deduction

Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective

Have you ever had the desire to walk the streets of Victorian London with Sherlock Holmes in search of Professor Moriarty? To search the docks for the giant rat Sumatra? To walk up Baker Street as the fog is rolling in and hear Holmes cry out, "Come, Watson, come! The game is afoot!"? Now you can! You can enter the opium den beneath the Bar of Gold, but beware, that may be Colonel Sebastian Moran lurking around the corner. You can capture the mystery and excitement of Holmes' London in this challenging and informative game. You, the player, will match your deductive abilities against your opponents and the master sleuth himself, Sherlock Holmes.

In Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective, you are presented with a mystery to solve, and it is then up to you to trace the threads of evidence through the byways and mansions of nineteenth century London. You will interview suspects, search the newspapers for clues, and put together the facts to reach a solution.

Why were two lions murdered in Hyde Park? Who is responsible for the missing paintings from the National Gallery? Who murdered Oswald Mason and why? These are just a few of the cases that will challenge your ingenuity and deductive abilities.

This is not a board game: No dice, no luck, but a challenge to your mental ability. The game has been thoroughly researched for Holmesian and Victorian accuracy so as to capture a feeling of that bygone era.

Vampire Empire

In a foreboding castle somewhere in central Europe, a strange fear has descended upon the inhabitants. One morning the body of a young girl was found, as pale as a sheet of paper, dry and totally drained of blood. Vampires are on the prowl! Who is the monster who murders innocent during the night? Before the truth will be discovered, more than one person may face unjust accusations thrown out by the devious servants of darkness. Will the vampires be successfully caught before they endanger the entire society, or will the castle and city fall forever into darkness?

Three characters in the castle are vampires. A human investigator is trying to determine which three of nine characters he encounters are, in fact, monsters hiding in human form so that he can eliminate them. The head vampire, on the other hand, must bluff cleverly, present confusing clues, and trick the humans into attacking innocent citizens. By doing this, the vampire can kill the most important characters in the city or conquer the castle.

Vampire Empire is a two-player card game with a lot of bluffing and player interaction. In this very thematic setting, each player possess a unique deck of cards granting different powers, and each player had different goals to win the game!

Tragedy Looper

Tragedy Looper is a scenario-based deduction game for four players: one scriptwriter and three detectives. The game consists of four location boards and a number of character cards. Each scenario features a number of characters, hidden roles for these characters (serial killer, misinformant, murderer), and some pre-set tragedies (murder, suicide).

Each "day" (turn), players and the scriptwriter play three face-down cards onto the characters, then reveal them to move the characters around or affect their paranoia or good will stats. At the end of each day (turn), if the scenario has a tragedy set for that day, it happens if the conditions are met, i.e., certain characters have certain stats or are in a certain location together (or not together) with others. As tragedies happen, players loop back in time, restarting the scenario from the beginning and trying to deduce who the culprit was and why along with all of the other hidden rules for the scenario.

The players win if they manage to maintain status quo — that is, if no tragedies occur to the key individuals — for a set number of days, within a set number of loops. If not, the scriptwriter wins.

Loch Ness

From the rules: "For decades, reporters from around the world have been on the hunt for the Loch Ness monster. But lately reports of sightings of Nessie have been increasing.

"Such reports naturally have drawn such reporters as the attractive Belinda Viewing from New York, the half-Belgian Claude McMirror, the clever Filosa Sharp, as well as her Londoner competitor Jack Nesstee, and even Nils the Blitzen from Denmark to the Loch. Equipped with the most modern equipment and techniques, these daring reporters have traveled to Scotland, in order to capture the elusive Nessie on film for their newspapers.

"But the 5 will experience some surprises . . ."

In Loch Ness, players compete to get pictures of Nessie. In turn order, players place or move their photographers on the board as they try to anticipate the movement of the Loch Ness monster. The movement of the monster is determined randomly by drawing move cards from the first three players, each card having a number from 1 to 5. The cards are not revealed until after the photographers have been placed. When they are revealed, the monster moves the total number of spaces and players score points based on the value of their photographers placed in the area where Nessie emerged. In addition, the players whose photographers were directly in front of Nessie select photo cards that will award points at the end of the game, especially if sets are created.

Beginning in the second round, players will select an action space each round that gives them a unique power to use for for the round. Placement also gets more challenging from the second round onward as a player is required to move a photographer, perhaps opening up spots for opponents. Each round, some of the players do have a limited knowledge of how Nessie will move each round. When a player draws a movement card before positioning his photographers, he is allowed to look at it, giving him one-third of the movement for that round. However, movement varies tremendously and only three players draw movement cards each round.

The game ends after the round in which a mini Nessie figure reaches space 65 on the score track. This figure moves the same number of spaces as the main Nessie figure in the game board each round. The player with the most points, scored during the game and from the photo cards at the end, wins the game. The rules include two optional variants that can be added individually or together with the base game.

Not to be confused with the 2010 Walter Obert game with the same theme, Loch Ness.

Hunting Party

German Stategy meets American Fantasy!

Hunting Party has simple, yet elegant, mechanics that come together to create deep, interactive gameplay. In Hunting Party, players race to kill the Dark Agents and solve the prophecy by building the destined party from 36 unique Hunters. Players will hire hunters by bidding with shares of the King's Bounty. These hunters will give players the skills they need to hunt, and the abilities to make a difference. With your share of the bounty, you can buy items that will increase your party's skills, abilities, or even level up your hunters into champions.

Hunting Party is psychologically intense in the bidding of hunters, misleading of the prophecy, and in making deals of both cooperation and aggression. Players must balance the utilization of their shares and gold while planning carefully how they will use their hunters' abilities and their items to create opportunities and combos. However, the main challenge of Hunting Party is the use of Multiple Build Paths. Players are repeatedly asked,

How do you want to play?

Do you want to build a large party, a cheap party, a party of champions, a diversified party, or a specific one?

Do you want to focus on ability combinations, killing Dark Agents, or attacking other players?

Do you want to hoard gold, hoard items, or solve the Prophecy?

It's all in how you want to play!

Each game, you'll start off with a different Hero, a variable game board, and a different prophecy to solve, ensuring that you'll never play the same game twice.

Online Play

VASSAL (real-time or PBEM)