Country: USA

Set in the Cthulhu: Death May Die, Dark Providence is a competitive game in which players take on secret roles of Investigators, Cultists Or Dissidents from the most influential cities of the United States during the Great Depression. While the Cultists explore the nation's vulnerability seeking to remake it into a twisted version of itself by consorting with unspeakable beings from nightmarish dimensions, Investigators take the opposite side, standing against this dark providence. Meanwhile Dissidents are no longer part of either side. Dissidents score points for assassinating Agents and for sealing and protecting Gates. As enemies of both sides of the struggle, concealing their identity is paramount.

Each player's secret alignment determines how they’ll score points at the end of the game, however, this is not a cooperative game. During the game players use Influence cubes to bid for the right to claim Asset cards, take control of cities, and gather Mythos cards. Each new Asset card acquired improves the players’ deck and therefore the resources and actions they can perform during a turn. At the center of Dark Providence’s deck building mechanics lie the Asset cards. All players start the game with the same 10 initial cards. Regardless of their strategy, acquiring new Asset cards is fundamental to improve their decks.

Trying to keep their identity secret and avoid insanity, players perform a multitude of actions, swaying Hired Agents to their side of the battle, assassinating other players’ Agents, gathering additional help from Mythos cards, blocking other players from claiming cards, and sealing or protecting Gates, among others to gain Victory Points. At the end, only the player with the most Victory Points of the dominant side of the battle will win the game!

Dark Providence also has a brand new solo version in which a single player comes face-to-face with an Elder One attempting to corrupt the nation. The player takes the side of Investigators and plays against 1 of 6 Elder Ones, each with unique features and goals.

The Mother Road is a press-your-luck race across Route 66 for 2-4 players. The player pieces are wooden cars representative of classics found on Route 66 in days gone by -- a canary yellow 60’s Mustang; a pale blue Thunderbird from the 50’s (with portholes); a cherry red Ford pickup truck (featured in the Eagles' first hit “Take It Easy”); and a black Harley-Davidson motorcycle.

Lots of Route 66 icons and photos are represented on the nearly 4 foot long neoprene mat board for the game and the dice are all in player colors too! Races are usually closely-contested and take 30-45 minutes. The rules are easy to learn, and this game can be enjoyed by serious or casual gamers ages 9 & up.

Salton Sea is a unique place located in California, very close to the border with Mexico. The characteristics of this salty lake make it a unique location to generate geothermal energy, which takes advantage of the heat from the planet. In this area of intense geothermal activity, you will drill the ground and extract brine which, once processed, allows us to obtain the valuable lithium and sell it as part of a modern industry, far from fossil fuels, that will allow you to lead the energy transition towards a completely renewable future.

Designed by David Bernal and illustrated by Amelia Sales, Salton Sea can be enjoyed alone or in groups of up to four players in sessions lasting about 120 minutes. During the game, players must manage their geothermal lithium extraction companies to obtain the greatest number of points. The extraction of this material and its subsequent processing will be the driving force of your companies.

On your turn, place one of your four engineers on one of the available spaces to take an action. There are three different groups of actions: industrial actions (which allow you to obtain an exploration license, drill, extract, process or repair machinery), commercial actions (sell, acquire contract and execute contract), and management actions (research, buy shares, develop the business project or finance itself). It is up to you to manage the engineers at each point of the game to get the most out of your company.

However, there is no single path to success. The game will reward you for exhausted land, executed contracts, short-term objectives, company development, or research advances. Will you master the power of the Salton Sea to create the most efficient geothermal company?

—description from the publisher

Locals and tourists in Maui are heading to the beach for a chance to find a nice spot to lay their towels and enjoy the amazing view of the Hawaiian ocean. In Maui, you want to find and place beachgoers on your sand so that they create pleasing patterns, while also placing their towels close to the ocean or under the shade of trees or umbrellas to earn the most points. However, getting too close to either of these areas is risky and might ruin their plans!

In the game, you have your own beach board with room for 13 towels, the board has seven rows in which towels can be placed, and during set-up, you randomly place eight umbrellas in designated locations on your board. Each player places one random towel in the left most column of their board; each towel has three different patterns on it. Place six random tiles in the two rows of the market and one sand dollar in each row.

On a turn, either take all the sand dollars from either row of the market or take a towel from the market; towels cost 0, 1, or 2 sand dollars, with those dollars being placed in the market row. When you place a towel, you must match at least one pattern with the towel that's rightmost on your beach board and you want to match as many patterns as possible. For each match you make, you advance that pattern's scoring marker 1-3 spaces on the score board; the closer to the ocean or the shade the more points you score, but if you place part of a towel outside the play area, you're penalized.

If you cover an umbrella, you receive its bonus, whether that's advancing a pattern's scoring marker or receiving one of two types of pearls.

When someone places a towel in the final column of their beach board, you complete the round, then see who's scored the most points from patterns, pearls, and leftover sand dollars, which are each worth a point. Instead of playing with umbrellas, you can flip your beach board to find a septet of sand crabs. Whenever you cover a crab with a towel, the crab crawls onto that portion of the towel, costing you both that pattern and a few points.

Family Business takes mob warfare to a new level of backstabbing, revenge, and general bloodthirstiness, which is what makes it such a blast to play. Every player controls a 'family' and plays various cards to off other players' family members. In a game with this little structure, it's possible for everyone to gang up on one unlucky soul, or for the damage to be fairly evenly spread. Either way, the last family standing is victorious.

Each player starts with a gang of nine characters. To try to get rid of other gangsters, contracts are played on them. If these contracts are not blocked by anyone, the targeted gangster is placed on the hitlist. As soon as six gangsters are on the hitlist a mobwar is started. This means that, at the start of every turn, the first character on this list is eliminated. This goes on until the list is empty.

Mobwars can also be triggered by cards being played. When no more than the last six or fewer characters are in play a constant mobwar is going on, until only one player has characters left.

In general players take turns clockwise, however, the turn goes to any player who plays a response card and then clockwise mode is resumed with the player next to him/her. Lots of interaction as players play cards to put gangsters on the list, save them, have them replaced, start a Mob War, or stop it...