Seattle Board Games

"All right. Fine. After all, I'm sure you know the proper rituals for blessing a tribute. The holiest days on the calendar. Oh, and of course you know all about Xibalba. Okay, good luck! See you at the execution."

The year is 1325, and we have just discovered the original island, as foretold in the prophesy. We will once again construct Tenochtitlan, the future Aztec capital.

Each of us is a Pilli Mexica, a great noble. To make ourselves even more indispensable to the sovereign, we will construct canals to carve out districts -- calpuli -- of specific sizes, as commanded by the Emperor, and travel to these districts to found them officially before anyone else does. We shall build temples in the districts to demonstrate out spiritual supremacy over one another and gain favor with the Emperor.

Mexica is a medium-complexity abstract strategy and area majority/influence game with a high degree of player interaction and blocking. It also includes elements of tile placement, grid movement and action points. New players are welcome, and the host is happy to teach if you haven't played before.

2 - 4 players
90 - 120 minutes expected play time, depending on turnout and player familiarity

Inis is a game deeply rooted in Celtic history and lore in which players win by being elected King of the Island (Inis). Players can achieve victory through three different conditions: Leadership, Land, or Religion. While meeting a single condition may sometimes be enough to claim the crown, often a tight balance of power will require a player to meet several conditions at once.

Inis (pronounced "inn-ish"), is a medium-complexity area majority/influence and hand management game which also includes card drafting, negotiation, exploration, and some combat. Careful hand management, bluffing, good timing, and a precise understanding of the balance of power are the keys to victory.
New players are welcome, and the host is happy to teach if you haven't played before.

2 - 5 players
90 - 120 minutes expected play time, depending on turnout and player familiarity.

"Believe nothing you hear, and only one half that you see."

During a hellish thunderstorm, a scream echoes through the sleepy town of Ravenswood Bluff. The citizens rush to investigate, and find the beloved local storyteller has been murdered, their body hanging limp from hands of the clocktower in the town square. As blood drips onto the cobblestones below, a realization slowly dawns… a demon has been unleashed, killing by night and taking on human form by day. Can good find the demon in time? Or will evil overrun this once-peaceful town?

Blood on the Clocktower is a bluffing game of murder and mystery, lies and logic, deduction and deception, for five to twenty courageous players and one devious Storyteller.

A social game played in person, seated in a circle, each player receives either a "good" or "evil" token with their unique character on it. Good players share information to solve the mystery, while evil players lie about who they are and what they know. The good team wins if they can piece together their knowledge, trust each other, and execute the demon. The evil team wins if the demon can sow distrust, evade detection, and wipe out the village.

Blood on the Clocktower is a medium-complexity team-based hidden role and murder/mystery game involving a mixture of social deduction and logical deduction, in which a Storyteller hosts and moderates the game to ensure a balanced and rewarding experience for all participants.

New players are welcome, and the hosts are happy to teach if you haven't played before.

5 - 15 players (and one Storyteller) per game; if a waitlist forms we'll try to recruit another Storyteller to run a second game
60 - 120 minutes expected play time per game, depending on turnout and player familiarity; we'll probably be able to play more than once. While the event is scheduled to end at 5:00 PM, our "hard stop" time is 6:00 so we need to be finished up by then no matter what.

"As I expected, the East African Company's network of trading posts has spread far into the West. They were even able to expand into a couple of diamond mines. It seems reasonable to invest our recent yield here in Mombasa, rather than to continue our unrivalled commitment in Cape Town. After all, it can only be to our advantage to have other irons in the fire. And when the day of reckoning comes, it will show whether our hoarding of holdings and our intransigent eagerness are worth it..."

Mombasa, uses Economic, Action Queue Area Majority, Bag Building, Hand Management, Investment, Drafting Simultaneous Action Selection, Variable Player Powers, Worker Placement, and Victory Points as a Resource. Players invest in four chartered companies. Using influence to help them expand across the continent improves the value of the players' shares in these companies. Players will also trade in bananas, coffee or cotton, work together with diamond merchants and ensure that the accounts are kept up to date. To make the most of this one will need to have the correct action cards in hand at the same time, which needs excellent forward planning.
Mombasa features a unique, rotating-display hand-mechanism that drives game play: Players start with an identical hand, but acquire new and more powerful cards from the rotating display throughout the game. Each round players choose action cards from their hand, place them face down in the so-called action slot (beneath the player board), and then reveal them simultaneously to carry out the actions. At the end of the action phase, each card is moved to the so-called resting slot (above the player board). Cards in the resting slots are inactive and cannot be used until they are recovered - each round one can only return cards of one resting slot which is why it can make quite a difference in which action slots certain cards are placed.
The game ends after seven rounds, players add up their scores in different categories, and the player with the highest score (who has earned the most money) wins the game. With a variety of paths to victory and double-sided company boards, each game will be a new and different challenge.
New players are welcome, and the host is happy to teach if you haven't played before.