BGG | The Hotness

  Defy fate and save Middle-earth! The Lord of the Rings: Fate of the Fellowship is Matt Leacock's most mechanically-rich Pandemic System design to date. Gather heroes to defend the havens of Middle-earth from advancing shadow troops, complete objectives that will change each time you play, and help Frodo evade the hunting Nazgûl as he travels to Mount Doom to destroy the One Ring. EPIC COOPERATIVE STRATEGY GAME: Join forces to save Middle-earth in The Lord of the Rings: Fate of the Fellowship, a cooperative strategy game where players must complete evolving objectives and protect the realm from the forces of darkness. HELP FRODO DESTROY THE ONE RING: As Frodo journeys to Mount Doom, players must work together to help him evade the relentless Nazgûl while preventing the shadow armies from overtaking key havens. DYNAMIC OBJECTIVES: Each game presents new challenges with unique objectives that change every time you play, ensuring endless replayability and fresh strategies. PANDEMIC SYSTEM DESIGN: Created by Matt Leacock, this is the most mechanically rich Pandemic System design to date, offering deep strategic gameplay and thrilling cooperative mechanics. PERFECT FOR FANS OF LOTR & STRATEGY GAMES: Designed for 1-5 players, this immersive adventure is ideal for ages 14 and up, making it a must-have for fans of The Lord of the Rings and strategic board games. Contents: 72 Player Cards, 50 Shadow Cards, 24 Objective Cards, 10 Reference Cards, 13 Character Cards, 13 Character Figures, 9 Nazgul Miniatures, 3 Battle Dice, 7 Search Dice, 48 Shadow Troops, 10 Gondor Troops, 9 Elven Troops, 8 Rohirrim Troops, 8 Dwarven Troops, 1 Eye of Sauron, 1 Solo Token, 1 Threat Rate Marker, 1 Hope Marker, 6 Haven and Shadow Stronghold Tokens, 36 Symbol Tokens, 1 Game Board, 1 Dice Tower

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  Based on simple and intuitive hand management, Heat: Pedal to the Metal puts players in the driver's seat of intense car races, jockeying for position to cross the finish line first, while managing their car's speed if they don't want to overheat. Selecting the right upgrades for their car will help them hug the curves and keep their engine cool enough to maintain top speeds. Ultimately, their driving skills will be the key to victory!Drivers can compete in a single race or use the "Championship System" to play a whole season in one game night, customizing their car before each race to claim the top spot of the podium. They have to be careful as the weather, road conditions, and events will change every race to spice up their championship. Players can also enjoy a solo mode with the Legends Module or add automated drivers as additional opponents in multiplayer games.

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Magical Athlete is a racing game of pure chaos! Roll a die and move your racer that many spaces. But! All of the racers have wacky, game-breaking abilities. Compete over four races and whoever has the most points wins! A Japanese cult classic, that uses many traditional game mechanics - like roll & move or losing a turn Updated with new racer powers and rules by Richard Garfield You'll feel like you built a powerful team of racers that let you skip over the spaces occupied by other players or can reroll their die, but what's this - your opponent has a character that always gets to move 5!? Contents: 1 double sided race track36 wooden racers36 racer cards6 dice4  1st place trophies4 2nd place trophies9 three point stars

