ThereвЂ™s plenty of interaction between players, fighting over the treasures everyoneвЂ™s trying to collect. Released earlier this summer, Sea of Clouds is a gateway-level pirate-themed game of card-drafting (the Winston mechanic, for Magic: The Gathering players) and set collection, with outstanding artwork and heavy use of rum вЂ¦ on the cards, that is. It lists for $30 and should be out any day now. Players plan simultaneously so thereвЂ™s little downtime and games take under a half an hour. If the ninjas control enough of the areas of the town, that player wins if the Ronin defeat the ninjas or hold the town through the end of the gameвЂ™s eight rounds, that player wins. The gameвЂ™s been out in Poland for a few years but this is the first official release in the U.S. ItвЂ™s due out on September 2nd.ДЄn asymmetrical two-player game with stunning art work, 7 Ronin pits one player as the eponymous samurai, protecting the village from the other playerвЂ™s attacking horde of ninjas.

Players are trying to close the four gates to hell, rather than curing four diseases, and players take on specific roles as in the regular game-but players can lose their sanity as the game goes on, and the Old Ones, which take place of Epidemic cards, have unique powers that will alter game play as well. ItвЂ™s Pandemic, but with several rules twists, enough that this isnвЂ™t just the same game with a new theme pasted on. The base game is out now for about $20, but there are expansions coming, including a clubhouse big box expansion that will add even more elements to the gameplay. There are a lot of baseball boardgames on the market, some of which donвЂ™t get the details of the sport right, while others just use baseball as a theme but donвЂ™t bother making the sport integral to the play. I just got a quick demo of this baseball-themed game that tries to simulate the last few at bats of a baseball game. The entire season of SeaFall should cover about 15 plays the game had a limited release at Gen Con but will be out officially in September.Д¤. Designed by Rob Daviau, who also co-designed Pandemic: Legacy and Risk: Legacy, SeaFall pits players as mainland empires looking to explore the seas, discovering new islands, exploiting their resources, and fighting other playersвЂ™ ships, all on a gorgeous board with high-quality components. SeaFall will be one of the first legacy titles thatвЂ™s not a spinoff of an existing game, and unlike Pandemic, SeaFall is competitive rather than cooperative. Legacy games, where the board вЂњremembersвЂќ events from the last play and the players play a campaign over a вЂњseasonвЂќ of multiple plays, are one of the biggest trends on boardgaming after the runaway success of Pandemic: Legacy last year. It was my favorite among all the games I played at Gen Con, thanks to the simple rules, interactive element and strong replay value. There are three route types, scoring in different ways, and players can place tokens of varying strengths to build those routes, but also can sabotage their opponents by blocking routes or flipping two of the pieces on the spokes. The two-sided board has hub-and-spoke maps on which the players try to build routes by placing their tokens on the hub spaces. Agamemnon (Osprey Games)ДЄn elegant abstract two-player game of area control that plays in 10-15 minutes, Agamemnon should be out officially by the end of this month. ItвЂ™s a damn good time to be a boardgamer. Here are the top ten games that I played at the convention, and soon Paste will have a recap organized by publisher of everything else I saw that was worth noting, including recent and future releases.

I spent two days at Gen Con, the annual mecca for tabletop boardgaming held in Indianapolis at the cityвЂ™s convention center, in my first-ever trip to the event, meeting with more than 30 publishers and playing or demoing at least that many games while I was there. For a recap of every game Keith saw at Gen Con, click here.

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