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|  Commander-in-Chief | | | | | |
| MILITARY PIECES IN A CHESS-ALIKE CONFRONTATION
Commander-In-Chief is a fun fast-playing abstract strategy war game published by X Plus Products in which a players Air, Land and Sea military vehicles work as a unified Armed Forces assault team to capture their opponents Commander. The board consists of a traditional 8 square x 8 square checkerboard grid divided into two Land areas separated by a Sea area. Vehicles are restricted to movement within their assigned battlefields: Through the Air, On Land andor In the Sea.
Pieces transverse the board in a Chess-like manner. Play evolves, turn by turn, with each player analyzing the current battlefield situation, adjusting their game plan accordingly and executing commands (movements of the playing pieces) in a collective effort to achieve the games objective. Certain Air pieces (Bombers and Helicopters) can Go Over pieces; likewise certain Sea pieces (Submarines) can Go Under pieces. Additionally, certain pieces (Bombers and Tanks) can Block. The complete Original Release Basic Training Game Rules include Object of the Game options, Team Game Play options and Advanced Game Play options. Future options will include new movements, expansion pieces, additional damage control options, new attack features, mini wars and expanded terrains as variants to the Original Release Game Rules.
While this abstract strategy war game does not include random chance, it does allow for piece enhancements both during game play and during board set up which increases come from behind opportunities and can be used to level the playing field between players of various skill levels. The game can be played one-on-one or as a social game with teams. The military theme, the terrain feature of Air, Land and Sea areas of the board and the movements of the pieces themselves relative to the military vehicles they represent give the game a real world appeal.
The two Armed Forces consist of the following fifteen pieces per side: one Commander, two stealth Fighters, two army Tanks, one stealth Bomber, two submersible Submarine warships, two Helicopters, four amphibious assault vehicles (Amphibians) and one surface combatant Destroyer warship. This military themed board game, representing two Armed Forces, Supports Our Troops as the game of the Y by donating $1 to the Armed Services YMCA for every game sold.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 6
Category1: Abstract Strategy
Category2: partnership
Rating: 4
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2011 |
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| Love Letter - Kanai Factory | | | | | |
| CARD GAME OF DEDUCTION
All of the eligible young men (and many of the not-so-young) seek to woo the princess of Tempest. Unfortunately, she has locked herself in the palace, and you must rely on others to take your romantic letters to her. Will yours reach her first?
Love Letter is a game of risk, deduction, and luck for 2–4 players. Your goal is to get your love letter into Princess Annettes hands while deflecting the letters from competing suitors. From a deck with only sixteen cards, each player starts with only one card in hand; one card is removed from play. On a turn, you draw one card, and play one card, trying to expose others and knock them from the game. Powerful cards lead to early gains, but make you a target. Rely on weaker cards for too long, however, and your letter may be tossed in the fire!
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 10
Category1: Cards
Category2:
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2012 |
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| Stronghold | | | | | |
| ATTACK VERSUS DEFENSE
Stronghold is a 2-4 player game telling the story of a siege. Players take opposite sides, one has to defend the stronghold, the other has to break into the castle as soon as possible. As time passes, defenders get Victory Points every turn for their efforts on the walls.
The game board represents the stronghold itself as well as the surrounding terrain, where enemy forces are placed and from where they proceed to the walls.
The defender has a small amount of soldiers manning the walls, while the invader has an infinite legion of them! A desperate fight is taking place every single turn. The invaders build war machines, equip their soldiers, train them and use black magic rituals to achieve victory. Meanwhile, defenders repair walls, build cannons, train soldiers and do everything they can to hold the castle as long as possible.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 14
Category1: War Strategy
Category2: partnership
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2009 |
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| Quoridor | | | | | |
| BUILD PATH TO VICTORY
The abstract strategy game Quoridor is surprisingly deep for its simple rules. The object of the game is to advance your pawn to the opposite edge of the board. On your turn you may either move your pawn or place a wall. You may hinder your opponent with wall placement, but not completely block him off. Meanwhile, he is trying to do the same to you. The first pawn to reach the opposite side wins.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 6
Category1: Abstract Strategy
Category2: partnership
Rating: 5
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 1997 |
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| Stone Age | | | | | |
| WORKER PLACEMENT GAME WITH LUCK
The Stone Age times were hard indeed. In their roles as hunters, collectors, farmers, and tool makers, our ancestors worked with their legs and backs straining against wooden plows in the stony earth. Of course, progress did not stop with the wooden plow. People always searched for better tools and more productive plants to make their work more effective.
In Stone Age, the players live in this time, just as our ancestors did. They collect wood, break stone and wash their gold from the river. They trade freely, expand their village and so achieve new levels of civilization. With a balance of luck and planning, the players compete for food in this pre-historic time.
