Theme Ideas
- Spoiler Alert – Card Game
Spoil movie plots and twists with your friends. Cards include movies, Spoilers, and actions. Each player receives a movie card, 2 spoilers, and 3 actions. Use deduction and luck to guess the movie each player has. Play spoiler cards to eliminate other players. Use action cards to steal, look, or remove other players cards. - Neon Highway – Board Game
Travel the space highways of Metis, a galactic metropolis full of wonder. Played in the dark, this glowing neon board, glow in the dark dice, and cards help players maneuver through this distant city. Although the city is full of excitement, the natives do not like outsiders. Travel through the city and avoiding giving away your cover. Collect riches and souvenirs along the way. - Mirror City – Board Game
A board that can be used on either side. Choose daylight and you play cops and robbers across the board. Choose night time to play detective and suspected serial killer. Follow the board throughout the city and choose to catch the killer or escape being caught. - Dynasty – Board Game
It is now your land and your colony. Choose your animal, skill, class, and mineral to build your ranks and take over more land. Pick up cards along the way and play ones that benefit your colony. Who will be the next dynasty? - Crowded City
Played similarly to Battleship and Guess Who? Two players sit opposite of each other with a towering building/city in-between. Place your characters throughout the city out of your opponents view. Guess the area and the correct character and the last one left in the crowded city wins.
Game Reviews
In Takenoko, players must grow bamboo in the emperors garden and feed the giant panda. Each player must tend to the garden, feed the panda, and add plots in order to complete objective cards and gain points. The game ends when a player reaches a set number of goals. Overall I thought the theme of the game was cute and lighthearted, but the mechanics seemed slightly random at times. I personally had a hard time learning all the rules and understanding the use of all the pieces. If given more time to look at the rules I would say it’s a good gateway game. The theme is original but not too complex, and the players have luck, interactivity, some ease of learning, and a replay value.
For Eight-Minute Empire we did not have the English rules so we looked up and used what we could find on the game. I do not believe we played it correctly but it was still an interesting idea. The game is obviously supposed to be face paced and uses an exploring-like theme in which players move their armies across a map to take over as much land as they can. Players must use their tokens to buy cards to use actions in the game. When eight cards have been played the game is over. I believe it could be a good gateway game in aspects of its simple theme, ease of learning (with the correct rules), interactivity, luck and replay value being quite high.
Pandemic is a co-operative strategy board game with the theme of violent disease outbreaks all over the world. Each player has a role and special strengths to help fight the outbreaks. through the different decks, actions, and cities players must fight the outbreak and stop the spread of infections. The only reason I could see Pandemic not being a gateway game would be because of the complexity and slight learning curve.