Tag Archives: portal games

Portal Games announces Imperial Miners

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Imperial Miners

Portal Games has announced Imperial Miners, a light engine-building card game for 1 to 5 players from designer Tim Armstrong (Arcana Rising,  Orbis), in which players excavate mines using a clever card activation system. This stand-alone game is set in the popular Imperial Settlers universe and offers beautiful illustrations, easy-to-grasp rules, and satisfying gameplay full of chain reactions and engine-building synergies.

In Imperial Miners, players create their own mines by playing cards into their personal tableau. They start from the surface and develop downward. Each time a card is added to their mine it activates itself and all the cards above it, rewarding a player with satisfying chain reactions and combos. The cards belong to six different factions and offer various strategies. Players mix different factions in their mines to achieve the best results.

While developing their mines, players also advance on progress boards. During setup, 3 out of the 6 available progress boards are randomly chosen for the game. These boards each offer a different strategic focus. Throughout the game, players advance to gain additional bonuses that help them develop their tableaus, activate the synergies between cards, gain victory points, and achieve even more satisfying combos. The combination of progress boards influences strategies and makes the game different each time you play.

Imperial Miners offers impressive replayability thanks to its wide range of different cards and modular progress boards. Players also take turns simultaneously so gameplay is quick and lasts no longer than 45 minutes. The straightforward rules, beautiful artwork, and rewarding engine-building mechanisms make a perfect game for both casual and experienced gamers.

Imperial Miners is scheduled to premiere in Fall 2023 with English and Polish editions and other language editions to follow shortly after. The box will include over 150 cards, 100+ tokens, 40+ wooden markers, and 8 boards. MSRP is USD $35.

DC, Warner Bros. Consumer Products, and Portal Games team for Detective Board Games Featuring Batman

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Batman: Everybody Lies 

Portal Games, in partnership with Warner Bros. Consumer Products (WBCP), DC, and Genuine Entertainment, have announced that they have secured an agreement to produce officially licensed tabletop games set within the DC Universe featuring Batman characters.

All Batman games will feature new and inspired iterations of the story-driven, cooperative deduction game system from Portal Games’ award-winning Detective game series, delivering deeply thematic games that challenge 2-4 players to team up with the Caped Crusader and bring the theatrics and themes of Batman to life in a fully immersive tabletop experience.

The first game, Batman: Everybody Lies, will feature an original narrative in a crime-solving deduction game where players need to gather evidence and connect the facts to unravel the mystery. Fully anchored in rich comics lore, Batman: Everybody Lies challenges players to take on the roles of four key investigators – instinctive journalist Warren Spacey, tenacious reporter Vicki Vale, brutish detective Harvey Bullock, or the cunning Catwoman – who are drawn into a series of mysterious events unfolding in Gotham City for their own respective agendas, ultimately becoming unlikely allies entrusted to help thwart villains new and old as only the World’s Greatest Detective can!

Throughout the game, players must solve a series of challenging cases with a finite amount of time and resources. Players cooperatively make decisions on how to forward the investigation, as they decide to visit famous locations in Gotham City (like the Batcave, Arkham Asylum, Blackgate Penitentiary, and the Gotham City Gazette) and cross paths with well-known Batman characters (like Batman, The Penguin, Poison Ivy, Mr. Freeze, Scarecrow, and more) as they chase leads, identify suspects, and gather enough information to help save Gotham City. Yet even when these unlikely allies combine forces, their goals are not always aligned. So to capture the complexity of the comics, Portal has added a new hidden agenda mechanic to the Detective system, which assigns secret goals and unique win conditions for each player based upon which DC character they portray.

During gameplay, players will utilize a variety of physical and digital game components to solve the puzzle and steer the game narrative in fun, surprising directions – a deck of cards with essential clues and plot twists, various physical handouts, and a dedicated website with access to in-world resources from the Gotham City Gazette archives – for a truly immersive experience. The game also features another new thematic treat – Scenes – that bring memorable gameplay moments to life via original comic book illustrations that feel torn straight from the pages and panels of the beloved comics.

