New Game Round-up: Sol Rising, Salt Mining, Rivals Fighting & Explorers Lying

Humanity finally left the safety of Earth to settle, terraform, and extend their dominion to the other celestial bodies of the Sol system. Aided by the Maanen drive, which allows ships to travel exponentially faster between planetary bodies, and humanity's never-ending push for autonomy, the colonies soon became independent planets. In the ensuing wars, both cold and hot, two powers rose to dominance: the Republic of Mars and United Terra. The political and military impasse has existed for much of the majority of the citizens of the system...

Sol Rising focuses on the conflicts, big and small, of the Sol system primarily involving United Terra and the Martian Republic. You are a Fleet Commander put in charge of the squadrons of your star system. How will you perform your duty when war comes to the Sol system?

Instead of being tasked with merely destroying the enemy every time, every mission is crafted to have unique experiences and objectives. These include things like capturing the enemy space station with marines, escorting a merchant to safety so he can warn the fleet at the next mission, stealthily avoiding detection to plant rebels on an enemy moon, and more. In some missions, your accomplishments and choices will affect the next, triggering ripple effects that make your play through the campaign unique.

In Scenario Play, the players will participate in a single scenario pitting one side against another; the winner is determined by victory conditions set by the scenario (ex. the scenario gives the attacking side the mission of wiping out their opponent and to minimize casualties as much as possible, while the other side is trying to get a specific ship to escape the sector and then to take out as many of the attacker’s ships as possible).

Players in a Campaign game participate in a number of scenarios, each having an effect on the next as the story unfolds; the winner of one scenario will have a better starting position in the next (although care has been taken to ensure there will not be a runaway conquest because of this) and the ultimate victory condition is to win the final scenario in the campaign (if the example scenario above was used as a part of a campaign, the second scenario would change based on the outcome of the first; the number of ships the attacker gets and their starting status in scenario two is determined by the ending of scenario one, and if the defender managed to get their special ship out of the sector they get to choose the starting locations of their ships, rather than using a predefined, unorganized starting layout).

Your grandfather started a salt manufacturing business fifty years ago. After thriving for many years, the salt business is now in trouble. Faced by tough competition and a lack of good management, there's a risk of business going bankrupt. It's up to you to take up this challenge and save this family business.

Salt Merchant is a card game of business, luck, math and strategy. Each player becomes a salt merchant and tries to outplay other players and become the first to set up the maximum number of salt manufacturing factories and hence earn maximum money. Your challenges are to acquire good labor and factories, dig more salt water wells, and automate your factories. There's tough competition, too, so you have to be smart, make the right moves, and set-up factories of all different types if you want to regain lost glory.

In Stuff and Nonsense, players are Victorian adventurers who set out from London to go absolutely nowhere. You'll spin tales of high adventure in the far reaches of the globe, but in reality you're just hiding in London, collecting antiques, and trying to avoid being caught by Professor Elemental!