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  Brass: Birmingham is an economic strategy game sequel to Martin Wallace' 2007 masterpiece, Brass. Birmingham tells the story of competing entrepreneurs in Birmingham during the industrial revolution, between the years of 1770-1870. As in its predecessor, you must develop, build, and establish your industries and network, in an effort to exploit low or high market demands. Each round, players take turns according to the turn order track, receiving two actions to perform any of the following actions (found in the original game): 1) Build - Pay required resources and place an industry tile.2) Network - Add a rail / canal link, expanding your network.3) Develop - Increase the VP value of an industry.4) Sell - Sell your cotton, manufactured goods and pottery.5) Loan - Take a £30 loan and reduce your income. Brass: Birmingham also features a new sixth action: 6) Scout - Discard three cards and take a wild location and wild industry card. (This action replaces Double Action Build in original Brass.) The game is played over two halves: the canal era (years 1770-1830) and the rail era (years 1830-1870). To win the game, score the most VPs. VPs are counted at the end of each half for the canals, rails and established (flipped) industry tiles. Birmingham features dynamic scoring canals/rails. Instead of each flipped industry tile giving a static 1 VP to all connected canals and rails, many industries give 0 or even 2 VPs. This provides players with the opportunity to score much higher value canals in the first era, and creates interesting strategy with industry placement. Iron, coal, and cotton are three industries which appear in both the original Brass as well as in Brass: Birmingham. New "Sell" system Brewing has become a fundamental part of the culture in Birmingham. You must now sell your product through traders located around the edges of the board. Each of these traders is looking for a specific type of good each game. To sell cotton, pottery, or manufactured goods to these traders, you must also "grease the wheels of industry" by consuming beer. For example, a level 1 cotton mill requires one beer to flip. As an incentive to sell early, the first player to sell to a trader receives free beer. Birmingham features three all-new industry types: Brewery - Produces precious beer barrels required to sell goods. Manufactured goods - Function like cotton, but features eight levels. Each level of manufactured goods provides unique rewards, rather than just escalating in VPs, making it a more versatile (yet potentially more difficult) path vs cotton. Pottery - These behemoths of Birmingham offer huge VPs, but at a huge cost and need to plan. Increased Coal and Iron Market size - The price of coal and iron can now go up to £8 per cube, and it's not uncommon. Brass: Birmingham is a sequel to Brass. It offers a very different story arc and experience from its predecessor.

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In SETI: Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, a eurogame for 1-4 players, you lead a scientific institution tasked with searching for traces of life beyond planet Earth. The game draws inspiration from current or emerging technologies and efforts in space exploration. Players will explore nearby planets and their moons by launching probes from Earth while taking advantage of ever-shifting planetary positions. Decide whether to land on their surface to collect valuable samples, or stay in orbit for a broader survey. Additionally, by directing your telescopes to gaze into distant star systems, you may detect traces of alien signals or undiscovered exoplanets, and collect promising data to examine and study back home. Back on Earth, you can invest in upgrading your equipment so you can analyze incoming data more efficiently, boost your telescope signal capacity, or increase your supply of resources—all to expand the scope of your search that could lead to a discovery of extraterrestrial life forms. You will also make use of over 200 cards to aid your efforts or focus your research in a particular direction for additional bonuses and rewards. Each card has unique effects and illustrations and depicts real-life technologies, projects, and discoveries (like the ISS, Large Hadron Collider, Perseverance rover, Voyager probe, and many more). Finding traces of extraterrestrial life is only a matter of time—utilize the resources you have at your disposal strategically and you may well end up being the one to make the biggest scientific contribution towards advancing our understanding of alien life within our galaxy.

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Wondrous Creatures is a strategic board game that combines an innovative worker placement mechanism with a tableau-building mechanism. The mechanics of placing workers across two hexagonal map spaces while interacting with adjacent icons to obtain resources or to activate various special effects adds a unique puzzle-like fun to the worker placement experience Wondrous Creatures provides. Collect over 100 wondrous Creature Cards and combine the unique abilities of each creature to build your very own powerful tableau!

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  Vantage is an open-world, co-operative adventure game for 1-6 players that features an entire planet to explore, with players communicating while scattered across the world. With nearly eight hundred interconnected locations on four hundred cards and over nine hundred other discoverable cards, the world is your sandbox. You begin each game of Vantage on an intergalactic vessel heading towards an uncharted planet. After crashing far from your companions, you have complete freedom as to how you explore, discover, and interact with the planet. You view your location from a first-person perspective, and you can communicate with and support other players, but you are separated by vast distances, so only you can see your current location. Vantage is not a campaign game, and it is completely self-contained with no expansions — just a few accessories like metal coins.

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Powerful Spirits have existed on this isolated island for time immemorial. They are both part of the natural world and - at the same time - something beyond nature. Native Islanders, known as the Dahan, have learned how to co-exist with the spirits, but with a healthy dose of fear and reverence. However, now, the island has been "discovered" by invaders from a far-off land. These would-be colonists are taking over the land and upsetting the natural balance, destroying the presence of Spirits as they go. As Spirits, you must grow in power and work together to drive the invaders from your island... before it’s too late!