Beginning with an introductory Prologue designed to get players acquainted with the game rules, Batman: Everybody Lies then continues with three big cases to solve, each taking roughly 2-3 hours to play. Each case can be played separately as stand-alone episodes, yet should players crack all four cases, they will unravel a master narrative with an epic climax. Every scenario ends with a final report with questions verifying how well the team has investigated the case. This game format proved a commercial and critical success for Portal Games’ award-winning Detective game series, spawning a growing library of original and licensed titles selling hundreds of thousands of units worldwide in over a dozen languages since 2018.

Batman: Everybody Lies will debut this Spring 2022 via an epic pre-order campaign launching on March 4, with the $50 game rolling out into retail this Summer.

Portal Games to co-publish the English edition of Gutenberg

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Gutenberg

Portal Games has announced that the hit game, Gutenberg, published by Granna, will be co-published by Portal Games, enabling gamers in North America, Australia, and New Zealand access to this great game from the friendly local and online stores in these markets. Gutenberg, after its release at Essen Spiel 2021, is one of the most anticipated euro games coming to retail.

Gutenberg is a mid-weight strategy game taking place in Europe in the 15th century. Each player takes the role of the printing pioneer trying to build their wealth and fame by developing their production capacity and gaining the support of patrons. Through bidding for specific actions the players develop their printing workshops, acquire new fonts, inks and decorations. The unique system of rotating gears allows players to combine bonuses and earn large amounts of points. The game lasts six rounds and the player with the most points at the end wins.

Portal Games will publish Gutenberg alongside the set of promotional tiles, which were offered during the European premiere of the game at Spiel in Essen, Germany in October 2021. The promotional tiles will be available with preorders at the Portal Games North America store.

Portal Games is printing Gutenberg at the Granna factory in Warsaw, Poland, where the first release of the game was printed, ensuring the same excellent quality of components, including the unique 3d wooden letter blocks. The MSRP of Gutenberg is $70. Portal Games’ preorders open on January 10 and North American preorder fulfillment will be done in March 2022.

Co-publishing Gutenberg with Granna starts a new chapter in the growth of Portal Games, which expands its operations from developing and marketing its own titles to distributing the products from the other European publishers to North America and other regions worldwide.

Portal Games Reveals Upcoming Games in 2021 including a new Dune Tabletop Game

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Dune: House Secrets

Portal Games has announced their publishing plans for 2021 at this past weekend’s PortalCon. The biggest announced was a trilogy of Dune-themed cooperative adventure games using the Detective system. The first game will be released in the fall of 2021. The games come as a partnership between Gale Force Nine, Legendary Entertainment, Herbert Properties, and Genuine Entertainment.

Using the cooperative game system from Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game, Dune: House Secrets has players taking on the roles of rebels. They must solve a series of missions with a finite amount of time and resources. Players must cooperate and decide on what regions to explore, follow leads, leverage allies, and overcome oposition. They’ll use a variety of physical and digital components to drive the narrative.

The experience begins with a Prologue meant to introduce players to the world of Dune and then from there are three adventures, each taking two to three hours to complete. Players will level up their characters and unlock new options in future gameplay. Each adventure can be played as standalone experiences. But, if players complete all three episodes, they will unravel a master game narrative that will have a lasting impact on the two future games in the trilogy.

Dune: House Secrets is designed by Ignacy Trzewiczek and written by Przemysław Ryme.

Eleven: Football Manager Board Game

Eleven is the number of players on the pitch at any given time. To be the best in the league, it takes a lot, like an incredible manager. Eleven: Football Manager Board Game is a strategy game where players manage and grow their own football club.

During the game, players hire staff members, including trainers, physical therapists, PR specialists, and directors. They acquire sponsors, expand the stadium infrastructure, and take care of your club’s position in social media. Among many tasks on the list are also transfers of new players, and choosing the right tactics for each of the upcoming matches.

Eleven is a scenario-drive game featuring six different scenarios to challenge players with different starting situations and goals for the season.

