The good, the bad, and the ugly of 2020 – the year the hits just kept on coming.

Not since the war years has the world had to work so hard to find succour. As science worked to save us, creativity and ingenuity became our tools of survival during the stresses of lockdown. But for some dark masters, our Annus Horribilis brought new opportunities…

Reenter the secret world of the Gray Eminences, in this expansion to the innovative base game of manipulations and administrations. Become the power behind the thrones that suddenly no-one wished to sit on.
Forge deals with your competitors; make – and break – the headlines; advance your own agendas to win.

Darwinning! challenges serious gamers, but also charms children and plays especially well as a family game. In Darwinning!, species are evolved by building your tableau. See if you can evolve your species through the four eras the best.

Darwinning! has been played with children from 8 years old and up. One needs to be able to recognize numbers up to 15 and remember a few symbols or the 15 card effects. The game components do not have written text.

Players can build their animal's tableau with unique traits, grow their population, move up on the food chain or adapt to different environments by winning tricks. The game is played over three eras (rounds). After the third era, the most successful species wins.

Spiel Direct distributes English, German, Italian and Spanish versions of Perdition's Mouth. This entry is for the ITALIAN version.

Perdition's Mouth is a new kind of dungeon crawl, one that embraces the European school of game design with clever and elegant mechanisms and emphasizes strategy while minimizing luck. Cooperation, planning, and the enemy response deck eliminate the need for chucking dice, creating a tense combat environment with meaningful decisions! The rondels provide another tactical layer, including the enemy's devious and challenging AI.

Cooperative play for 1-6 players: Designed as a fully cooperative game, Perdition’s Mouth accommodates from one to six players acting as the game’s heroes delving ever deeper into the Abyssal Rift. Due to its design and the widely varying skills of each hero, a single character is unlikely to last long against the challenges that await the heroes. As such, it is advised that solo players, and perhaps even two players, take a party of at least three characters into the darkness that awaits. Wisely choosing characters based on what might be deemed the most successful combination of skills and abilities is as important as how players draw upon their collective abilities to overcome obstacles.

Immersive RPG feel: Perdition’s Mouth is essentially a dungeon crawl adventure-style game set within a campaign-style collection of scenarios, but it does have very strong role-playing elements that materialise in the different styles in which each character plays. This is due predominantly to the wide variety of skills and abilities each possess. Clever mechanics govern the non-player characters, negating the need for a ‘dungeon master’ role and bookkeeping for the heroes has been streamlined to alleviate the need for constant notation so frequently found in true RPG games.

The Rondel: What must be considered the central focal point, around which all game actions literally revolve, is the Rondel mechanic. Two action Rondels dictate what actions become available, turn by turn, to both the group of intrepid heroes and to the wide variety of unspeakable foe that lurk within the dark shadows. Careful thought for each action a hero takes is crucial, as future actions are heavily influenced by each decision. Limited slots for available actions force the heroes to collaborate and draw upon their unique abilities to best utilise their skills for the good of the party. Foes are similarly directed on their own rondel which dictates their spawning and how they react to the presence of the hero party. This is not just some aimless walking holiday, picking off unthinking enemies and reaping great rewards with little consequence. No. This is a dark, brutal reality where ‘life’ is not so straightforward. Things often fail to go according to plan and adaptability is key to success. The rondel system effectively recreates the setbacks and advantages one would expect to face in real life, bringing a stark reality to the game.

Immersive storylines: The game has been designed as an extensive, campaign-style, exploitative dungeon crawl, with each scenario having detailed flavour text to set the scene. But the gameplay itself, with no two plays alike, also drives a narrative for all the players. The real story is created as the heroes delve deeper and deeper into the Rift. The game has been designed to flow from one scenario to the next, growing the adventure story for the heroes, but each step of the journey can equally be played as a stand-alone adventure. The scenarios have been developed in such a way that heroes jumping into a stand-alone scenario, are equipped to emulate the level of a veteran hero who would have otherwise worked their way to this point the hard way.

Character development: Characters have a base level of skills, abilities and health as would be expected from the genre, but useful items, abilities and skills can be gained throughout their journey, making them more adept at facing the growing challenges. However, wounds and injury are also accumulated, following a hero as they move deeper into the Rift. By this mechanism a greater depth and reality is injected into the game. A hero does not automatically become stronger and fitter from setting to setting. In Perdition’s Mouth careful decisions must be made to avoid excessive injury (or even death) in order to successfully progress with the campaign.

Tactical miniature combat: Combat will be inevitable at times in Perdition’s Mouth. A clever mechanic has been developed to ensure a realistic yet easy to operate system for hand to hand and short distance combat encounters. Not only does a hero take health loss but re-occurring wounds and infections build to further hinder future actions. The cooperative nature of the game further encourages teamwork as heroes assist one another in the ensuing conflict to mitigate or, at least minimise the inevitable knock, scratch and bruise.