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Breathe slowly and remember your training...focus...just cut the blue wire...(a bead of sweat rolls down your face)...wait...I can`t tell, is that wire blue or red? Bomb Busters is an exciting cooperative deduction game for a stalwart team of bomb disposal experts ready to face 66 escalating explosive challenges. Endlessly replayable, Bomb Busters is filled with delightful, pulse-pounding moments as you collaborate to safely navigate each missions unique challenge and foil the plans of the nefarious villains that seem one step ahead of you at every turn. Tick tock tick tock...can you defuse the bomb before its too late?!

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In Ark Nova, you will plan and design a modern, scientifically managed zoo. With the ultimate goal of owning the most successful zoological establishment, you will build enclosures, accommodate animals, and support conservation projects all over the world. Specialists and unique buildings will help you in achieving this goal. Each player has a set of five action cards to manage their gameplay, and the power of an action is determined by the slot the card currently occupies. The cards in question are: CARDS: Allows you to gain new zoo cards (animals, sponsors, and conservation project cards). BUILD: Allows you to build standard or special enclosures, kiosks, and pavilions. ANIMALS: Allows you to accommodate animals in your zoo. ASSOCIATION: Allows your association workers to carry out different tasks. SPONSORS: Allows you to play a sponsor card in your zoo or to raise money. 255 cards featuring animals, specialists, special enclosures, and conservation projects, each with a special ability, are at the heart of Ark Nova. Use them to increase the appeal and scientific reputation of your zoo and collect conservation points.

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In Star Trek: Captain's Chair, you will go head-to-head with an opponent, each stepping into the shoes of an iconic captain from across Star Trek's galaxy and history. Command ships, crew, and away teams while you manage resources and alliances! Each of the six captains comes with a unique, asymmetric deck of cards themed to that captain's personality strategies, allies, and assets. Each deck creates different strategic directions based on which common cards are available and what strategy your opponent deploys. The captains to choose from are: Jean-Luc Picard Benjamin Sisko Michael Burnham Koloth, The Dahar Master Sela Thy'lek Shran True to Star Trek, antagonism will not win every game. You will need to pursue diplomacy, exploration, and science, with different captains excelling at different paths. With hundreds of unique, deeply thematic cards, you'll want to explore the galaxy again and again! The chair is yours, Captain!

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In Dune: Imperium Uprising, you want to continue to balance military might with political intrigue, wielding new tools in pursuit of victory. Spies will shore up your plans, vital contracts will expand your resources, or you can learn the ways of the Fremen and ride mighty sandworms into battle! Dune: Imperium Uprising is a standalone spinoff to Dune: Imperium that expands on that game's blend of deck-building and worker placement, while introducing a new six-player mode that pits two teams against one other in the biggest struggle yet. The Dune: Imperium expansions Rise of Ix and Immortality work with Uprising, as do almost all of the cards from the base game, and elements of Uprising can be used with Dune: Imperium. The choices are yours. The Imperium awaits!

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Listen up, I'm absolutely fizzing about this one. The Old King's Crown is a phenomenal board game that absolutely deserves your attention. This is the type of rare box that is able to induce that kind of bounding enthusiasm the excitement that gets you day dreaming about when you're able to get it to the table, that promise that shivers through you as each rule rattles with possibility. And not just the rules, but the presentation too!" - Shut Up and Sit Down The Old King’s Crown is a game of card-driven conquest, where you play as heirs to a vacant throne, vying for control of an ancient, overgrown kingdom. Wield unique abilities and leverage your followers’ traits to best outwit your opponents across a map that stretches from the teetering heights of the castle to the dappled light of the necropolis. As leader of your faction you will be staking claims with Heralds openly as well as positioning your forces in secret, hoping to claim the locations that fit your designs. However, keep an eye on your rivals, as they too have agents and agendas, poised to undo your best laid plans. Royalty, rebels or ruses. What crown will you wear? In The Old King's Crown, players move their Herald to locations, hoping to claim them. Then simultaneously players play cards from their hand, facedown to regions of the board. These are then revealed and resolved. Winning these clashes will result in different rewards that further their position and grant them the game's primary goal, influence. The player with the most influence by the end of a set number of rounds will be declared the winner. What We're Saying We're big fans of Root's asymmetry, Inis' art styling, and the bluffing mechanics of Dune; Old King's Crown somehow combines all three into a package that is fairly accessible given just how big it is. That doesn't mean the gameplay is easy or by any means simple, but it does mean it's intuitive and won't send people used to more medium weight games running for the door when you bring this box out.  We're really excited for Old King's Crown and we're expecting to see this on the Hotness list more and more as the initial Kickstarter run is supported by a mass-market printing hitting in Spring. This game will be hitting your table often, and if the secondary market is any indicator it's going to be highly sought after for years to come. 

