Passport Game Studios is a premiere publisher of board games with several hit titles in its library of creations. Recently it produced both a board and card game worth mentioning, Professor Evil and the Citadel of Time and Entropy: Worlds Collide.
The game Professor Evil and the Citadel of Time is a cooperative game that players can win together. It rewards team play and makes everybody at the table feel good when the game is won. It's excellent for families.
The players represent adventurers trying to stop the crazy Professor Evil from stealing some of the world's most precious historical artifacts such as the Ark of the Covenant or Da Vinci's Notebook. The setting location is Professor Evil's spooky castle. Players have to break in, get around the security measures and get the items out.
Using three actions per turn, two to four players will need to move around Professor Evil's mansion, open locked doors, deactivate security measures and rescue the historical items before they disappear in time.
However, every time a player takes a turn, so does Professor Evil. He travels from room to room closing doors and turning security measures back on. You never know where he is headed and at the last moment he can foil even the best plans.
To help overcome these obstacles, each character has a set of six unique cards that let them bend the rules. Two are dealt each turn and one is played. And at certain times during the game, each player can use a super unique power once or keep an active ongoing power for the rest of the game.
To win, players race against time to collect four treasures before Professor Evil can stash four treasures for himself. If players use up too much time, they will be defeated. The game is well-designed for balance as each game seems to come right down to the wire.
The board in the game is beautifully illustrated and depicts Professor Evil's hideout room by room. The player cards, trap and item tokens stand out with engaging art elements and fun character depictions. Everything is first class.
Setup is easy and so is learning this light adventure game. Sessions can take about 30 to 45 minutes and the game is designed to get people playing and engaged in no time flat. All things considered, this is a fantastic and fun title that is easy to learn, plays quickly and offers enough complexity for kids and adults alike. Find out more about it at Passport Game Studios' website.
The card game Entropy: Worlds Collide is an interesting mix of strategy, risk and luck for two to six players. It's interesting to note that this was a game that was successfully funded on Kickstarter in the amount of $59,789 in Australian dollars.
The background story for the game indicates the collision of several worlds that have formed a Nexus. At the Nexus, the players, each from a different planet, try to collect the four landscape pieces of their home worlds so they can return. The first to collect the four cards of their home world will win. All landscape pieces are mixed together to form a deck that can be drawn from during the game.
Each player is given a set of unique illustrated cards that have a strong science-fiction feel. Each gets four world pieces, an avatar card listing a unique special power and a set of action cards. Each player's action cards are the same.
On a turn, players choose one action card in secret and then play it. The goal is to select an action that no one else will play. If that happens, the action is successful. If two players choose the same action, they clash and neither action occurs. This can be a frustrating situation.
The goal is to take actions that will move the right four landscape cards into a player's possession for revealing. When a landscape card is revealed, it can't be covered again. But revealing them is not so easy. It requires subtlety and craftiness. When one player reveals all his or her landscape cards, he or she wins.
Entropy: Worlds Collide is a well-designed production with more strategy than what first appears. The illustrations and graphics are very thematic and evoke an otherworldly feel. The game is also easy to learn and takes about 15 minutes to play. The size of the box fits easily in a game bag, luggage or purse for traveling to game night. Find out more at Passport Game Studios' website.