Factory 42 tells the story of the workweek of a Marxist dwarven society in an industrial steampunk setting. Players take the roles of factory Overseers striving to manage the most efficient workforce. It combines worker placement and a cube tower to create a resource management puzzle with a large amount of player interaction.

Factory 42 is a worker-placement game set in the world of Zanziar. Two to five players compete as Dwarven factory foremen guiding their workers through the manufacturing process and earning rewards from the fulfillment of government orders.
But bureaucracy hinders the smooth flowing of the factory affecting the supply of resources and penalising foremen for failing to fulfill orders. Factory quotas must be met, rivals undercut, tools improved and shady deals made.

The factory production line has quotas to be met, rivals to undercut, tools to improve, and shady deals to be made.

Life is tough for a Dwarf on the production line, especially for the team leaders.

Players take on the roles of the foremen of Factory 42. They must manage workers and commissars to overcome bureaucracy and ensure production goals are met in order to fulfill government needs and desires.

Factory 42 is a highly-acclaimed medium-weight theme-rich worker-placement game. It is well-tested over two print runs and has been found to need very little change, making it a stable platform on which to build. Over the years, our design team has been testing potential additions to the game and now the new “Specialists and Golems” Expansion will introduce five new elements:

Specialists - In a community where everyone is equal, the Specialists are just a bit more equal. Due to their extraordinary skills, they don’t have to wait in line, nor are they subject to the arbitrary rulings of the Commissariat. They are the crème de la crème of all the workers of Odrixia.

Golems - These massive metal golems, which locals call Cargadors, operate tirelessly to serve and improve the community. They are excellent at any work to which they’re assigned but cannot deviate from a given task without supervision. Every Odrixian citizen is proud of their Golems which is widely acknowledged as the best that technology can offer.

Patriot Box - Every good citizen knows that informing the Commissariat of illegal activity is encouraged and such diligence is rewarded with food.

Calendar Clerk - What the clerk gives the clerk can take away. The Calendar Clerk meddles with the Event cards.

And the sixth player, complete with meeples (in stylish silver) and all required components. A sixth player makes the competition even tenser and forces players to think of alternative ways to achieve their goals since some locations will now be full quite early in the placement phase.

Tolerance is an asymmetric set collection game with variable player goals for 3 to 5 players representing the conflict between Protestants and Catholics in 16th and early 17th Century England. This game uses a trick-taking mechanic, where the winner of each trick gets to perform the played cards' actions, whether beneficial or not.

The game is played over three rounds, spanning the reigns of Queen Mary, Queen Elizabeth I, and King James, with each round covering the reign of one monarch.

Tolerance aims to convey to the players how much suffering mankind brings upon itself due to an allegedly - "wrong" belief - a topic that is just as topical today as it was almost 500 years ago.

With art inspired by classical artists such as Albrecht Durer, Hans Holbein, and Hieronymus Bosch, Tolerance presents players with amazing images and art that sparks everybody's imagination.

Beyond the Rift: A Perdition’s Mouth Card Game is a cooperative card game for 1-4 players, narrating the events taking place after the heroes overcame Perdition's Mouth: Abyssal Rift.

Dare to embark on an adventure in Zanziar, through branching paths across six campaigns, each focusing on one of the Heroes within the game. Become a stoic warrior. Take on the role of a brave and impetuous magus. Tamper and tinker as a dwarven engineer. Experience the pious ways of a zealous halfling priest. Duck below any bar like a proper rogue. Embrace the inner rage of a powerful Berserker.

Utilizing the Evolving Deck System, heroes acquire items that replace cards from their original starting deck, creating decks of ever-growing power and synergy as the campaign progresses. By navigating their way through six campaigns, players will not only discover the wondrous world of Zanziar, but will also gain knowledge about the sinister, dark past of its inhabitants and even that of the heroes themselves.

The core game comes with six different heroes, all with their own unique 26 card deck and special hero ability.

There are four campaigns in the core box each with it’s own branching path of several scenarios. Each scenario will have its own objectives and special actions. This along with a variety of different enemy types makes each scenario a unique experience.

Each hero has two basic resources at their disposal, Action Points and their hero deck.

Drawing from their hero deck players will find a variety of action cards that will determine what actions heroes are able to perform. Playing a card will cost action points which can also be used to draw more cards, manipulate the position of enemies and activate special abilities. Managing one's resources of cards and action points, while dealing with the many threats presented will be key to survival in Beyond the Rift.

Throughout the campaign players will find items that when equipped will alter the construction of their hero deck. Most cards in each hero deck will be assigned to a specific body part. Whenever a hero equips an item to that specific body part, the 3-4 associated cards are removed from their deck and replaced with 3-4 cards associated with that item.

This will provide players with more powerful cards while giving them options to customize their deck to fit their playstyle and tackle the various challenges that the different scenarios offer.