New Games!
Here are just a few of the new games at Meeples Games this week. They span from kids and family games to Euros to heavy strategy. There’s something here for everyone!
Frostpunk: Rating 8.2 , Ages 16+, Players 1-4
In Frostpunk: The Board Game, up to four players will take on the role of leaders of a small colony of survivors in a post-apocalyptic world that was hit by a severe ice age. Their duty is to effectively manage both its infrastructure and citizens. The core gameplay will be brutal, challenging, and complex, but easy to learn. The citizens won’t just be speechless pieces on the board. Society members will issue demands and react accordingly to the current mood, so every decision and action bears consequences.
Lofoten: Rating 7.7, Ages 12+, Players 2
In Lofoten, you must load merchandise from the market into your longships, and bring them back to your clan. For each type of merchandise, a particular scoring will grant you an advantage over the opposing Jarl. No matter what the situation is, your goal is to earn more PP (Power Points) than the opposing Jarl in the final scoring, to become the most powerful Jarl in the archipelago!
Lofoten, is a game for two players with innovative card hand management and a rotating board.
Namiji: Rating 7.1, Ages 8+, Players 2-5
In Namiji, you are fishers from the Japan of yesteryear, navigating south of the Japanese archipelago, a few kilometers from the famous Tokaido road. You will need to have a fruitful day at sea to win the game.
Namiji features gameplay similar to Tokaido. The action spaces are laid out on the game board in a linear track, with players advancing down this track to take actions. The player who is currently last on the track takes a turn by advancing forward on the track to their desired action and taking that action, so players must choose whether to advance slowly in order to get more turns, or to travel more rapidly to beat other players to their desired action spaces. What players are doing on the track differs from what they do in Tokaido.
1880: China: Rating 8.1, Ages 13+, Players 3-7
In 1880: China, based on 1829 by Francis Tresham, the players become railway barons in the far east, experiencing China’s railway history in a game that was designed to represent related historical events as correctly as possible within its own game mechanisms. Being a classic 18xx game, the players compete to become the richest. In order to gain money, they buy and sell shares of China’s historical railway companies, build and expand their railway network, and let trains travel on the networks. Shares of successful companies are worth more, and owning them will increase the chance to win the game. In the end, the player with the highest wealth combined from cash and shares wins.
Kinoko: Rating 6.6, Ages 8+, Players 2-4
In Kinoko, each player secretly draws a color card corresponding to a family of mushrooms — musicians, scientists, etc. — and gets a hand of three mushroom cards.
On your turn, roll the three dice, then choose one of them. The result of that die, whether a number or an icon, determines your action: exchange two cards, swap two sets of cards, pick at any card secretly, etc. To win the round, you must gather the three members of your family in one location during your turn. This reunion can happen in any player’s hand or on the table.
Longboard: Rating 6.5, Ages 8+, Players 2-4
In Longboard, players draft and trade surfboard pieces as they attempt to build the tallest and most surfboards. More specifically, on a turn you take two actions, with three types of actions being possible:
- Add a card from the deck to your personal supply, that is, cards lying face up in front of you.
- Take a card from your supply to start or lengthen a board; all cards in a board have to be the same color (or wild) and each new card on a board must be equal to or greater in value than the card below it.
- Place one or more cards in your supply in an opponent’s supply, then take a single card from their supply of value less than the sum of what you gave them and use this card to start or lengthen a board.
Quickity Pickity: Rating 6.9, Ages 6+, Players 2-5
Quickity Pickity is a frantic tile-flipping game that requires players to be quick with their hands and their brains. Everyone starts flipping the tiles at the same time, searching to create a set of fruits of the same color, or shape.
Oros: Rating 7.6, Ages 14+, Players 1-4
Oros is a tile-colliding, volcano erupting, mountain-making, wisdom-gathering, action-economy strategy game. On individual player mats, players move their Followers between action spaces, allowing them to manipulate a shared environment like a giant puzzle of plate tectonics. Action spaces allow players to shift rows of land, move and collide land tiles, form and erupt volcanoes, worship to gain wisdom, journey their Followers around the ever-shifting landscape, and build sacred places of study and worship on mountains. Building sacred places and worshipping in sacred places brings wisdom which is used to improve the abilities available for each action space. Wisdom is also used to improve the end game value of each sacred place built as well as reach other goals worth end game points.