The game is designed by Dutch author Thomas Jansen. It’s made for 1-4 players and the game lasts 60-120 minutes, depending on the number of players.

Dreadful Circus

Dreadful is a set collection game where players attempt to create the most successful circus. Over the course of the game, players buy cards that have special final scoring rules. As the game progresses, and more cards are gained, each player develops their own final scoring rules. The result is where every game is unique and no player scores the same way.

Dreadful Circus – designed by industry icon Bruno Faidutti – is for 4-8 players and plays in 30-40 minutes. Gamers will love this extremely clever card game.

Empires of the North: The Wrath of the Lighthouse

Empires of the North: The Wrath of the Lighthouse is a story-driven solo campaign for the award-winning engine-building card game: Empires of the North.

The expansion comes with 15 unique solo scenarios played in the order corresponding with the story included in the Campaign book. When playing the campaign mode, players gain access to the new type of cards including Event cards, Legacy locations cards that last from one game to another, and Lighthouses cards that are shuffled to Island decks. Additionally, each of the scenarios can be played individually, just like the scenarios in the base game.

In story mode, you will play alongside a Campaign book and slowly discover how the plot unfolds. Why is the number of lighthouses on the coast increasing? Why do the people so strongly oppose the cathedral being rebuilt? And those seas constantly assaulted by storms…

Empires of the North: The Wrath of the Lighthouse is designed by Joana Kijanka, co-designer of the base game and all previously released expansions to the game. The expansion includes 55 cards, a Scenario booklet with 15 unique scenarios, and a Campaign book with more than 50 story branches.

Neuroshima Hex: Beasts

Neuroshima Hex: Beasts is a new faction expansion to the best-selling Portal Games evergreen title Neuroshima Hex. The new army represents various animal species that survived Moloch’s attack. These beasts are fierce, and they have but a single goal: to protect their territory. They spare no one, including their own. The expansion introduces a new game concept – friendly fire. Ferocity and wrath are unstoppable and units in the new army can damage their own friendly tiles.

Neuroshima Hex: Beasts was designed by Joanna Kijanka and developed by Michał Walczak, both names highly respected by fans and well known for their work on previous expansions for Neuroshima.

Portal Games’ Vienna Connection Pre-Order Has Begun

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Vienna Connection

Portal Games‘ Vienna Connection pre-order campaign starts now! A fully independent title, Vienna Connection, brings a new quality to the Detective line. This is a cooperative espionage board game and an experience that lets you and your friends take on the role of spies conducting secret operations during the historic Cold War era! Vienna Connection contains four unique missions taking place across Europe, including Vienna, Prague, and Berlin!

In this story-driven game for 1-5 players, you command a team of CIA agents during the Cold War conducting secret missions in various European cities. It is January 1977. CIA Headquarters in Langley, Virginia gets wind of Soviet activity in Austria and has no choice but to intervene. The CIA decides to dispatch members of their Special Activities Division (SAD). The game is on.

Vienna Connection is a campaign game consisting of 4 missions. It shines when played as a complete experience. Separate game sessions are less interesting if you don’t know, or don’t experience the whole story. 

The game is heavily language-dependent. You will read a ton of cards, reports, and files. It’s a full-blown narrative experience. The box comes with 100 pages of different files and documents! 

If you’re looking for a spy game and would love to outthink and defeat Soviet agent’s activities—Vienna Connection is the game for you.

Why pre-order

For a limited time of 4 weeks, Portal Games has an exclusive Vienna Connection offer for you. They are not running a Kickstarter campaign for this title, as it is complete and already in production. Still, this preorder offer is as unique as what you would expect from most Kickstarter campaigns. If you preorder the game directly from us, you will:

  • Receive the game before its official release date.
  • Get additional components and bonuses worth over $35 for free (see our daily updates!) that will not be part of the retail version.

You can pre-order it now:

Vienna Connection

Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game Gets a Game of the Year Edition

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Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game

Portal Games has announced a Game of the Year edition of the award-winning Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game. Portal Games was able to improve the basic game and add additional components to the box.

