Science Fiction

AquaSphere

News from the depths! The AquaSphere is a research facility stationed deep below the ocean's surface, and your skilled team — consisting of an engineer, a scientist, reprogrammable bots and exploratory submarines — is trying to gather as much data as possible.

The game board in AquaSphere has two main areas: A research station comprised of six sectors in which your scientist conducts experiments and a headquarters where your engineer supervises preparation of the bots. During each of the four game rounds, you take several turns, and on each turn you either:

Use your engineer in the headquarters to program a bot; each round you can choose from three of the seven actions.
Have your scientist bring a bot to a sector to perform an action.

Through actions such as improving your lab, sending out submarines, collecting crystals, and examining octopuses, you expand the abilities of your team or gather knowledge points, which are necessary to win. Additional challenges result from the limited size of your lab, which is your personal stock; you can increase the size of your lab, which makes life easier, but this costs valuable time.

AquaSphere is a challenging game of strategy and tactics with different paths to victory that requires planning in advance as well as skillful use of short-term opportunities.

Star Fluxx

Fluxx gets the Science Fiction treatment. From the publisher: "Just when you thought that Fluxx had gone as far as it could go - it blasts off for the Stars! Explore the vastness of space-themed humor with your valiant Captain, Engineer, and, of course, your Expendable Crewman. Go check out that Small Moon – or is it really a Space Station? You may be swayed by Unseen Forces, held hostage by Evil Computers, or find your ship infested with Cute Fuzzy Aliens."

Like its brethren, Star Fluxx is the game of ever changing rules. It starts out as Draw 1, Play 1, but even that can change. When a Goal card is played, you can win by meeting the Goal, usually by having the correct Keeper cards in front of you. Action and Surprise cards help you to meet the Goal, or stop your opponent. Creeper cards usually prevent you from winning, but are sometimes necessary to meet the Goal.

Eclipse: Rise of the Ancients

While the galactic conflict escalates and several new factions are trying to get a foothold on the galaxy, the adversaries suddenly need to find allies among themselves to face the rising threat. The systems previously thought to be empty are suddenly swarming with Ancients – whole worlds of them, with ship capabilities way beyond anything seen before.

They are not willing to negotiate.

Eclipse: Rise of the Ancients, the first full-size expansion for Eclipse, introduces several new additions to the base game, such as Rare Technologies, Developments, Alliances, Ancient Homeworlds and Warp Portals. There are also three new player boards with four new different alien species to choose from. New components allow up to nine players in one session.

Due to the modular design, you can use all of these additions or just some of them in any game of Eclipse, according to your preferences and play style.

The Ancients are rising. Will your civilization rise to the occasion and emerge victorious?