Portal Games unfortunately only had one copy of their new printing of Age of Galaxy. It was on display and I was excited to hear about the new solo modes in the game. Neuroshima Hex: Battle is a new, faster version of the game and includes two new factions. Meanwhile, Flatout Games had a wealth of titles on display. Cascadia: Alpine Lakes is a sequel game that now includes stacking tiles. Cascadia Junior is simplified, of course, but is starting to win awards for its implementation. Point Galaxy is another in the “Point” line of games, where you can collect sets of planets (in order) to form solar systems. Knitting Circle is a sequel of sorts to Calico. Now players are drafting bits of yarn to knit things, but yarn tiles come in knit and pearl side and you’re not normally allowed to flip them. Propolis (eg. bee glue) is purportedly a bee game containing a little bit of everything (worker placement, majority, a little bit of engine building…) Finally, Whisperstone is an upcoming tabletop role-playing game that uses physical cutouts as an integral part of the game. Your character has literal slots to fill. You must literally fit your carried goods into your backpack rectangle, etc… The last mention today is Gamelyn Games. They’re now going to be under the Tabletop Tycoon banner. The most recent Tiny Epic title is Game of Thrones, an expected cutthroat exercise that has players drafting dice to determine their actions. Meanwhile, the Fire and Ice expansion turns the game into a cooperative one against the north. As a TE Dungeons fan, I’m looking forward to Tiny Epic Dungeons Adventures, which sounds like it will be linking several play sessions for a longer-form adventuring experience.
Portal Games
Age of Galaxy (2nd edition)
The big loser when it comes to shipping problems, the shipment of the new printing of Age of Galaxy was delayed repeatedly until it missed Gen Con entirely. There was a copy in the booth, though, so I dutifully took some photos.
Age of Galaxy is a quick-playing (45 minutes?) game of exploration, exploitation, and conquest for 1 to 4 players. Players are given seven cards to use during the game (they’re fixed for the rest of the game) and must also pick an ideology to follow – it affects a p[layer’s goals for the game as well as some of the card effects.
Each card has four different ways that they can be used. A card can be used to switch ideology, place into a slot to form a bit of engine building, consume for a one-time resource gain, or discarded to colonize a specific place.
Players have several main actions available. Exploration lets players flip over an anomaly and gain resources. Trade allows conversion between two types of resources. Research lets players pay money to pursue the tech tree, but techs are developed in sequence using adjoining lines.
Players can also Manufacture ships, Retrieve or make Relics to score points, Scavenge to get a small bit of cash, and Nominate to score points on a developed planet. All four of these actions have slots for discs and when used enough times the disc area fills up, is cleaned up, and a bonus is gained.
Finally, players can Colonize to add discs to a specific planet (worth victory points) or Develop a planet (to increase its victory point value.)
The new printing of Age of Galaxy includes better bits and (hopefully) better graphics. Mechanically, there are some new solo mode options, including five or six different solo-specific scenarios that can be played.
Neuroshima Hex: Battle
Neuroshima Hex: Battle is a two player introduction to the Neuroshima Hex family. Supposedly faster paced than “vanilla” Neuroshima Hex, expect to still be placing hexagons onto the battlefield with the intent to attack (or otherwise interact with) adjacent hexagonal sides. This game features two factions: Steel Police – with the ability to reflect back an opponents attack, and Beasts – who are a bit chaotic and not afraid of a bit of friendly fire.
Flatout Games
Cascadia: Alpine Lakes
Cascadia: Alpine Lakes is a new, standalone title in the Cascadia line. The theme is, of course, highland areas. Tiles are now double-hexagons and they can be stacked on top of each other. Points are gained for how surrounded and how elevated features are on the board. The three alpine habitats each score in different ways. Players must still watch out for adjacencies but now must also consider stacking challenges.
Cascadia Junior
Recently nominated for the Kinderspiel des Jahres (Kid’s game of the year) Cascadia Junior is a very slimmed down Cascadia experience for two to four players. Players still draft tiles into their environment, now trying to make connected groups of three icons. This earns special tokens that are used to make a cool little picture of the wilderness. The tokens are flipped over at the end of the game to reveal points (conifer cones.) The game comes with a very basic introductory version and options for adding in specific wildlife scoring cards which require more advanced shapes for scoring. The idea is for the advanced mode to be a solid stepping stone into the family version of the full Cascadia game.
Point Galaxy
Point Salad, then Point City, and now Point Galaxy (is Point Multiverse next?) Players are still drafting cards and trying to make the best combinations of cards and scoring modes – each card can be used for either role. In Point Galaxy, players are also trying to create sequences of cards. Players arrange planet cards in numeric order to form solar systems for points with bonuses available for adding in suns, asteroids, moons, rockets, and research projects. The game also has objectives to achieve, giving a little bit of a race vibe to gameplay.
