New Game Round-up: Spooks Confront The Phantom Society, Dice Visit the Stars in Quantum & Náufragos and Soccero Find Passports

Welcome to Scotland, a country famous for its whiskey, the Highlands, its castles, and, of course...its ghosts!

The Phantom Society is a ghost-hunting game in which you play as sly spirits seeking to ruin a manor hotel or, if you prefer, intrepid ectoplasm hunters who are a bit destructive around the edges but who also never falter in pursuit of their prey. For the ghosts, the goal is to inflict at least £45,000 of damage (in tribute to Special 45 – Old Faydhutee Single Malt) on the manor, whether it is inflicted by the ghosts or the hunters. The ghost hunters want to stop the ghosts before they achieve their objective.

The dual-level game board represents a manor floor composed of 36 rooms, with each room being a tile representing a value from £1,000 to £6,000; each of the four ghosts corresponds to a room type and will hide beneath a tile of this type, starting its devastation of the hotel by removing tiles adjacent to the one it's hidden beneath. The ghost hunters must try to determine where the ghosts are hiding based upon the tiles destroyed. While doing this, though, the ghost hunters will also remove tiles – thus destroying them and adding to the total damage – to see whether a ghost is hidden beneath.

The ghost hunters must think carefully and logically over which tiles to remove while the ghosts have to use cunning and psychology in order to cloud their investigation and remain concealed. Will the manor come through this madness intact?

It's a battle for space colonization where the ships are represented by dice. The basic game can be completed in as little as 10-15 minutes (or longer, depending on the level of aggression), and there's an advanced game that adds more depth. There are six different types of ships, each denoted by a different face of the die, with the lower numbers representing the hulks of the battlefield, slow but strong, and the higher numbers representing their fast and sleek opposites. Each ship can move a number of squares equal to its number, and combat is resolved by each player rolling a separate die and adding their ship number to it, with the lowest total winning. Colonization is achieved by surrounding a planet with multiple ships whose values sum to exactly the colonization number of that planet (always a number from 7-9, displayed directly on the planet).

Red Menace is a solitaire wargame pitting the strategic nuclear and defensive forces of the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom against those of the Soviet Union and its client state, Cuba, in 1959. The game focuses primarily on the role of strategic bombers, but other types of supporting aircraft such as Interceptors, Airborne Early Warning planes, and Aerial Refueling Tankers are also represented.

The term "Red Menace" was used during the Cold War by the U.S. because it was believed that thousands of Soviet bombers could be unleashed at a moment's notice. This turned out not to be true as the Soviets had several hundred bombers at best, and many had significant range limitations. The game is not meant to be an accurate simulation of the actual capabilities of the strategic forces involved, but rather reflects what the governments and citizens of the U.S., Canada, and the UK believed could happen.

Each turn consists of thirteen phases played in order from drawing random events, deploying and moving Soviet flights, intercepting flights, submarine operations and more. Reference sheets and player aids are included to make tracking the game progress easier. Decisions for the Soviet units are made by the game system using random events and dice. The player simply moves the Soviet bombers towards their assigned targets. Scenarios are included with various starting positions for Soviet and United States and United Kingdom bombers.

The game complexity is easy, but optional rules are included to make it more challenging. The winner of a scenario is determined by the points scored from attacking the opponents cities. Five or ten points are awarded by a random draw after each successful attack. A typical scenario requires fifty points to win.

Created by game designers Jarmo Kuitunen and Martti Ojalainen, Soccero delivers an exciting and realistic soccer experience. Using dice, either a regular die or a special kick die to determine the ball's possible routes, players move their figures and the ball on the game board. The game is designed to serve the skilled and strategic mind, though just as in real soccer, luck can always bring an unexpected challenge. Extended rules cover special situations such as goal kicks, corner kicks, throw-ins, free kicks, and penalty kicks.