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Wingspan Pocket distills the Wingspan experience down to a lighter, shorter, card-driven game that has each player activate a single row of cards on each of their turns. The cards are all double sided: a food side and a bird side. Bird powers are primarily indicated by icons instead of text, and they include a new type of power, ongoing (green) benefits. Everyone receives a player aid with all the icons clearly explained. Wingspan Pocket is designed to be accessible to novice players yet also compelling for more experienced gamers. This is a standalone game in a small box, not an expansion (the birds in it are not compatible with Wingspan). Wingspan Pocket features birds from around the world.

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In a dystopian future, humanity faces ruin as its own creations, self-aware Super-Massive Computers (SMCs), turn against it. Only a few manage to avoid the harvests, and from these outcasts, criminals, and rebels arise the Deckers. Skilled in hacking, deception, and cyber warfare, they band together to restore humanity’s freedom. The future rests in their hands. Welcome to the technological age of replicators, sparks, and super-massive computers. Deckers is not just a game, it is an entry into a world in which each decision can save or destroy your team—and the last hope for humanity. In this extraordinary deck-building game, players race against time to develop a deck of command cards that best synergizes with their archetype’s strengths, the abilities of their fellow Deckers, and the team’s evolving strategy. Hack through the network of one of seven unique SMCs: Alpha-Moby, Spider, Glom, Viking, Logi, Sentinel, & Mother, ranked across four levels of difficulty. Each is fiendishly designed with unique threats and challenges to test the resolve of any Decker foolish enough to jack into its network. Can you overcome the automated defense systems, place Programs and Installations while fighting Sparks and Guardians, to end the domination of the SMCs for good? Ages 14+1-4 players60-90 minute play time

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  Tend is a “flip and write” game —  well, technically, it's a flip-and-scratch-and-roll-and tick-and-stamp-and-write. In the game, players are each building up their own farm and collecting the greatest selection of goods to send back to Zenith HQ for research. All players will be using the same deck of task cards each round to take actions on their own sheets. Tend to your crops and animals, explore the mines and woods, or kick back and cast your line into the pond and see what bites. It's everything you want in the classic farming-an-alien-planet genre. This edition includes 6 packs of colored pencils, 100 farm/manifest sheets, 100 scratch off cards, and 6 metal coins.

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Plunge into the modern era, where our planet's vast interconnected ocean scape is one of the last frontiers to discover and explore. Experience a deep new ever-changing adventure in this followup to the smash hit Endeavor: Age of Sail!In Endeavor: Deep Sea, you head an independent research institute with the goal of developing sustainable projects and preserving the fragile balance of marine life. Throughout the game, you`ll recruit field experts and use their abilities to explore new locations, research dive sites, publish critical ecological papers, and launch conservation efforts. Expand your expertise, develop your team, and learn as much as possible about the sea. The action your institute takes now, could mean a healthy ocean and a sustainable future for the planet.

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  Hell of a Deal is a cooperative poker game against The Devil Himself & all the minions of Hell. Of course, they all cheat! To compete, you'll have to cheat like Hell... and the more you do, the more doomed you all become. Welcome to The Last Resort & Casino... and winning IS your last resort. To get to the Big Table, you'll face off against diabolical bosses like Dedly Aloor, Jack Potts, The Brothers Dreadful, & Roul-ette, each of whom twists and turns the game in unique ways. Make your way to the final showdown with The Devil Himself and you might just earn your way back to the living. Have a lucky day! Players: 1-4 Ages: 14+ Time: 90 min

