To the Brink

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“13 Days: The Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962”

designed by Daniel Skjold Pedersen & Asger Sams Granerud, published by Jolly Roger Games and UltraPRO

Stare your opponent and bring the world to the brink in this recreation of the Cuban Missile Crisis! Basically “Twilight Struggle” –lite with dual use cards, play influence onto different battlegrounds, try to avoid nuclear war. Each round, players choose a secret objective out of three for that round: maybe to build up on one of the DEFCON tracks, or to control a certain battleground. Your opponent knows which areas you may be going to, but not the one you actually chose. Players then use the historically accurate cards for either Command, placing down or removing influence markers, or for their special power. But be careful, you can play a card designated for your opponent for the command, but she will get the special power, which will most likely wreck you. Score the round, move the score marker between the two sides and repeat three times and try not to blow up the world in between!

The hardest part is aggressive play leads to raising your DEFCONs and the last round is mostly players desperately trying to lower DEFCON and not blow the world up. So, in many ways, historically accurate.

One Line Verdict: Bring the world to the brink with this great, zero-sum two-player game. Plant flowers instead of you feel otherwise.

Better than Indiana Jones! Better than Indiana Jones?! Better!

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“Thebes”

designed by Peter Prinz, published by Queen Games

Race around the world uncovering valuable archeological finds from Greece, Rome, Palestine, Egypt, and Mesopotamia! Spend “time” to travel around Europe as you pick up knowledge and assistants and tools to unearth artifacts from the five different sites. Spend even more time to improve your chances as you “dig” up the artifacts. “Dig” for the artifacts by making blind pulls from a bag filled with good, point scoring stuff and dirt. Lots of dirt. The more knowledge you have and the more time you spend, the more pulls you get, but be careful, you might just get dirt, lots and lots of dirt.

There is a great metaphor about “spending time” in this fun, fast-paced game that can get really, really frustrating.