Unboxed the Board Game Blog

ISS Vanguard is a new major board game from Awaken Realms. It features a 1-4 player co-operative gameplay that immerses you in an amazing adventure among the stars, as you lead the first human galactic exploration effort.

YOU’RE ALONE IN A ROOM WITH A BOMB. Your friends have the info you need to defuse it. But there’s a catch. They can’t see the bomb. So everyone will need to talk it out–fast!

An asymmetric, cooperative dungeon defense game for 1-4 players where you play as the monsters protecting their hard earned treasures against invading hordes of looters (so-called heroes) trying to steal it. In their turn players draw 5 cards and play, these cards allow them to move, activate the tiles they are to perform the tiles actions, attack heroes, and move their units around. After each player, draw and perform cards from the heroes deck. Your goal as a team in every scenario is to survive the 3 levels of threat from the invading heroes by protecting the treasures on each room. If the main treasure is taken, the game ends and you lose, but if you manage to protect the treasures for long enough, you all win.

We have detected irregular movement on the Monster Island. The volcano is erupting like never before. Monsters from all around the world are gathering on the Island, what is happening? They don’t even fight each other anymore! Because is a greater menace is lurking. Something big enough to threaten every monster and make them fight together against the same enemy… Was this in the script? Wait… Is this a cooperative King of game? In King of Monster Island, players will play as giant monsters who must work together to defeat a titan-like Boss before it finishes building an interdimensional portal. Each turn, players will roll dice to damage minions & boss, heal themselves, gain energy and buy cards, move around the island, activate human support, and increase fame. For the Boss’ actions, they are controlled entirely by the game itself. Using the results of the dice rolled into the volcano, the Boss will move, activate their minions, and attack nearby monsters. Their goal: allow their minions to set up the pylons needed to construct the portal. To win, the players must defeat the Boss before they manage to activate the portal or defeat even a single Monster. Otherwise Earth will be demolished!

Lands of Galzyr is an adventuring game with an open and persistent world, with everyone's actions having consequences in both the current and future games. Players assume the roles of cunning adventurers traversing the lands while completing quests and trying to gather fame and prestige. Each game continues where the previous one ended thanks to a clever save-and-load mechanism, with no need for paper-and-pencil bookkeeping. You can play the game as many times as you wish and even swap players between sessions. Lands of Galzyr is set in Daimyria, the same world as both the Dale of Merchants series and Dawn of Peacemakers. Go adventuring with both familiar and new animalfolks!

Letter Jam is a cooperative game for 2 to 6 players. In each round, every player has a letter that everyone else can see. But no one can see their own letter! Players try to find words that can be made with the letters they see. The player with the best clue spells it by marking the letters with numbered tokens. Your letter’s position in the clue helps you guess what it might be. Then you can move on to a new one! Guess them all before clues run out, and unscramble your hidden word.

Sauron’s influence is spreading across the land, corrupting those without the will to stand against him. If he manages to recover the One Ring, the people of Middle-earth are surely doomed—forced to live out their lives in vile servitude. And now the One Ring, along with all hope of salvation, rests in the small hands of a hobbit. The Lord of the Rings: The Board Game is a unique cooperative board game for two to five players. Legendary designer Reiner Knizia puts players in the roles of hobbits on a perilous quest to destroy the One Ring. Their journey is brought to life by world renowned Tolkien artist John Howe, whose illustrations make this game an immersive work of art. Spanning the entirety of J.R.R. Tolkien’s timeless book trilogy, The Lord of the Rings lets players relive the Fellowship’s heroic journey again and again.

An ancient evil stirs in the black lands of Mordor, and the people of Middle-earth speak of a terrible doom approaching from the east. The Dark Lord Sauron is gathering his forces, and should he acquire the power he seeks, he will cast the world into eternal shadow. The only hope lies in a heroic few who must work together to stem the tide of evil… The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game is a cooperative Living Card Game® in which one to four players command some of the most powerful characters and artifacts in Middle-earth.

Iron Man and Black Panther team up to stop Rhino from rampaging through the streets of New York. Captain Marvel and Spider-Man battle Ultron as he threatens global annihilation. Do you have what it takes to join the ranks of these legendary heroes and become a champion? Jump into the Marvel Universe with Marvel Champions: The Card Game, a cooperative Living Card Game® for one to four players! Marvel Champions: The Card Game invites players to embody iconic heroes from the Marvel Universe as they battle to stop infamous villains from enacting their devious schemes. As a Living Card Game, Marvel Champions is supported with regular releases of new product, including new heroes and scenarios—check out the products section at the bottom of this page to see everything announced so far!

Legendary is a deck-building game set in the Marvel Comics universe. To set up the game, players choose a number of hero decks from the likes of Spider-man, Hulk, Cyclops, or Wolverine, to name a few. Shuffle them together (since players use only a handful of hero decks out of the fifteen included) allowing the hero deck to vary widely in terms of what's available. Players then choose a mastermind villain (Magneto, Loki, Dr. Doom, etc.) and stack that particular villain's attack cards underneath it. Next, modify the villain deck as needed based on that villain's particular scheme. Over the course of the game, players will recruit powerful hero cards to add to their deck in order to build a stronger and more resourceful deck. Players need to build both their recruitment powers (to enlist more heroes) and their fighting ability (to combat the villains who keep popping up to cause trouble). Players recruit heroes from an array of six cards, with empty slots refilled as needed. At the start of a player's turn, he reveals a villain and adds it to the row of villains. This row has a limited number of spaces, and if it fills up, the earliest villain to arrive escapes, possibly punishing the heroes in some way. Some villains also take an action when showing up for the first time, such as kidnapping an innocent bystander. The villain deck also contains "master strike" cards, and whenever one of these shows up, the mastermind villain (controlled by the game) takes a bonus action. As players fight and defeat villains, they collect those cards, which will be worth points at game's end. Players can also fight the mastermind; if a player has enough fighting power, he claims one of the attack cards beneath the mastermind, which has a particular effect on the game. If all of these cards are claimed, the game ends and players tally their points to see who wins. If the mastermind completes his scheme, however having a certain number of villains escape, for example, or imposing a certain number of wounds on the heroes then the players all lose. Do you have what it takes to defeat the villains? Or, will you let them escape? Play the all new Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building game to find what the cards have in store for you.

When the world is threatened, superheroes must join together to fight against it. Captain America, Iron Man, Black Widow, and more are ready to do what it takes to stop the plans of Red Skull, Taskmaster, and Ultron. In Marvel United, players take on the role of superheroes teaming up to fight against a Supervillain. Battling across the different locations of the city, they’ll look to complete missions like taking out thugs and saving civilians before they attack the villain directly.

There’s a zombie plague spreading throughout the populace. Mighty super heroes are doing what they can to halt its spread. But as powerful as they may be, they are not immune to the ravages of the virus. Now, heroes that have been turned by the plague are actively trying to spread it as far as they can. They’ve even retained much of their previous personalities, but now twisted in service of the Hunger. Marvel Zombies - A Zombicide Game puts players into the rotting bodies of these tainted heroes. Unlike previous Zombicide iterations, they’re not trying to stop the zombies, but instead spread the plague far and wide. Each hero still retains some of what made them powerful before they became infected, but other heroes that have not yet been turned, plus the members of S.H.I.E.L.D. are trying to stop them. In the end, will all be made to service the Hunger?