Norsaga is a puzzle-battle game where you’re trying to construct a family tree of heroes to prove you’ve completed a legendary feat. You do this by pairing heroes together throughout the tree to earn inheritance tokens to to match the ones on your Saga. Each hero provides a dominant trait, and the possibility of a recessive trait. You can only use the dominant trait of one of your coupled heroes, but if you match the recessive trait on both, you can snag that one too.

If course it would be too easy to just plop down heroes until you’ve got what you need. That’s were embellishments, ghosts, and poetic skalds. Each let you take special actions, disrupt your oppontents’ family trees, and gain access to powerful abilities. You can get more of a feel for the game by reading the rulebook, or trying the online demo.

Meromorph Games sent me a prototype of the game to try out. I got the deck of cards, but needed to provide tokens and such myself. I’ve had a chance to sit down and play with both my 5-year-old and 9-year old, both who really liked the game. The art on the cards, the simplicity of learning/playing the game, and the quick play time all were contributing factors in the boys’ enjoyment of the game. Before you know it they were planning use of their embellishments and tossing ghosts around like nobody’s business. My little guy needed a bit of help at first, but quickly got the hang of things, and even pulled a victory of his own by the time we were done playing a few games.

Norsaga is almost funded, and you can get in on a copy of the game for only $20. Not a bad deal for such a fun game, in my opinion. This is one you really shouldn’t pass up.

A preview prototype of Norsaga was provided free for review my Meromorph Games.

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If you are well versed in the English language, Dexikon may be a good run for you. This deck building game is similar to Scrabble in that you must pick letters and play words. However, players are able to attack each other by playing special cards that force an opponent to draw a penalty card, which adds a negative effect to your final point score.

You would think that, at this point in my life, I’d be sick of zombie-themed games, but I’m not. I love horror-related content and zombies hold a special place in my heart. In Deck of the Dead, 1 – 6 players must kill the most zombies by using supply cards that have weapons against event cards that make you draw zombies. Games last, on average, 30 – 60 minutes and are appropriate for ages 12 and up.

In Norsaga, players tell tall tales to two to four opponents in an effort to spin the best and most realistic family history. Draw cards and play tokens to increase the heroes and adventures on your family tree. If your opponents think you are lying, they can tear down your story. Your goal is to do the same to them. Gameplay lasts about 30 minutes and is appropriate for ages 10 and up.

Battleborn Legacy is a strategy game where two to four players work to control land and manage resources. The package comes with a ton of fancy tokens, cards, stands, player boards, and a beautiful board. The player with the most thriving economy in the end is the winner. Players complete quests, control provinces, fight enemies, and more. Natural disasters and a nasty dragon will always be a burden in this world.

In Salem, Mass in 1692, it was all the rage to go around accusing people of witchcraft. If you upset your neighbor, or made your best friend cry, chances are, you’d be burned at the stake the next week. In this strategy card game of Salem, four to 12 players act as townsfolk and try to determine who the witch really is amongst the group. It reminds me of a pared down version of Battlestar Galactica. Your best bud will be calling you a witch and trying to have you killed in no time.

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