The new edition includes a set of 30 photos of character portraits, which the players can use during their investigation to make a mind map. The pictures show the suspects met throughout the game, and bring an amazing immersion to the gameplay. The set was previously available for purchase only as an additional promo item at the Portal Games store and during conventions. With the Game of the Year edition of Detective, now all players will be able to enjoy this great tool.

Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game is a fully cooperative, deeply immersive, detective experience for 1 to 5 players taking on the roles of investigators trying to solve a crime. The game has been published in 10 languages and sold over 100.000 copies worldwide. It won many prominent awards and nominations including As d’Or Expert Game of the Year Award 2019, Dice Tower Best Theming Award 2018, nomination for Kennerspiel des Jahres 2019, nominations for Golden Geek Best Game of the Year 2019, Golden Geek Best Cooperative, Best Innovative and Best Thematic Game of the Year 2019.

Imperial Settlers: Rise of the Empire Preorders Have Started

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Portal Games has opened up preorders for Imperial Settlers: Rise of the Empire.

Imperial Settlers: Rise of the Empire

Imperial Settlers: Rise of the Empire is an expansion that introduces an Open World Campaign in the Settlers universe. The goal of the campaign is to consecutively grow your Empire game by game while achieving Quests, conquering new Provinces while maintaining your expanding Empire to avoid crumbling, and most importantly, progressing to reach the Modern Era of the Imperial Settlers universe!

During the course of the game, empires advance their military, economic, and cultural aspects as well as race to complete various Quests. Being the first to complete these Quests is crucial – at the end of each game, players progress on tracks connected to the Quests. They also invest in new Inventions and take on newly acquired Provinces. If players reach the end of a progress track they enter a new era – that gives them access to new impressive inventions and skills—but as always, there is a cost to progress, and provinces are lost when entering a new era.

Imperial Settlers: Rise of the Empire

Tracking Eras on 3 different Empire sheets

Players’ empires progress is tracked on personalized Empire sheets. There are 3 consecutive eras Empires can progress in – Ancient Era, Middle ages, Industrial Era. Reaching the end of the Industrial Era means entering the Modern Era and indicates completing the campaign.

Each Empires’s progress is tracked on the personalized Empire sheet, which is specific to the Era the Empire is currently in. Empire sheets are personalized, which means players write on them and change them as the campaign progresses. The Empire sheet contains space to write the name of the Empire, it also tracks the cost of supporting the Provinces, progressing of the Empire, Knowledge points, the current state of achieving Quests, and Final score. Developing on the progress tracks unlocks certain bonuses for the Empire. When the player reaches the end of one of the progress tracks on his Empire sheet, he will move onto another era in his next game and start with a new Empire sheet specific to the Era. Each Era offers new bonuses on the Progress tracks, as well as new Inventions, and different costs on the Province map.

Imperial Settlers: Rise of the Empire

Huge replayability with 163 new cards

Imperial Settlers: Rise of the Empire comes with many new cards making each gameplay individual:

  • 55 Province cards represent new lands players can conquer and they provide Goods.
  • 66 Invention cards represent advances of the Empire in various fields and provide special features.
  • 42 Quest cards represent crucial agendas that Empires face. The player who achieves a Quest first will gain a significant boost on the progress of the corresponding category as well as a small in-game bonus.

What is the Open World campaign?

Imperial Settlers: Rise of the Empire introduces an Open World campaign mode, in which player governs the same Empire and develops it from game to game. What sets it apart from a Legacy type of game is that to play the Open World campaign you don’t need to always gather the same playgroup, because your Empires can be in different Eras as you play. New players can join the campaign and start from the beginning. Just like in history: new empires rose and developed through ages, while the others were already thriving. Regardless of the differences in progress the game remains well balanced because a more developed Empire is simply more difficult to provide for.

All preorders will be shipped before the street date planned for July 2020, and will include additional promo content: 4 Interimperial Organization Tiles and 6 Memorial Postcards.

