New Game Round-up: Gears Turn in Munchkin Steampunk, Rondels Spin in Empire Engine & Dice Perambulate in Rolling Japan

Faced with constant hacker attacks, the corporations created an artificial intelligence that could learn from the hackers themselves. The AI, codenamed Cypher, evolved faster than its creators could have imagined. It gained sentience, went rogue, and became the ultimate hacker. Now Cypher is fighting the corporations themselves for control of the nexus.

In Cypher, players take on the role of factions that are gathering characters from all spheres of influence — from corporate overseers to street level hackers — in order to dominate Cypher and seize control of the nexus. The player with the most influence at the end of the game wins!

Europe 1888: In a dystopian alternate reality, four great powers vie for control of the continent. Each Empire’s soldiers lay siege to opposing cities, while their war efforts are funded by exotic exports and ingenious inventions. Only one state will orchestrate their limited resources into an Empire Engine powerful enough to lead them to victory.

Empire Engine is a rondel microgame that plays in 20-30 minutes with important decisions in every round. Players simultaneously choose actions to attack and defend, salvage and export, or collect resources: goods for export, soldiers to attack your neighbors, and inventions for points. Bluff and double bluff as you try to outwit your opponents.

Rolling Japan is a light "multiplayer solitaire" dice game. Each player has a map of Japan that's divided into the 47 prefectures, which are then bunched together into six differently colored areas.

On a turn, a player draws two regular six-sided dice from a bag and rolls them; the bag starts with seven dice, six matching the colors of the areas on the map along with a wild purple die. All players now write down each number rolled on any prefecture of the matching color, i.e., if the blue die shows 4 and the yellow a 2, write a 4 in one blue prefecture and a 2 in one yellow prefecture. If the purple die is rolled, you can place this number in a prefecture of your choice; additionally, three times per game you can choose to use a non-purple die as any color. However, neighboring prefectures — including those in different areas connected by blue lines — can't have numbers with a difference larger than 1; if you can't place a number without breaking this rule, then you must place an X in a prefecture of the appropriate color. (If all the prefectures in an area are filled, you can ignore the die or use one of your three color changes to place the number elsewhere.)

After six dice have been rolled, mark one round as being complete, then return the dice to the bag and start the next round. After eight rounds the game ends, and whoever has the fewest Xs on her map wins.