Players use up to ten tribe members each in three phases. In the first phase, players place their men in regions of the board that they think will benefit them, including the hunt, the trading center, or the quarry. In the second phase, the starting player activates each of his staffed areas in whatever sequence he chooses, followed in turn by the other players. In the third phase, players must have enough food available to feed their populations, or they face losing resources or points.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 10
Category1: Resource Management
Category2: Worker Placement
Rating: 4
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2008 |
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| Rattus | | | | | |
| AREA CONTROL WITH UNIQUE CHARACTERS
Europe, 1347. A disaster is about to strike. The Black Death reaches Europe, and during the next 4-5 years, the population of Europe will be halved.
The players settle in the various regions of Europe, while the plague spreads throughout all of the continent. The players gain help from the various classes of the middle ages: the Peasants provide population growth, the wise Monks keep the rats away, the rich Merchants flee when the plague approaches, the warfare conducted by the Knights spreads the plague to new areas, the Witches control the spread through magic and witchcraft, whereas the Kings avoid the plague by staying in their fortified palaces. But the plague does not make any distinction: when the rats arrive, no one can feel safe.
When the plague withdraws and the game ends, the player with the highest surviving population wins.
Rattus is a medium-strategy game that takes place in the Dark Ages during the black plague. The players try to hold off the disease.
To do this they get help from farmers, magicians, knights, nobles, ... But nothing helps as long as the rats keep coming.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 10
Category1: Area Control
Category2:
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2010 |
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| Pandemic | | | | | |
| AWARD WINNING WORLD DISEASE CONTROLLING COOP GAME
In Pandemic, several virulent diseases have broken out simultaneously all over the world! The players are disease-fighting specialists whose mission is to treat disease hotspots while researching cures for each of four plagues before they get out of hand.
The game board depicts several major population centers on Earth. On each turn, a player can use up to four actions to travel between cities, treat infected populaces, discover a cure, or build a research station. A deck of cards provides the players with these abilities, but sprinkled throughout this deck are Epidemic! cards that accelerate and intensify the diseases activity. A second, separate deck of cards controls the normal spread of the infections.
Taking a unique role within the team, players must plan their strategy to mesh with their specialists strengths in order to conquer the diseases. For example, the Operations Expert can build research stations which are needed to find cures for the diseases and which allow for greater mobility between cities; the Scientist needs only four cards of a particular disease to cure it instead of the normal five—but the diseases are spreading quickly and time is running out. If one or more diseases spreads beyond recovery or if too much time elapses, the players all lose. If they cure the four diseases, they all win!
The 2013 edition of Pandemic includes two new characters—the Contingency Planner and the Quarantine Specialist—not available in earlier editions of the game
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 13
Category1: Cooperative
Category2:
Rating: 2
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2008 |
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| Kingdom Builder | | | | | |
| CUSTOM BUILD WITH CONSTRAINT MOVES
In Kingdom Builder, the players create their own kingdoms by skillfully building their settlements, aiming to earn the most gold at the end of the game.
Nine different kinds of terrain are on the variable game board, including locations and castles. During his turn, a player plays his terrain card and builds three settlements on three hexes of this kind. If possible, a new settlement must be built next to one of that player’s existing settlements. When building next to a location, the player may seize an extra action tile that he may use from his next turn on. These extra actions allow extraordinary actions such as moving your settlements.
By building next to a castle, the player will earn gold at the end of the game, but the most gold will be earned by meeting the conditions of the three Kingdom Builder cards; these three cards (from a total of ten in the game) specify the conditions that must be met in order to earn the much-desired gold, such as earning gold for your settlements built next to water hexes or having the majority of settlements in a sector of the board.
Each game, players will use a random set of Kingdom Builder cards (3 of 10), special actions (4 of 8), and terrain sectors to build the map (4 of 8), ensuring you wont play the same game twice!
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 8
Category1: Area Control
Category2:
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2011 |
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| Tzolkin: The Mayan Calendar | | | | | |
| EVER CHANGING WORKER PLACEMENT BOARD
Tzolkin: The Mayan Calendar presents a new game mechanism: dynamic worker placement. Players representing different Mayan tribes place their workers on giant connected gears, and as the gears rotate they take the workers to different action spots.
During a turn, players can either (a) place one or more workers on the lowest visible spot of the gears or (b) pick up one or more workers. When placing workers, they must pay corn, which is used as a currency in the game. When they pick up a worker, they perform certain actions depending on the position of the worker. Actions located later on the gears are more valuable, so its wise to let the time work for you – but players cannot skip their turn; if they have all their workers on the gears, they have to pick some up.
The game ends after one full revolution of the central Tzolkin gear. There are many paths to victory. Pleasing the gods by placing crystal skulls in deep caves or building many temples are just two of those many paths...
