Industry / Manufacturing

Phoenix: New Horizon

In the year 2021, after years of seclusion underground, humanity emerges onto the surface, propelled by the development of groundbreaking new technology. Decades of catastrophic fallout from a nuclear disaster during the Cold War have laid waste to the known world, compelling civilization to seek shelter beneath the earth. The pressing task now is the construction of regenerators, which will generate new habitats to facilitate the resurgence of life and the reclamation of the Earth. A world brimming with hope awaits aboveground.

Phoenix New Horizon is a Euro-style board game in which players assume control of a team of commandos tasked with the mission of recolonizing Earth. Throughout the game's four rounds, players accumulate victory points by constructing regenerators and buildings, bolstering the planet's population, and achieving diverse objectives that vary between playthroughs.

Players must adeptly allocate their commandos to various actions throughout the game while also specializing them to enable more potent abilities at the expenses of versatility. Fulfilling missions assigned by the governing authorities yields additional actions on a player's turn.

Propolis

Propolis is a worker-placement, engine-building, area-control, and tableau-building game. Players take on the role of competing medieval bee colonies and take turns deploying worker bees to collect pollen, fortify their positions, and construct their hives to appease their queen and become the most glorious in the land!

As bees compete over the realm's floral landscapes, they will be collecting pollen to create the propolis they need to build their hives. Attaining dominance in different realms provides additional glory and building materials. As hives expand, new structures provide additional resources, new scoring opportunities, and the prerequisites to construct a glorious palace for the queen. The player who dominates the realm and builds the most prestigious home wins.

Rival Cities

In the 16th century, the small fishing village of Altona was founded in Northern Germany, initially posing no threat to its long-established neighbor, Hamburg. However, as Altona rapidly grew, a fierce rivalry emerged between the two cities, each constantly trying to outdo the other.

In Rival Cities, you face off in an enthralling city duel. Outmaneuver your opponent to achieve an instant victory — but beware as either of you can pull this off in many ways. Only by combining foresight with the art of deflection will you lead your city to victory. The suspenseful back and forth between the players makes it a very confrontational gaming experience full of weighty decisions.

—description from the publisher

First in Flight

First in Flight is a push-your-luck, deck-building game about the race to early flight. Players take on the roles of the Wright Brothers, Samuel Langley, and other flight pioneers, racing to build and pilot the “flyers” that preceded modern airplanes.

Each player’s flyer design is represented by a deck of cards that they can steadily improve and refine, and which may include unknown design flaws that threaten their success.

Flying is a blackjack-style challenge to test a design, break new records, and gain experience -- hopefully without crashing. Then, players head back to the workshop to refine their flyers and improve their chances on future flights. There are dozens of available technologies, pilot skills, and friends in the field available for players to customize their own play style and strategy.

Galactic Cruise

Hello, and welcome to Galactic Cruise. Here, we offer our guests something special: the comfort of a luxury cruise with the innovation of space travel. As the first company to offer extended-stay space vacations, we are excited to have you working for us! As a supervisor of this company, you’ll be expected to not only build these ships and satisfy our guests, but also to help the company thrive by enhancing our company network, inventing new technologies, and growing our workforce. We are a united company, and you’ll often find that what another supervisor does will make your job easier. Let me be clear, though, this is a competition. Our current CEO will be stepping down in three years, and the supervisor who comes out on top will take his place.

On your turn, you will either place a worker to take two actions in the ever-expanding network, launch a ship and send one of your workers to space as a pilot, or recall all your earthbound workers to collect funding bonuses. Actions include acquiring blueprints, constructing ships, attracting guests, and building developments–connections between locations that increase action selection throughout the game. You will also be affecting resource markets that ebb and flow with the actions of all the players.

Throughout the game, you will also be competing with your fellow supervisors to complete company goals, which will earn you progress cubes throughout the game. Progress cubes are also placed when you launch ships, and when a certain number of cubes are placed onto the company’s progress track, the game ends, and the player with the most Victory Points becomes the new CEO of Galactic Cruise.

Do you still think you have what it takes to work for us? You do? Great. Let’s get started.

—description from the publisher