Gremlins, Inc.

Gremlins, Inc. is a digital board game with card mechanics developed by the Lithuanian-based studio Charlie Oscar Lima Tango Entertainment (stylized as Charlie Oscar). Heavily focused on multiplayer from 2 to 6 players, it features a turn-based gameplay that mixes strategy with some randomness. It also features a single player mode, with specific challenges against characters controled by the AI and custom single player sessions.

Gameplay

In Gremlins, Inc., players compete to achieve victory points; in order to win a player has to reach a specific score or earn the highest score in an specific amount of time or turns. Each player has a hand of 6 cards (from a deck of 164) which can be used both for moving and for earning different resources such as money, votes, malice or victory points, or for spend said resources to attack other players to make them lose resources, go to Jail or lose victory points. Thus, every card has a value in terms of movement (a set quantity of tiles that the player can move if he or she uses the card to move) as well as a description with the actions that can be achieved with said card.

These actions can only be performed in Locations (specific places at the corners, middle points and center of the board) or in Spots, of which there are seven, each one with different effects when players pass through them or stay in them at the end of the turn. Whether you use the card for moving or for acting, it burns away, and there is no option to skip turn. Players can't move freely around the board; thus, every player has to balance between short-term and long-term strategy, carefully deciding which cards use to move and which ones save for later in order to win resources or victory points. Every time a card is used or discarded for some reason, a new one is drawn from the deck.

Randomness plays a part in the game in some of the Spots such as Risk (where you can suffer a negative effect if you roll a 1 in a dice) or the Police (where you can be sent to Jail if you roll 1). Those randomness can be balanced if the player agrees in advance to pay an amount of money in order to pass the misfortune to another player or to bribe the police.

There are two other key mechanics in the game: players can win votes through cards and special Locations in order to win elections and become Governor. The Governor wins special benefits such as being sistematically ignored by the police and can steal all bribes given by other players. There is a new election every 30 turns, although there are cards that can overthrow the current Governor and precipitate a new election. The other important mechanic is the Jail: players can be sent to Jail with some special cards or if the Police search them and find "criminal cards". When in Jail, a player has to choose every turn how to behave (good, neutral or bad), with different events for every kind of behavior. Good and neutral behavior tends to shorten the sentence, while bad behavior can lead to a longer time in prison in exchange of different benefits.

Setting

Gremlins, Inc. is set in a steampunk fantasy world inhabited by corrupt capitalist Gremlins, little mischievous and inmortal creatures that entertain themselves through eternity by competing for money, political power and prestige. This Gremlins are inspired by the folkloric creatures of the same name, commonly depicted as little creatures prone to mischievous pranks. A modern version of this tales depict them as being mechanically oriented, with an inclination to mess or damage machinery. Thus, the gremlins of Gremlins, Inc. live in Clockwork Town, a tiny city inside the gears of a clock.

Actually, Gremlins, Inc. is inspired by a creature from one of Alexey Bokulev's (designer of the game) previous game: Zarr, the cynical, sardonic and witty assistant of the player in Eador Genesis.

Developers

Gremlins, Inc. has been developed by Charlie Oscar Lima Tango Entertainment, a studio based in Vilnius (Lithuania) founded by two games industry veterans: Alexey Bokulev, designer of Eador Genesis and its remake Eador: Masters of the Broken World, and Sergei Klimov, ex-director of business development in companies such as Snowball Studios, Larian Studios and Daedalic Entertainment. Charlie Oscar was founded in 2013 and Gremlins, Inc. is its first project.