Fantasy

Colossal Arena/ Titan: the Arena is a strategic card game for 2 to 5 players with one of the best themes of any designer board game around: you play, not as combatants, but as spectators, cheering and betting on the melee ongoing in a fantasy arena/Colosseum in which eight pitting eight fantasy creatures are pitted against each other in battle!

Each round, one of the creatures will die. To decide which unlucky soul will be the victim, players put numbered power cards in front of the creatures, with the lowest one going to the graveyard. The jockeying for position and strategic diplomacy in playing the numbered power cards can be intense - but what makes this game even more interesting is that players the players' bets throughout the game which will sometimes allow them to use a creature's special power in battle!

The winner at the end of the game is bettor who's raked in the most winnings - just another day in the life of a fantasy monster gambler.

Titan: The Arena is actually a reworking of a Reiner Knizia game called Grand National Derby, but Avalon Hill's remake was quite significant from a gameplay standpoint.

The Titan: The Arena printing is often confused with its namesake, Titan. But other than the fact that they both use fantasy creatures as a general theme, there is very little that is similar between the two.

Reimplemented by: Galaxy: The Dark Ages

Online Play

Ludoholic (no longer available)

Claustrophobia: De Profundis is an expansion for Croc's Claustrophobia that adds more components and more choices to the game without adding many new rules.

New components include a 55-card deck with new talents for the Brother Redeemer, new demons, new events, new objects; ten new room tiles, with six new types of rooms (sanctified zone, demon pit, tomb of the ancient warrior); four painted figures and additional markers; and twelve new scenarios with playtimes ranging from 30 to 90 minutes.

As for new rules, the demon player's hand size is reduced to three (due to powerful new event cards), Siccaria skills are now permanent, and a new beast is introduced.

Hiding in these woods, there lies not just one Bigfoot, not a few Bigfoots, and not a gaggle of Bigfeet — but an entire community of Bigfootses. Now it's time to go in the woods with your trusty Bigfootses's call, cloak your scent with Bigfootses's urine, and get ready for adventure with aliens, yeti, the Loch Ness monster, and every other legendary creature you can think of.

Bigfootses, The Card Game consists of two decks: the Woods Deck (70 cards) and the Thingies Deck (55 cards). In the Woods Deck, you encounter Bigfootses and creatures to battle, and draw events that can dramatically change the game. You can even find your true calling and take one of six professions. The Thingies Deck is full of equipment, items, actions, and card modifiers to help you along in your quest.

Your goal? Be the first player to corral ten Bigfootses to win the game!

Using strategy and cunning, each player moves his group of companions from volcano to volcano collecting treasure. His/her goal is to collect sets of dragon eggs and gemstones. The player scores for each egg and gemstone collected but also receives extra points for each complete set. The game ends when the last dragon egg is collected.

Tash-Kalar: Arena of Legends is a game played by masters of magic. Two to four summoners encounter each other in the Tash-Kalar arena, either in teams or each on his own, and prove their skill and strategy in a short but intense battle. By clever deployment of their minions, they create magic patterns for summoning powerful beings, and then use those to destroy their opponent’s forces or to prepare patterns for the ultimate legendary beings.

The game includes three different factions, each with a unique deck of beings to summon and one deck of legendary creatures. Players take turns placing their common pieces on the board, and if they succeed in creating patterns depicted on one of the cards in hand, they may play it. When played, the card summons a particular being and allows the player to perform an effect described on the card: a giant destroys neighboring pieces, a knight moves through enemy pieces, a warlord orders previously placed pieces to move and fight, an enchantress converts enemy pieces to player's own color, etc. After that, the player discards the card and the summoned being turns into a motionless piece which may be used in patterns for summoning other beings – or even be awakened and moved into combat by the effects of other cards.

Tash-Kalar: Arena of Legends offers two game modes. In the standard mode you score points for fulfilling various quests set by the Arena Masters: controlling certain points or areas of the arena, destroying a number of enemy pieces in a single turn, performing a certain combination of summonings, etc.

In melee mode, your only goal is to entertain the crowd. You do that by destroying your opponents and making them beg (i.e., making them use the catch-up mechanisms) and by summoning legendary beings. After all, people want to see a dragon! Both modes can be played as a two-player duel or as a team game with teammates sharing pieces and legendary cards, but with each controlling his own faction. (The game includes a duplicate of one faction in a different color.) The melee mode can also be played as a fierce free-for-all battle, but don't expect alliances; to achieve a good score, you need to destroy all opponents evenly as you track points scored on each opponent separately, and your lowest score is your final score.

The rules of Tash-Kalar: Arena of Legends are simple and easy to understand, but as you start to discover the tactics and are able to anticipate the opponent's moves and patterns, it turns into a real clash of wits.