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The Fight is On! In Gunsen: The Battle for Toshi Ranbo, Rokugan teeters on the brink of upheaval as the Great Clans — the Crab, Crane, Dragon, Lion, Phoenix, Scorpion, and Unicorn—clash for control of the legendary fortress, Toshi Ranbo. In this area-control game that plays in under an hour, play as the iconic Great Clans of Legend of the Five Rings as you build your tableau to outwit and outmaneuver your opponents. EPIC CLAN CONFLICT IN ROKUGAN: The Great Clans—Crab, Crane, Dragon, Lion, Phoenix, Scorpion, and Unicorn—clash for dominance over the legendary fortress of Toshi Ranbo. FAST-PACED AREA CONTROL: A strategic area-control game that plays in under an hour, delivering tense decisions and constant interaction without long downtime. TABLEAU-BUILDING STRATEGY: Build and refine your clan tableau to unlock powerful synergies, outmaneuver rivals, and seize control at the perfect moment. ICONIC LEGEND OF THE FIVE RINGS SETTING: Immerse yourself in the rich lore of Legend of the Five Rings, where honor, cunning, and military strength decide the fate of Rokugan. HIGH REPLAYABILITY: Multiple clans, shifting strategies, and player-driven conflict ensure every battle for Toshi Ranbo plays out differently. Contents: 1 Main Board, 1 Battle Board, 6 Battle Tracking Tokens, 4 Upgrade Tiles,1 Toshi Ranbo Tile, 3 Shrine Tiles, 3 Watchtower Tiles, 6 Custom Battle Dice, 3 Mercenary Hero Cards, 12 Village Tokens, 24 Clan Hero Standees, 3 Mercenary Hero Standees, 1 Neutral Tactics Box, Order Cards, 5/6 Player Order Cards, Battle Tactics Cards, 30 Influence Tokens, 30 Wood Resource Tokens, 30 Koku Tokens.

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  For aeons, entropy was an inescapable force of nature. But then humanity evolved to understand it, harness it, and even bend it to their purpose. Your life has been devoted to learning how to shape the very workings of the universe to your will… or rather, to the will of your people. You are to become a scientist, a member of the most revered caste. Now the time has come for the final exam. You must prove you can create new solar systems, coax stars into life, shape a range of biomes, and ultimately seed planets with life. It may only be a simulation, there are limits to what you can do here; this is science, not magic. And you are not alone. Across the complex, fellow apprentices step into their own chambers, beginning the same trial. Only one will rise to join the caste. This is your moment of truth. Entropy plays out over a variable number of rounds. Each turn, you must move your Scientist between 1 to 3 spaces clockwise around the Main board. You must end your movement on either an inner Action space on the Main board or an outer space of an Action tile, and resolve it. You will build Solar Systems with Stars, Planets, and Asteroids, then fill them with Life, by playing cards. You may also gain various special abilities by adding Biomes and upgrading your Console. The end game is triggered when any 2 out of 6 Main Objectives are Completed. The player with the most Victory Points at the end of the game is the winner.

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Hegemony: Lead Your Class to Victory is an asymmetric politico-economic card-driven board game for 2-4 players that makes use of mechanics like Resource Management, Hand Management, Voting and Variable Player Powers, putting you in the role of one of the socio-economic groups in a fictional state: The Working Class, the Middle Class, the Capitalist Class and the State itself.

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  Abroad invites players to explore Europe through a rich collection of unique location cards, each tied to real places with distinct culture, history, and character. The game was designed by Rodrigo Rego and Danilo Valente — an established Brazilian design duo who previously collaborated on Landmarks — and published in partnership with 1 More Time Games. The game’s immense variety of cards, combined with tight strategic decision-making, has drawn widespread comparisons to modern hobby classics.