Knitting Circle
A sequel to Calico! Knitting Circle is another tile-laying game for one to four players. This time the game is based on knitting rather than quilts. Players draft yarn from the central area to try and form the right color combinations and patterns to make garments. Gathering yarn is done through a rondel mechanism, and your cat-helper can’t occupy the same space as another cat (duh! These are cats!) Yarn tiles are double-sided (knit and purl) and must stay on that side when drafted unless you use an action to Flip it. Completing a garment will typically give additional rewards, so even a low-scoring one can be pretty useful. Players begin the game with specific buttons and should be on the lookout for garments that will take advantage of them for more points. Each game has its own set of scoring goals to keep things different.
Propolis
Propolis is an “everything” game for one to four players. Yes, it’s got worker-placement, engine-building, area-control, and tableau-building. Everyone is a (medieval, for some reason?) bee colony trying to make its way in the world.
The play area includes a set of Landscape cards which form the locations for worker-placement as well as a set of Structure cards which can be built. Players take turns sending bees out to take actions. The more bees you send, the more powerful that action will be(e). Note, bees don’t share so even one bee will block all the other players. When a row of bee locations fills up, bees belonging to the majority in that row are removed, a card is removed, and a new one replaces it. This means the play area evolves over the course of the game. Once you have resources, you can build stuff! There are ten structures available and they range from the expected points, bonuses, and importantly – permanent resources. These can be re(used) for future buildings, giving that engine building aspect to things.
Whisperstone
Whisperstone is a new table-top role-playing game that has a planned release at Gen Con next year. This is a system targeted at new or younger players through an emphasis on tactile support rather than heavy rules. The game uses colors and actual objects of various shapes to manage things rather than going too deep into a complex rulebook. Equipment, weapons, even race/class type options are all represented by cutout shapes. The system is called theHeirloom system. It helps accomplish the goal of making the game approachable and playable with little learning curve.
Each player is given a player card with various cutout slots that represents their character. There are tracking slots for health or magic but also places where you slot in armor/clothes and side cut-outs for equipment/weapons.
Player backpacks are physical sides that connect to make a rectangle. Players then fill their backpacks with objects over time. If you can’t rearrange your items to fit within the rectangle (without overlapping something), well then you can’t carry it in your backpack.
As for the adventures or stories available, the starting game has maps labeled with locations that are referenced in a play book. While playing through a story, if something special happens, players actually insert a “flier”(page) into the play book at a specific location.. Players can then gather that something special is happening at that location.
To go along with the tactile-theme, the puzzles found in the role playing game are actual puzzles. The forest adventure has tangram-like things, the island adventure has dominoes/jigsaw puzzles, and the desert uses a special measuring tool to solve some things.
Gamelyn Games (Tabletop Tycoon)
Tiny Epic Game of Thrones
The newest Tiny Epic game has players vying for power in the Game of Thrones Westeros setting. Each player chooses a faction and over the course of six rounds use a dice drafting mechanic to take actions on the world map. The unused factions serve as a sort of non-player character that can be persuaded to help someone for the right price.
The six actions available on the dice include adding troops to the board, moving them around, draw cards, play cards, and influencing the unplayed factions on the board. If a player has the majority influence on a faction, they also get access to a faction card with its special ability. Note that each player faction/house also has a unique card ability and an “anytime” ability on their faction’s base card. Most (many?) cards in the game are actually multi-use affairs which provides some good strategic depth when it comes time to decide how to use them.
There is an expansion: Ice & Fire which makes the game into a cooperative affair (also now goes up to 5 players.) Players now must work together to unite the kingdoms against the Night King and the White Walkers. The expansion includes two new playable houses: House Targaryen and The Night’s Watch. The game map is expanded to include regions beyond the wall. There is also a new exploration element where players gain exploration tokens with different effects. Part of the collaboration lies in accumulating these tokens. I believe there are also new event cards that mix things up a bit by giving several nifty benefits.
One more expansion is the Heroes Pack. It has alternate leaders for the seven main houses, each with their own spin to the rules. The leaders work in any version (regular, co-op, solo) of the game.
Tiny Epic Dungeons Adventures
The big news for me at the booth was the announcement of an upcoming Tiny Epic Dungeons Adventures. I’m a fan of the streamlined but still great fun, Tiny Epic Dungeons. The exploration and combat were pretty good, but I especially enjoyed how players could search to try to complete equipment “sets” to gain the most power. The game didn’t drag much, even with four players and the final battles were usually pretty good at providing a climactic win or loss. Tiny Epic Dungeon Adventures will expand the game into something that links multiple gameplay sessions in a sort of campaign type thing. Not 100% sure of a hoped for release date, but I do have down January 2026 as a possible one – but take that with a grain of salt.
