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First, we have Heat, a smallish game for 3-5 players from designer Dave Chalker and publisher Asmadi Games, with Chalker stating that a Gen Con 2014 release is the current target. Let's start with the short description on its BGG page:
Quote:
Recruit members of your criminal mob, then pull off jobs in the city for cash. Some crimes attract more attention from the police than others, and bringing down the heat is bad for everybody. In the end, whoever takes home the most money wins.
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Non-final artwork and components
Heat plays out over three rounds, and in each round players start by drafting cards. From a stack of five cards, each player draws two, keeps one, and places the other on top of the left-hand opponent's deck, then draws another two, keeps one, etc. until he picks up his final two cards and keeps both.
Four times in the round, players then simultaneously play and reveal one card from their hand. Each card has an A, B or C label on it; first all As resolve, then all Bs, then all Cs. The As might let you replace the card with another from your hand or draw something at random from the deck. B cards typically let you earn money — sometimes from a bank robbery, sometimes based on what you or other players have already played — but they might also force you to take heat tokens, the giant red gems in the picture above. C cards have a variety of effects.
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Designer Dave Chalker
Heat costs you money at the end of the game, with each heat being worth the value of the highest heat card that's fully revealed; in the picture above, each heat is worth -3. Heat is limited, and if someone ever needs to draw heat when none is available, you randomly draw one of the five cards reserved for this situation. Everyone might return one heat, perhaps with the hottest player being forced to hand over a bribe at the same time. In one case, the round ends immediately, possibly stranding heat-elimination cards in your hand, and in another case the game ends, with the hottest player winning due to all of his fellow crooks admiring his bad self.
The contents of the deck vary depending on the number of players, and since you see some of the cards that end up in the hands of opponents, you can try to play around (or into) those cards based on what you hold yourself. Sometimes you get yourself in a jam based on how a round plays out, and you'll be forced to pick between bad and worse when you play your final card, but them's the breaks for those who skirt the law — and those who have played only once and made terrible choices while doing so. Next time, Dave!
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Ralph Anderson (R), Chimera designer and Gryphon Games employee, sets up Loop Inc.
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In Loop Inc., players have been hired by one Mr. Loop to help construct time machines, then use them to take trips with tourists into the past to take a dip in the Primordial Ooze, cavort with Joan of Arc, and otherwise show up when you're not supposed to be. You score points for each location that you visit, but lose points for poor construction and wasted effort. Mr. Loop runs a tight shop! What's worse, if you make too many mistakes, you might erase yourself from existence. No points for you!
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Non-final artwork and components
In game terms, you play three days, using action cards to take time machine components and add them to your machines; action cards also allow you to recycle unneeded parts, move one component to a new machine, call "dibs" on a particular historical event, and more. On the first day, you can work on only a single machine; on the second day, you have a second machine available to you in addition to the first; and on the third day you have three machines.
Your goal with each machine is to build it with precisely the right components needed to reach a particular point in time. The challenge comes in that you're locked into the action cards that you take and must use them again in future rounds. In more detail, in the first round you'll take turns drafting and using three action cards. At the start of the next round, you place those three cards in front of you, and during that second round you must use those three cards again in the same order, while also drafting and using three additional action cards; you can use new actions before, after or in-between the actions from the first turn, but you must try to use those first three actions in the same order that you did originally.
Non-final artwork and components
For round three, you now have six actions that you must use again in the same order, while also drafting and using three more action cards. If you can't use an action for any reason — such as a part not being available or you not being able to move something from a time machine because it's already traveled to the past — you create a tear in the spacetime continuum. Create three tears and you're history; well, erased from history.
You can travel to the past with a machine that has more equipment than is required, but those additional components fall off the machine during the trip, costing you a point for each such item — but losing points is better than losing presence, so sometimes you just accept the losses and move on. After players have used their nine actions on the third day, everyone who still exists tallies their points for places visited and parts lost, and whoever has the high score wins.
Okay, maybe I had more to say than I thought...
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