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This item is a pre-order item with an expected release date of Q1 2027 Orders containing a pre-order items WILL NOT SHIP until the final pre-order item is able to be shipped. Dates and product details are subject to change as new information from the manufacturer is updated. Step into a world where art defies gravity and stone becomes dream in the new design of Dani Garcia (author of Barcelona, Windmill Valley, Daitoshi or Arborea). Shape forms, balance light and nature, and bring to life the visionary style that redefined architecture. Antoni Gaudí was a visionary Catalan architect born in 1852, renowned for his imaginative and distinctive style that blended Gothic and Art Nouveau influences. Players will travel through Gaudí's life and work, earning Victory Points in the three pillars that shaped his works: Nature, Catalonia, and Religion. To succeed, players must keep their progress balanced, because only their two lowest VP scores among the three pillars will count toward final scoring. Points are gained by playing cards and placing 'Trencadís' tiles on their personal boards. 'Trencadís' is a Catalan word that means “a lot of little broken things”. While playing, you’ll discover some of these intricate details depicted on the cards and experience the creative joy of arranging your own trencadís patterns on your personal board). Each pillar awards VP differently: Nature points are mainly earned through Nature cards, Catalonia points are mostly scored at the end of each round, and Religion points are primarily tallied at the end of the game. The game unfolds over three rounds. In each round, players take turns moving around the central Chandelier on the main board, carefully choosing where to stop in order to perform key actions—drawing cards and collecting various types of Trencadís tiles. These resources are then used to play cards and progress up the Chimneys on their personal boards. Each round concludes once all players have completed a full circuit around the Chandelier. At the end of the third round, the player with the highest and most balanced combination of VP will be declared the winner!

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This item is a pre-order item with an expected release date of Q4 2026 Orders containing a pre-order items WILL NOT SHIP until the final pre-order item is able to be shipped. Dates and product details are subject to change as new information from the manufacturer is updated. The beautiful peninsula of Greenwood is run by a circle of druids and advertised as a sanctuary for magical animals and ideal vacation spot. But that version of Greenwood is a lie. In Greenwood, you play as Primal Spirits and lead your companions to save Greenwood. On each turn, you face the difficult decision of whether to use the abilities of your own companions, to use the abilities of other players’ companions, or to send one of your companions into the forest to improve your wayfinding and rescue mystical creatures. In the advanced game, each clan has a unique ability – a small additional rule that has a major impact on the game. What makes this special is that players can use the unique ability of any clan currently in play, not just their own. The game is played over the course of 3 nights and whoever scored the most victory points wins.

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This item is a pre-order item with an expected release date of 10/29/2027 Orders containing a pre-order items WILL NOT SHIP until the final pre-order item is able to be shipped. Dates and product details are subject to change as new information from the manufacturer is updated. Looking after your mental health is one hell of a battle. Personal Demons is a spatial puzzler board game where you and up to three other players join a therapeutic ritual to overcome your inner demons. Each player has their own summoning circle where they’ll carefully place a card from their hand before passing the remaining cards to the next player. Balance conflicting priorities and take the path to victory that makes the most sense for your demons. At the end of three rounds, the player with the highest point total made the most progress this session, but let’s be honest: there are no losers in therapy. Face Your Demons in Personal Demons - a therapy ritual from Tettix Games, the studio who brought you Deep Regrets!

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This item is a pre-order item with an expected release date of 09/19/2026 Orders containing a pre-order items WILL NOT SHIP until the final pre-order item is able to be shipped. Dates and product details are subject to change as new information from the manufacturer is updated. Where every adventure becomes a legend. At the edge of the wild lands, Greylune is a frontier town where adventurers are made and legends are born. Players venture out into a world of encounters and quests, then return to the Village to turn their deeds into lasting reputation. Greylune is a worker placement game played over five years, each divided into four seasons. In Spring, players position their Villagers to influence which Village cards they'll access. In Summer, they take actions — buying items, recruiting companions, going on adventures, and telling stories in the taverns for VP. Timing is everything: players move through the seasons at their own pace, creating a dynamic push-and-pull that keeps every round tense. At the end of the fifth year, the adventurer with the most Victory Points wins.

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Roll the Dice on Your Future You’ve built the perfect town. Now it’s time to build the perfect life! Chase big dreams, invest in hobbies, throw parties, change careers, and see where your choices take you. Every card you add shapes the story of your life as you try to create something truly fulfilling. On your turn, roll one or two dice to see which of your cards earn you hearts. Hearts are your money, and you’ll use them to buy new Life cards that generate income and Dream cards that bring you closer to winning. Some cards help you. Some cards affect everyone at the table. The first player to collect 8 VIP points from Dream cards wins and proves they’ve built the most successful life. 

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