Cast Spells, Make Crop Circles, Save Species, and Face Tough Calls with Fractal Juegos

Cast Spells, Make Crop Circles, Save Species, and Face Tough Calls with Fractal Juegos
Board Game: Sanssouci
Board Game: Crop Circles
Chilean publisher Fractal Juegos releases a large number of licensed games — Bohnanza, IKI, Marrakech, The Mind, Draftosaurus — but it also releases new editions of older games, such as Michael Kiesling's garden-building game Sanssouci, which debuted from Ravensburger in 2013 and which Fractal Juegos re-released in 2022.

• As for Fractal Juegos' original releases, it has a roll-and-write game, of course, as every publisher and designer seems to have these days. In Crop Circles from Sebastián Martínez, players attempt to create attractive circles by rolling two six-sided dice each turn and placing the results in eight interlocking circles — the seven overlapping circles and an eighth formed by the central location of each of those seven circles.

From gallery of W Eric Martin

Board Game: Alakablast
Diego Burgos' Alakablast presents another familiar gaming situation, with 2-5 players trying to pass their magic school exam by battling one another with a variety of spells — the problem being that you don't know exactly which spells you hold because some cards in your hand face away from you.

On a turn, you can ask opponents for clues as to which cards you hold or you can duel someone either with power (i.e., the numbers on the cards) or with elements (with water beating fire, which beats plants, which beats water, although everything beats the 7-power shadow while losing to the 0-power light).

Board Game: Tori-Tori: Endangered Species
Laura Mena's Tori-Tori: Endangered Species is a 2021 co-operative design co-published with Ludoismo in which players attempt to save endangered species on an island. Each turn, dice determine which events take place, such as predators, pollution, or precipitation, then players take actions, developing specialities over the course of play to perform better. If any species goes extinct before the players transform the island and make the industry on it more environmentally friendly, they lose.

Board Game: Inferno
• Fractal Juegos has a title from Reiner Knizia, of course, as his goal is to have a title in every publisher's catalog everywhere. that game is Monster Chef, with this being a new edition of the 2005 card game Inferno.

Each round, players start with twelve cards in hand, with cards coming in five colors each numbered 1-5. A "condition card" is revealed at the start of play, and on a turn you either discard a card of the same number or color as the condition card or else claim all discarded cards and the condition card, then play a new condition card from your hand. (If you take fewer than three discarded cards, take random cards from the deck until you have three.) When a player's hand is emptied, finish the round, then score points: face value for red cards and 1 point for everything else. Whoever has the fewest points after as many rounds as the number of players wins.

Board Game: Tough Calls: Dystopia – Emergencias y Desafíos
Tough Calls: Dystopia, a 2020 design from Diego Burgos and Margarita Pino, looks unlike other Fractal Juegos titles, and that's because players are confronted by a variety of post-apocalyptic scenarios such as planet-wide drought, an alien invasion, or mysterious beasts from the oceanic depths. Here's a short description:
Quote:
Each participant must build a character and try to convince everyone else on how to best manage and survive the adversities of each playthrough. The game's main mechanism is similar to a debate in which each player must confront different complications and events that may happen during a round, trying to find clever ways of surviving in order to prove to your fellow survivors that you are the best choice to lead the colony of survivors.
The game was supplemented in 2022 with the Emergencias y Desafíos ("Emergencies and Challenges") expansion that adds new scenarios, events, emergencies, and factions.

Board Game: Tough Calls: Dystopia

Related

Links: Czech Designers, Thor's Hammer, and Our Family Plays Games on Social Media

Links: Czech Designers, Thor's Hammer, and Our Family Plays Games on Social Media

May 14, 2022

• Mik and Starla Fitch of Our Family Plays Games were featured in the documentary film The First Twenty: Social from Dehanza Rogers, a film on activism and Black cultural identity that debuted...

Stellarion Joins the Oniverse — Which Has a New Home at inPatience

Stellarion Joins the Oniverse — Which Has a New Home at inPatience

May 13, 2022

Designer Shadi Torbey has announced a new entry in his Oniverse series of games: Stellarion, with this 1-2 player game being due out in Q3/Q4 2022.Here's a succinct overview of this design, which...

Designer Diary: Take a Seat

Designer Diary: Take a Seat

May 13, 2022

By designers Eloi Pujadas and Ferran RenaliasGreetings, all! Take a Seat has been published in Spain, and the game will be presented internationally at SPIEL '22. We thought it would be a good...

Take Part in the Taíno Resistance in Borikén, and Help Migrants Travel Safely in La Frontera

Take Part in the Taíno Resistance in Borikén, and Help Migrants Travel Safely in La Frontera

May 12, 2022

• Julio E. Nazario's first two published designs — Ctrl and Holi: Festival of Colors — were both somewhat abstract games about moving through space, but his work goes in a new direction in...

Escape from New York along the John Muir Trail on the Way to a Lunar Outpost

Escape from New York along the John Muir Trail on the Way to a Lunar Outpost

May 11, 2022

• Ravensburger has announced a June 2022 release date for Lunar Outpost, a 2-4 player co-operative game from Mike Mulvihill that was "inspired by the PBS science series NOVA and developed with...

ads