Relic Runners looks like a nice light game of jungle/temple exploration.  It’s a race to grab as many victory points (VPs) as possible.  During the game, players place markers along jungle paths.  When a player moves, they can move along one continuous stretch of their own colour pathways (any distance), plus one section that is not their own as the first or last section of their move.  When a player reaches the end of their move, they can spend a ration to explore their location which means they can pick up a ruin tile or temple tile.

Most jungle paths have a marker next to them.  When a player passes any path markers that are face-up during their move, they turn them face-down and can advance their toolbox markers on their player board  These toolbox markers can be used at any time for the power/ability on which they are located – there are three separate columns they can advance up and the higher up the column, the better the power/ability.  Players can have multiple toolboxes on the same columns, and even the same spaces, if they want.

I like the sound of the toolbox markers as players can build up the different powers they want (a bit like a simple tech tree).  Also, I like the movement logic and the rush to grab the different tiles too.  Relic Runners sounds like a relatively light and fun game (I expect along the lines of Ticket To Ride). Read the rest of this entry »

Shadows Over Camelot Card Game (Days of Wonder)
The original Shadows Over Camelot was an excellent semi co-op game that you could get fairly light gamers to play.  The new card game version sounds intriguing as it has many of the same elements but a different core game mechanic.  Similar to the board game, it’s co-operative but there may be a traitor.  Each turn a player can turn over a card from the deck – many are rumours about the different quests (with icons showing the strength of the rumour) and there are other cards that affect gameplay like players not being allowed to communicate.  These cards get added to the ‘threat’ pile.  Instead of drawing a new card, a player can choose one of the quest icons on the previously drawn card and go on that quest.  This means they sort out the threat pile into the separate quests and activate any Merlin and Morgana cards which can help or hinder the questing player.  If the total number of rumour icons for the chosen quest  is 11, 12 or 13 then the player succeeds and one of the 7 white swords required to win is gained (otherwise, they gain one of the 7 black swords which will lose the game).  However, the rumour icons on the other quests  are also added up too and can result in black swords if there are 14+ of their rumour icons.  So, it’s a sort of push-your-luck game (with players trying to remember how many icons of each quest have gone past and what other cards are in there too).  Like the original game, players can also accuse each other of being a traitor too.
Check out the details and rules at Days of Wonder’s web site:  bga.me/soccard

Asgard (What’s Your Game)
What’s Your Game have published some great games in the past (like Vinhos and one of my favourite worker placement games Vasco de Gama).  After releasing no new games last year, it’s great to see they have two this year.  Asgard is a viking-themed, worker placement game where players place workers (influence) on different locations (gods) with lots of options and interesting decisions. The worker placement is interesting as players secretly select on which gods they will place workers, then take turns revealing one location and placing a worker (which sets the specific action for that god), and then take turns using each worker (and some get benefits for being the first one used on that god).  There’s a lot more to it too.  For more detailed info, check out my full On The Radar: Asgard piece for more info.  Sounds really interesting.

Oddville (What’s Your Game)
Oddville looks like it will contain an interesting mix of tile laying to build a city and using cards to gain resources.  Each card can only be used for one of its three uses – cash, resources or buildings – I always like multi-use cards in a game.  When players build a building, they place it to expand the city and gain bonuses including gaining characters which give special abilities.  At the end of the game, VPs are scored for the buildings each player built (they all score in different ways), characters  and remaining resources.

There are some other nice sounding game mechanics too like the way the players pay for resources by putting their worker on one of the limited market prices which determines how much it costs and shows they have that resource until they spend it to build a building.  Also, when obtaining a building, the card shows which of the buildings on display are free and which will cost money.  So, it sounds like a very interesting and clever eurogame.  For more detailed info, check out my full On The Radar: Oddville piece for more info.

James