video game theme

A dangerous, perplexing word game and dungeon delve where only those with the quickest wit and largest vocabulary survive. As sorcerers of the mystical art of Word Weaving, you and several other treasure hunters will descend into the Tomb of the Forgotten Consonant and quest for the Syllabus of the Lost Syllable. When the journey is complete, only the most heroic word smith will walk away with the win.

Dungeon Scroll is a word game where players spell words (cast spells) to meet specific word challenges (dungeon encounters)to score points (gain gold).

A layered dungeon of 9 cards is formed by randomly selecting cards from the Entrance (x1), 1st Floor (x3), 2nd Floor(x3), Dungeon Boss(x1) and Final Room (x1) dungeon cards and combining them into a face down stack. Each turn the top card will be flipped (starting with the Entrance) and players will face the specific encounter on the card. Thematically it could be anything from a Skeleton or Pit Trap to a Travelling Merchant.

Players each have a hand of letter cards from which they will spell words with different points values (letters are worth varying points and some cards provide multiplication bonuses). If the encounter is a "combat" encounter, typically the player that can play the highest point word will win the encounter and claim the highest gold reward on the dungeon card, with other players claiming the second and third reward - however that is not always true as each dungeon challenge provides twists and turns; to the sorts of words that can be played. Other "Special" encounters might allow such actions as players to sell their letter cards for gold.

The player with the most gold at the end of the game wins.

Description from the publisher:

With a grinding of gears and some uneasy rumbling, Aperture Laboratories has resumed testing! Your team of test subjects has entered the Lab and is ready to perform all sorts of important, dignified, and dangerous testing procedures...all in the pursuit of cake! It's a fun and funny fast-paced fight to the finish — and by finish, we mean your team probably died.

The Lab is an ever-changing conveyor belt of death and dismemberment. But SCIENTIFIC PROGRESS must be at the forefront of the mind of every good test subject. In Portal: The Uncooperative Cake Acquisition Game, a game of constantly shifting area control and cardplay by the creators of the Portal and Portal 2 video games, players move and Portal their test subjects to various chambers in the lab. At the end of each player's turn, one of the chambers on the end of the lab gives way, plunging all test subjects on it into oblivion. But should your test subjects have numbered greater than all others in the falling chamber, they earn you some wonderful parting gifts, which can include cake.

Yet these moist slices of industrial-grade cake must be stored in the lab where they are at risk of falling into said oblivion. Not to mention that your jealous opponents can pick up your cake and move it closer to that precipice. He who has acquired the most cake when a team has lost its last test subject wins. Do you risk gathering cake early for a quick win? Or do you bide your time and wait until you can protect it better? Win the game and prove the cake was no lie.

You are humanity's last hope.

In XCOM: The Board Game, you and up to three friends assume the roles of the leaders of the elite, international organization known as XCOM. It is your job to defend humanity, quell the rising panic, and turn back the alien invasion.

Where the world's militaries have failed to stand against the alien invaders, you must succeed. To do so, you must make strategic use of the resources available to you. You must launch Interceptors to shoot down alien UFOs, assign soldiers to key missions, research alien technology, and use that technology to defend your base — all while trying to keep the world from collapsing just long enough that you can coordinate one final mission to repel the invaders for good.

One of the more notable aspects of XCOM: The Board Game is the way that it incorporates a free and innovative digital app into the core of its gameplay. This digital companion will be available both as a downloadable app and as an online tool.

The app's primary function is to coordinate the escalating alien invasion, randomly selecting from one of five different invasion plans. Each invasion plan represents a general outline that the alien commanders will use to coordinate the arrival of new UFOs, plan strikes against your base, and respond to your successes or failures as it seeks to conquer Earth. The app manages all of these tasks and heightens the game's tension as it forces you to respond in real-time. Then, after you move quickly to coordinate your response, you engage the enemy in the untimed resolution phase and feed the results to the app. Based upon these results, the app launches the invasion's next strikes.

Additionally, the app teaches you the rules, controls the information that your satellites provide you, and tracks the progress of your resistance efforts, even as it allows you to enjoy the game at any of three levels of difficulty: Easy, Normal, or Hard.

The use of this app does more than simply streamline your play experience and track your turns in real-time; it also permits a uniquely dynamic turn structure. While the variety of game phases remains the same from round to round, the order in which you and your friends must play through them may change, as may the number of a given phase. As a result, while you'll want to know where UFOs appear before you deploy your Interceptors, the alien invaders may be able to disrupt your satellite intel and force you to deploy your Interceptors on patrol with limited or no knowledge of the UFOs current whereabouts. Similarly, you may be forced to think about the costs of resolving the world’s crises before you know how many troops you’ll need to commit to your base defense.

The effect of the app is to immerse you deep into the dramatic tension at the core of XCOM: The Board Game, and it ensures that the game presents a challenging and cooperative (or solo) experience like no other. Just like the XCOM department heads that you represent, you'll need to keep cool heads in order to prevail.

Source: Publisher

The deck-building card game World of Tanks: Rush is based on the World of Tanks online game, uses the same terminology as that game, and has been illustrated by the same artists.

In World of Tanks: Rush you are given the role of a tank squad commander, and you lead your tanks into battle, defend your bases, call for reinforcements, and receive medals. The main idea of the game, which uses simple deck-building principles, is to strategically select cards from the hundreds available to form a strong squad. The goal of the game is to earn more medals than everybody else, and you can earn a medal three ways:

One medal for destroying an enemy vehicle.
Three medals for destroying an enemy base.
Five medals for the end-of-game achievement.

Railways of the World (2009) is the new edition of the base game for Eagle Games' popular Railways of the World series, first published as Railroad Tycoon in 2005. It reimplements the original game with several improvements.

Revisit the early days of the Age of Steam as you begin with a locomotive (the venerable John Bull, the first locomotive to run in North America) and a vision (your Tycoon "mission" card). From there, build your budding railroad network into a vast empire. Connect New York to Chicago, earn the most money, develop bigger and faster locomotives and maybe even span North America and build the Transcontinental Railway!

Multiple expansions featuring different maps are available. Railways of the World is the new base game for the system and includes the engine placards, railroad tiles, train tokens, money, bonds, and other items that are needed in almost all the Railways of the World series. A gameboard depicting the eastern half of the United States is included in the base game, as well as a mounted map of Mexico.

This game is preceded by the designer's other Winsome train games: Age of Steam, Australian Railways, Volldampf, New England Railways, Veld Spoorweg, Lancashire Railways, and Ferrocarriles Pampas. Railroad Tycoon was the result of a collaboration with Glenn Drover, in which the mechanics and game-play of Martin Wallace's Age of Steam were simplified and streamlined and attractive over-produced components were added, in order to make Railroad Tycoon more appealing to less hardcore gamers and more accessible to a wider audience.

A revised reprint was published at the end of 2010 which made some component improvements, such as the addition of Railroad Operation cards for the Mexico map.

Complete series overview - The Railways of the World Series: Introducing the family members of the ideal medium-weight train game

Note: The RailRoad Tycoon board itself is gigantic (about 36x45 inches, 91x114 cm) and requires a huge table or playing on the floor.

Similar to:

Steam