Imperial Settlers: Rise of the Empire

Portal Games announces PortalCon Online

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Portal Games

Portal Games has announced PortalCon Online, a live-streaming, English language event for all fans of Portal Games. PortalCon Online will stream live on the Portal Games YouTube channel July 10th thru 11th. Each stream will feature contests, gameplay sessions with designers, seminars, special guests, and more.

With fans asking for an English edition of PortalCon for years and the impact of COVID-19 on conventions, Portal Games felt this would be a great time to host this online convention.

Earlier this month, Portal Games hosted an online PortalCon for Polish fans that lasted over 20 hours. The Polish show featured contests for fans to win Portal Games products, special guests including designers and artists from many fan-favorite titles, and charity auctions to benefit those impacted by COVID-19. PortalCon Online will feature the best features of the Polish show with many updates and improvements based on the feedback received.

More information can be found later this month and on the Portal Games YouTube channel leading up to the event.

Dig Deeper with the First Standalone Expansion for Detective

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Detective: Dig Deeper

Portal Games is opening up the pre-order for Detective: Dig Deeper, the latest expansion for Detective.

Pre-orders for the game open May 8th, 2020.

Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game is the highly acclaimed cooperative game. Dig Deeper is its first stand-alone case in the Signature Series.

It’s written by Rob Daviau, Dig Deeper will transport players to an American town in the ’70s, where the players’ goal will be to solve the mysterious death of a local politician.

Like the base game, it’s for 1 to 5 players and uses modern tools to enhance the investigation, which now includes an all-new interactive interrogation mechanism!

Set for release June 4, the game retails for $15.

Portal Games Announces New Games for 2020

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Brand new spy game: Vienna Connection

In this exciting stand-alone game inspired by the game mechanics of Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game, you will take on the roles of CIA agents sent to Europe in 1977 during the Cold War to investigate a mysterious death of James Werner, an American citizen murdered in Vienna.

Vienna Connection

Solve new cases in Detective: Season One

In this new stand-alone game inspired by Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game you will find 3 stand-alone cases that can be played in around 90 minutes each. Each of the cases has a different setting and style. Due to a shorter playtime and simpler family-friendly rules, the cases are perfectly tailored for a mystery game night.

Detective: Season One

First case in the Signature Series of Detective: Dig Deeper written by Rob Daviau

This dripping with theme case will transport you into the American town in the 70-ties, where you will investigate the mystery of the death of a local politician.

Detective: Dig Deeper

2 new expansions for Empires of the North: Roman Banners & Barbarian Hordes

Empires of the North is getting even more new clans! Each expansion will introduce 2 new factions and their individual decks with unique abilities and game mechanics. All expansions combined with the base game will give you as many as 12 different factions to choose from.

Empires of the North: Roman Banners
Empires of the North: Barbarian Hordes

New meta-expansion for Imperial Settlers: Rise of the Empire

This new meta-expansion will ad a completely new layer to the game by introducing an open-world campaign setting. From game to game your empire will advance reaching new eras, goals, technologies, discoveries, and provinces. Imperial Settlers: Rise of the Empire expansion will include 220 new cards divided into 3 types: Provinces, Goals & Achievements, Technologies & Discoveries. Growing a civilization has never been so captivating!

Imperial Settlers: Rise of the Empire

Imperial Settlers: Roll & Write App

With the Roll & Write app, you will be able to play the game on your mobile when you’re on the go. Initially, the app will support solo play in which you will develop your own roll & write civilization to gather Victory Points and Stars that you will spend to gain access to more buildings improving your engine. The app will also introduce multiplayer mode at subsequent updates.

Imperial Settlers: Roll & Write App

New Kickstarter campaign for Robinson Crusoe: The Book of Adventures

In 2020 Portal Games will launch a new Kickstarter project – Robinson Crusoe: The Book of Adventures. The almanac will consist of new Robinson Crusoe scenarios ranked by their level of difficulty, complexity, and theme. The Book of Adventures will offer scenarios suited for every audience – for playing with children, for a fun family game, but also really heavy scenarios for experienced players.

Robinson Crusoe: The Book of Adventures
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