New Game Round-up: Building One Town, Stealing from Another & Destroying a Third

In Town Center, players build a city – in particular, the town center. They add cubes on their personal board and try to arrange them as best as possible in order to score the most victory points. Each cube represents a different type of module. Flats, shops, offices, generators, lifts, car parks, town hall can be built and stacked during the course of the game. Each module generates influence on adjacent land and on cubes directly below or above.

Each round, players will gain two cubes of different colors through a non-random mechanism, build them on their game board, then eventually stack them in order to make towers according to the building rules. If the players have done their job well, some modules will be able to evolve, becoming bigger in three dimensions. The last phase is an income phase in which players gain money from the shops and parking lots if they are supplied with electricity.

The bigger and higher your city is, the more victory points players will have at the end of the game, which lasts ten rounds – but do not forget to provide electricity to all your flats, shops, and lifts to make them more efficient.

You're one of the Great Old Ones – beings of ancient and eldritch power. Cosmic forces have held you at bay for untold aeons, but at last the stars are right and your maniacal cult has called you to this benighted place. Once you regain your full powers, you will unleash your Doom upon the world!

There's only one problem: You're not alone. The other Great Old Ones are here as well, and your rivals are determined to steal your cultists and snatch victory from your flabby claws! It's a race to the ultimate finish as you crush houses, smash holes in reality, and fight to call down The Doom That Came To Atlantic City!

You and your fellow players are Great Old Ones competing to be the first to destroy the world. There are two ways to achieve this:

• Any Great Old One can win by obtaining six gates, at which point the game instantly ends. You have only five gate markers because if you open a sixth gate, you win!

• At the start of the game, each Great Old One receives a Doom card providing a shortcut to victory. If you land on one of your gates and meet the preconditions, you may attempt the action listed on your Doom. If you succeed, you win!

It's good to be the Overlord. You have minions to grovel at your feet, limitless wealth, and absolute power over all the lands – but you know that your subjects are plotting. They envy your wealth and hope to steal it for themselves, specifically by removing you from the picture.

So you've decided to secure your power and eliminate these individuals by sending your executioner out with orders to kill the first person he meets. Unfortunately, your executioner is a gullible fellow who's extremely enthusiastic about his job – easy to dissuade and misdirect, if you're clever enough.

Who will be the first player with no excuse to miss his own funeral? Once the axe starts swinging, not even the Overlord is safe!

Kill the Overlord is a fun, fast-paced game of political murder for 4 to 8 players that can be played in about twenty minutes. The goal of the game is simple: Eliminate other players by sending the Overlord's executioner after them, while at the same time saving your own skin. Each time a player dies, his survivors climb another rung up the political ladder, taking the deceased's title and all the wealth and power that comes with it. The player who can secure enough wealth and the title of Overlord first will become the True Ultimate Supreme Overlord (and win the game).