand new town of Timber Peak with a full set of game boards, six new Heroes (including three Survivor versions of Heroes from the original Last Night on Earth), four Generator objective pieces, a full set of 14 Zombies, a host of new Scenarios, rules for fire breaking out and spreading, over 130 new game cards, and a full Experience System for both Heroes and the Zombie horde to gain upgrades within the course of each game!

Timber Peak is packed with new material for veteran players to add to their toolbox, and a fantastic way for new players to jump into the action. A modular board randomly determines the layout of the town at the start of each game and there are several different scenarios to play, adding lots of replayability. As with the original game, one or two players control the zombies, while the rest control heroes.

To achieve a horror movie feel, all of the art for the game is photographic.

Last Night on Earth, The Zombie Game is a survival horror board game that pits small-town Heroes head-to-head against a horde of Zombies. A team of four heroes is chosen by one set of players, and the Zombies are controlled by 1 or 2 players. Each hero has its own special abilities. The board is modular, which changes the layout of the town and start positions of each hero. The game comes with several scenarios, which include simple survival, rescue, or escape. Differing combinations of heroes, scenarios, and board configurations offer a lot of replayability.

A Hero deck and a Zombie deck deliver tactical bonuses to each side. Combat is resolved using 6-sided dice, modified by the weapon cards heroes may be equipped with. Many of the cards include zombie movie tropes to achieve a feel of playing out a horror movie. All the game art is photographic, enhancing the cinematic feel. The game also comes with a CD Soundtrack of original thematic music.

Each hero has its own plastic sculpted miniature. The game also has 14 zombies in two colors. Other objects and effects are represented by high-quality cardboard counters.