Bluffing

Players in Mascarade start with six coins and a randomly dealt character card. Characters stay face up just long enough for players to more or less memorize them, then are turned face down. Your goal is to be the first player to hold 13 coins, and while you start nearly halfway to that goal, you can go down just as surely as you can go up!

On a turn you take one of three actions:

1) Announce your character: Claim the power of a certain character and take the associated action. You don't have to have that character card in front of you to take this action, but if someone else says that they're that character and reveals the card to prove it, that player takes the action instead while you lose one coin to the tribunal.

2) Swap cards or not: Take another player's character card along with yours, place them under the table, shuffle them around a bit, then give one card back to the other player while keeping one for yourself. You (presumably) know whether you changed characters and can have some idea of who you are now, but that other player might be in the dark.

3) Secretly look at your character: Look at your character card to make sure of who you are.

Play continues until one player obtains 13 coins and wins!

Mascarade includes more character cards than the number of players, so not all characters will be used in each game. The rules suggest that you use certain characters in your first games, but once you know the game, you can try many other distributions. The first edition of Mascarade contains 13 characters. The beggar (woman) has no special ability. Bruno Faidutti says on his blog: "...she has no ability so far. I always like to find blank cards in a game, for which I can imagine my own effects. Here, the card is not blank – it has a picture and a name, but you can devise its effect, and I'm sure there'll be some prize for the best idea."

Long ago, the Grand Octopus, one filled with cosmically divine powers, reigned over the entire world — until an unfortunate combination of circumstances imprisoned it at the bottom of the ocean. Idle under miles of water, it fell asleep dreaming of the day when its time would come once again.

In Night of the Grand Octopus, you are one of the Elect and have been recruited by the Illuminati to form a cult to glorify the tentacled one. What's more, your dreams have told you that the time has come, the stars have aligned so that you can perform the "Ritual of Appeal" and bring the Grand Octopus to surface once again. To perform the ritual, however, you need the right magical components, components to be found in a famous English university for young wizards and witches — and you're not the only one seeking them.

In each round, players secretly place their cultist and monster tokens on locations, then reveal those locations at the same time. If only one cultist group occupies a location, that cult gains strength — but if two or more cults want the same spot, they must negotiate or both lose cult strength. If, on the other hand, a rival monster occupies the location, the cultist is eliminated. Gulp!

Scruples... The game that poses 252 moral dilemmas on issues of work, money, friends, family, neighbors and, of course relationships!

User review: Each player is dealt five dilemma cards, each with a question of scruples, and one reply card. Each reply card says, “Yes,” “No,” or “Depends.” If the player can correctly match another’s reply with a dilemma card from one’s own hand, then the dilemma card is discarded. Otherwise, the dilemma card is replaced with another card from the dilemma card deck. Mismatched responses can be challenged and put to a vote of the other players. The first player to surrender all of one’s own cards is the winner.

Official rules: http://www.scruplesgame.com/rules.html

The king is holding a great banquet for all the nobles in the realm so that they can bathe in his splendour. Artists and troubadours will bring the necessary entertainment. It is meant to be a feast that will long be remembered!

The guests attending the feast hall feel the same, for in the corners of the castle deadly plots are being developed. The guests are divided into two factions, with both planning to "dismiss" the king. One faction plans to smuggle a dagger into the feast hall to "open the king's heart to the realm" at the right time, while the other faction hopes to give the king "renewed motivation" with a poisoned drink.

In The Last Banquet, each player is a guest at the feast and needs to help his faction reach its goal and ensure that this will truly be the king's last banquet. The game includes 25 role cards, each portraying a person on the front and listing that person's skills on the back. In addition to "The Last Banquet", several other scenarios are provided in the rules that can be played with each of the roles. (GameHeads' Oliver Wolf notes, "Playing time ranges from 30 minutes up to 90 minutes or more, with more people tending to need more time to play." Also, some scenarios involve more than two factions.) Obstacle cards provide challenges for players to overcome.

When a faction succeeds in its goal, all players who belong to that faction win the game.

You are a tiny kingdom with big ambition. You want to expand your population throughout the realms, learn powerful magic, build grand towers, and have your neighbors quiver at the mention of your name. The conflict? All of the other kingdoms want the same thing and there's not enough room for everyone to succeed...

In Tiny Epic Kingdoms, a 4x fantasy game in a pocket-size package, each player starts with a unique faction (which has a unique technology tree) and a small territory. Throughout the game, players collect resources, explore other territories, battle each other, research magic, and work to build a great tower to protect their realm.