The best games from Kristian Amundsen Østby 👨 2025

In Trails of Tucana, players embark on an adventure to connect the mystical island's villages and landmarks through an intricate network of trails. This flip-and-write game, designed by the creators of Avenue and Doodle City, offers a unique challenge with each playthrough thanks to randomized village setups. Players draw trails on their maps, aiming to link together sights and harbors for points, while navigating the island's diverse terrains. Strategic planning and adaptability are key, as the terrain card distribution influences potential pathways and scoring opportunities.

Players must escape from a temple after awakening an ancient curse. They navigate through the temple by rolling dice and matching symbols to gain access to adjacent rooms. Each exploration is unique, and all players must find the exit before the curse traps them forever, all while racing against a soundtrack that acts as the game's timer.

Escape: The Curse of the Temple is a cooperative, real-time board game that offers an exhilarating and unique gaming experience. The game's theme centers around players working together to escape a cursed temple before it collapses.

The magical forest of Kodama is blooming, but the ancient paths to the inner sanctuaries have become overgrown and lost. As a devoted Kodama, you must restore these paths, collect offerings for the forest guardians, and earn their favor. Kokoro is an exciting family game for up to eight players, featuring simultaneous rounds for quick play, where players connect their sanctuaries with offerings to gain points while avoiding greed that can lead to penalties.

Revive is a post-apocalyptic strategy game set 5000 years after civilization's collapse. Players lead tribes to explore a frozen Earth, harness resources, recruit survivors, build factories, and relearn ancient technologies. Designed for 1-4 players, Revive stands out with its asymmetric player powers, highly variable setup, and a focus on strategy and rebuilding over conflict.

Players are introduced to a variety of interchangeable capital powers that can be mixed and adapted, allowing for 256 unique combinations. The main dilemma revolves around whether to play character cards in your home base for points or to bring them to the capital to use their powers. Balancing the points scored while staying within the capital's limits becomes a strategic challenge as players try to maximize their score before the final round.

Become a citizen to play for points in your hometown or contribute them to the capital and benefit from special abilities. In Capital Lux, you constantly weigh risks: will you bluff or follow a carefully crafted plan? Each round, players design a hand of character cards, choosing to play them either in their hometown or in the capital, where they can utilize unique abilities based on the character professions. The game involves strategic decisions that can influence the potential points for all players.

Players are survivors of a zombie apocalypse, hiding in a church in a city. Everything is relatively fine until a massive wave of zombies arrives, threatening their safety. The only escape involves gathering supplies, starting an old VW Microbus, and fleeing the city before it’s too late.

Doodle City is a fast-paced family game centered on urban planning. Players draw a network of streets on their boards to build a city and aim to collect points for hotels, shops, and taxis while striving to avoid polluting the environment. Each round, players roll dice that determine where they can build, and points are scored based on the streets connected to buildings. The game ends when a player achieves the maximum points for hotels or shops, or loses their last tree due to pollution.

Santa Maria is a medium complexity Eurogame that immerses players in the development of their own colonies. This strategic game combines elements of dice drafting and engine building, with a focus on minimal luck and no direct destructive player interaction. The components are designed to be language independent, making the game accessible to a wide audience.

Players operate a car factory to produce the most popular cars on the market. They buy tiles to modernize their factory and hire specialized workers to assist them.

Players take on the role of Po or one of the Furious Five (Tigress, Monkey, Mantis, Crane, and Viper) to work together in defeating Tai Lung and other villains from the Kung Fu Panda films and series through intense dice action. By defeating villains, completing quests, and assisting others, players earn Karma to enhance their characters' abilities and gain access to legendary artifacts from Master Shifu, preparing them to face even deadlier threats. Each hero is represented by a unique miniature.

Escape: Zombie City is a cooperative real-time game where players race against a soundtrack timer. It consists of two phases: first, players gather resources and fight off zombies, then they must escape the city in a van loaded with supplies while battling more zombies along the way.

The Magnificent is a strategic Eurogame set in an enchanting, mystical world, inviting players to dazzle audiences with their traveling show of performers. Illustrated by Martin Mottet, this game challenges players to skillfully manage resources, expand their camps with Tetris-like tiles, and execute performances to attract the biggest crowds. Each decision, from selecting dice to planning shows, impacts your strategy and potential to score points.

A new day means a new mammoth hunt, where players compete to secure the largest share of the spoils in this fast-paced family strategy game. Each round, tiles are reshuffled and revealed, indicating today's bounty. Players can either take any number of tiles from the pool or challenge another player for their tiles, putting at least one tile back into the pool.

Generations before you relied on the seas for survival. As the 19th century comes to a close, your fishing village in northern Norway faces changes and new opportunities. Players must decide whether to expand their settlement with new buildings, send their boats to fish, engage in trade, or introduce new technologies to improve daily life.

The year is 1911. Players are among five legendary Arctic explorers aiming to be the first to reach the South Pole. They must choose an optimal route while managing resources and deciding when to press on or take a break. A race of high risks and careful planning awaits. Will you be the first to arrive at the South Pole?

Players aim to provide tourists with the best vacation experience while maximizing their own profits. Each round introduces new tourists and upgrades, allowing players to strategically set prices and attract visitors. Different tourist personalities require careful planning to optimize benefits, and competition for customers is fierce as players enhance their hotels with additional rooms and amenities. The ultimate goal is to accumulate the most money. This fast-paced game features simultaneous decision-making, resulting in minimal downtime.

A body is found on a ship, and all passengers appear to have alibis. Several experts onboard are willing to help, but their trustworthiness is uncertain. Use clever questioning and deductive reasoning to uncover the missing alibi and identify the murderer in this classic deduction game with a shorter playtime. Unlike others, some information may be misleading, so determine who is lying and utilize the skills of various available assistants to gather crucial information.

Trollfjord is a family strategy game where a massive wooden hammer strikes a towering wooden fortress. Players populate the board with trolls and position them strategically around legendary rock fortresses. With a mix of luck and tactical placement, players can collect valuable treasure tokens while deciding how to move or place their trolls on the unique timeline that drives gameplay.