New Game Round-up: Fighting Aliens, Adventurers and Freaks, Then Waking in a Coma Ward

In the days before the Void consumed much of the Old World, there were stalwart humans, elves, dwarves, and gnomes who banded together to invade the deep places of the earth. These heroes forged unbreakable alliances in search of knowledge, treasure, and glory. Rival adventuring parties would often descend into the same dungeon, and these companies fought one another as fiercely as they battled the monsters that lurked behind every dark corner. 'These were daring times, when nothing in the world was considered more sacred than the oath that bound those who shared the dangers of the pit together. This was the age of the Dungeon Alliance.

Dungeon Alliance is a deck-building, dungeon-crawling miniatures adventure game that allows players to send 1-4 different teams of adventurers into perilous dungeons in search of experience and treasure. At the start of the game, each player drafts their own team of four heroes (from the 17 included in the game) and uses tactical movement and card play to overcome the dungeon's monsters and treasures. Each player starts with a unique twelve-card starting deck that includes the starting cards from all four of their heroes.

Rival teams may compete with one another to slay monsters, or even battle one another for complete domination. As each team of heroes overcomes monsters and challenges, they earn experience point (XP) tokens that they can spend to purchase new cards for their alliance decks. Once spent, XP tokens are flipped face down and kept until the end of the game. When the sun greets those who emerge from the pit, the alliance that has accrued the most XP claims the mantle of victory.

Sterile, blinding whiteness — coupled with deafening, repetitious beeps — shocks you awake. Your heart rate slows and your breathing steadies as you realize you are in a hospital. You glance around, finding your room empty. You read your identifying armband to see a name you don't recognize. As your bare feet smack to the cold tile floor and you steady your wobbling body, you feel the foreign presence of absence. You are alone…

In Coma Ward, players are patients who have awoken in an abandoned, yet still functioning hospital with no memory and no idea of what is happening. Patients must search the hospital for clues and necessities. In their search, patients may find unspeakably terrifying things.

Each time you play, you explore an ever-changing hospital as you search for the clues to your identity and the cause of the environment's unsettling emptiness. Balance your ever worsening terror and neurosis while monitoring your health and physical attributes. Remember to stay close to those who awoke with you because the shadows of the empty hospital can destroy your already fragile psyche. Once all the clues have been discovered, the true horror begins. Players discover what is actually happening and find out who they can trust — if anyone — and how to win.

Each playing is a unique phenomenon that introduces diverse and dynamic rules. Coma Ward is a mature game with themes of violence, absolution, distrust, gore, and traumatic incidence. Player discretion is advised.

In Space Freaks, you are team manager of one of the fighting teams sponsored by powerful megacorporations. Your task is to combine different body parts to design the perfect freak, then lead your team of freaks to victory. The arena is controlled by the arena master, who each turn changes the conditions in the arena. To succeed, you need to complete tasks given to you by the viewers — or just destroy the other freaks and their base. But don't worry because in Space Freaks everyone wins, either by managing the winning team or by becoming a (body)part of the next winning team!

In more detail, during the game you build your own freaks, one body part at a time, in addition to building turrets, bunkers and droids to aid your team. Your team sponsor might also aid you in the form of items, special actions, or even alien marauders. You score points during play by fulfilling tasks given to your team by the viewers, killing competing freaks, destroying an opposing base, or controlling the center of the arena.