Horrible Games Offers Railroads, Unicorns, Vampires, and More in 2018

Horrible Games Offers Railroads, Unicorns, Vampires, and More in 2018
Board Game: Alone
Board Game: Potion Explosion
• BGG will also visit Italian publisher Horrible Games at Spielwarenmesse. While 2017 was a light year for the company, with only Dragon Castle being released, for 2018 Horrible Games has many titles set for release, starting with the all against one game Alone in Q2 2018 and a new version of Potion Explosion in Q3 that includes a plastic dispenser with a storage drawer for the marbles and a larger box that can also hold the components of the Fifth Ingredient expansion.

• In terms of previously unannounced titles coming from Horrible, there's Railroad Ink from Hjalmar Hach and Lorenzo Silva, a 2-6 player game that can be played with more if you combine it with more copies. An overview of this Q2 2018 release:

Quote:
In the multiplayer puzzle game Railroad Ink, your goal is to connect as many cities on your board as possible. Each round, a set of dice are rolled in the middle of the table, determining which kind of road and railway routes are available to all players. You have to draw these routes on your erasable boards to create transport lines and connect your cities, trying to optimize the available symbols better than your opponents.

The more cities you connect, the more points you score at the end of the game, but you lose points for each incomplete route, so plan carefully! Will you press your luck and try to stretch your transportation network to the next city, or will you play it safe and start a new, simpler to manage route?

Railroad Ink comes in two versions, each one including two additional dice sets that add new special rules to your games. Ranging from lakes and rivers to keep in mind while planning your routes, to meteor strikes and volcanoes to deal with and avoid, these special rules can spice up things and make each game play and feel different.
Board Game: The King's Dilemma
Cover artwork
• In Q3 2018, that same design team will release a game 180º different from what's described above: The King's Dilemma, and no, the dilemma isn't that he accidentally stuck his hand into his goblet:

Quote:
The King's Dilemma is a unique, narrative and interactive experience with a sort of deck-building mechanism at its core that features several branching storylines leading to many possible finales.

In the game, players represent the various factions that lead the government of the kingdom: merchants, scholars, priests, etc. Players draw cards from the common deck and experience the game story unfold. Each card they draw poses a problem the council has to solve on the king's behalf. As members of the King's inner circle, the players' decisions shape the story of the game and determine the fate of the kingdom. They have to discuss, bargain, and take decisions that will affect the history of the realm by causing cards to be removed from the deck permanently or adding new cards to it.

Players have to keep the kingdom going while also trying to advantage their own faction. This power struggle may lead the kingdom into war, famine, or riot — or it could generate wealth and well-being. It will depend on your choices! The thing is, each decision has consequences, and what is good for the kingdom as a whole may be bad for your faction. Will you act for the greater good, or think for yourself?
Board Game: Omega Jump
Cover artwork
Omega Jump, due out sometime in 2018, is another title from the Silva/Hach duo, with this being an analog version of a side-scrolling video game — or at least that's what it resembled when I saw a rough prototype at an earlier Spielwarenmesse fair. Here's a short description:

Quote:
Create videogame-inspired platform levels and roll your dice to advance in Omega Jump!

Players roll their dice simultaneously, trying to obtain the symbols they need to advance through the level. The first player to stop rolling will also play first! Move, jump, fight, grab coins and collect lives while trying to survive the hazards of the level (and your opponents)! Spend your hard-earned coins to buy items and gain new abilities! A frantic race to the end goal full of trickery and chaotic fun!
• Two other titles in the works from Horrible Games, both without release dates for now, are Unicorn Fever from Lorenzo Silva and Lorenzo Tucci Sorrentino, with this being described as a spiritual successor to the 2009 betting game Horse Fever from the same designers and Cranio Creations, and Vampires, a 2-5 player game from Bruno Faidutti and Charlie Cleveland. Here's an overview of that latter title:

Quote:
Vampires is a game of area control, bluff and treachery in which you scheme and fight for influence and power as immortal vampires! Play cards and blood to earn the control of influential humans, feed on them, and make them your servants; your goal is to gain the most influence over three ages. You draft cards at the beginning of the game, then gradually draw an increasing number of cards from your deck at the beginning of each age (i.e., all the cards you had during the previous age, plus new ones).

While playing, you get to know the powers and abilities of your opponents during your centuries-long struggle, but they do the same with you — and you can never know which new tricks they may have added to their arsenal since your last encounter!
Board Game: Vampire: The Masquerade – Vendetta

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