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 5
Age & Difficulty: 13
Category1: Resource Management
Category2: Worker Placement
Rating: 5
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2012 |
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| Legends of Andor | | | | | |
| MULTI-STORY COOP ADVENTURE GAME
Legends of Andor is a cooperative adventure board game for two to four players in which a band of heroes must work together to defend a fantasy realm from invading hordes. To secure Andors borders, the heroes will embark on dangerous quests over the course of five unique scenarios (as well as a final scenario created by the players themselves). But as the clever game system keeps monsters on the march toward the castle, the players must balance their priorities carefully.
At the heart of Legends of Andor is its unique narrative, the linked scenarios of which tell an overarching story as the players successfully complete objectives. For each scenario, or Legend, a legend deck conveys the plot of an ever-unfolding tale...one in which the players are the protagonists. A wooden marker moves along the boards legend track at key points during each scenario, triggering the draw of a new legend card, the introduction of new game-altering effects, and the advancement of the storys plot. In the end, the players must endeavor to guide the fate of Andor through their heroic actions, bringing a happy ending to their epic fantasy tale.
Will their heroes roam the land completing quests in the name of glory, or devote themselves to the defense of the realm? Uncover epic tales of glory as you live the Legends of Andor!
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 10
Category1: Adventure
Category2: Cooperative
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2012 |
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| Masques | | | | | |
| A GAME OF INTRIGUE AND DECEPTION
As the head of an ambitious Venetian family in Intrigo (a.k.a. Masques) – which won the 2009 Concours de créateurs under the title St Benoît – you have sent your most influential representatives to mingle at the Doges masquerade ball. By cleverly positioning these guests (and by manipulating the guests of your opponents), youll vie for the attention of Venices elite guild masters, ensuring the most political power for your family.
Gameplay revolves chiefly around the clever use of guest cards with varying levels of influence. Each player receives a hand of guest cards, and each guest card has an influence value and its own power, e.g., the peddler, the assasin and the gondolier. The higher the influence, the greater that guests clout at court. Each players hand consists of a mix of cards representing members of any of the families currently in play. Use a rival familys guest cards against them, and watch for chances to set up your own house for success.
Each of the rooms of the Doges palace offer tokens representing a guilds favor or valuable ducats to be won by ambitious nobles. The spaces between each card that represents a room in the palace are the hallways of the Doges estate – the areas in which guest cards are placed to compete for adjacent resources.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 13
Category1: Cards
Category2: Area Control
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2010 |
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| Tash-Kalar: Arena of Legends | | | | | |
| ABSTRACT PATTERN BATTLE
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 players 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 dont 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 opponents moves and patterns, it turns into a real clash of wits.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 12
Category1: Abstract Strategy
Category2: partnership
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2013 |
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| Rasputin | | | | | |
| INFILTRATION WITH CARD ABILITIES
In the game of Rasputin, players take the roles of assassins tasked with infiltrating the Winter Palace and killing historys most unkillable man - Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin. While all players share the same target, this is not a cooperative game and your opponents will prove to be an even greater threat than Rasputin’s personal guards.
Each player starts with a matching deck of fifty cards from which he must chose the twenty-five cards he will use in the game. Your cards determine which abilities you have available to you at any given moment, as well as your strength in individual combat against Rasputin and other players. Success in the game relies on your ability to balance the cards in your hand versus the board positions of yourself, your opponents, the guards and Rasputin.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 13
Category1: Abstract Strategy
Category2: Puzzle/Maze
Rating: Not Rated
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2014 |
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| Summoner Wars | | | | | |
| CARDS FIGHTING IN A BOARD
Summoner Wars is a fast-playing, action-packed 2-4 player card game. Players take on the role of Summoners: powerful beings who harness the power of mysterious Summoning Stones to lead their race to conquest on the war-torn planet of Itharia. These Summoners wield terrible magic on the battlefield, freezing their foes in place, draining their enemies of power, and even bringing rains of fire down from the heavens. But most notoriously, they summon their great race’s hordes of warriors to the battlefield, to clash in the never-ending struggle for supremacy. A Summoner is both mage and general, and must combine their wizardly might with clever tactics to defeat the enemy Summoner on the opposite side of the battle.
Each Starter Set of Summoner Wars contains 2 complete, battle-ready Factions, ready to jump you and an opponent into the thick of the War for Itharia. Each Faction is a unique race or civilization with its own secret goals, be it wild-eyed Elves bent on revenge, or blood-crazed Goblins who merely want to set the world ablaze. Starter Sets also include everything you will need to play, including a Battle Mat, Wound counters, dice, and a rulebook.
But the war doesn’t end there! Summoner Wars is fully expandable with entirely new faction decks such as the hideous Undead of the Fallen Kingdom, or the righteous and knightly Human Vanguards. In addition, each Faction will have its own expansions, adding new warriors, summoners, and abilities to allow for a never-ending mix of combat options and surprises. Expansions will also include Mercenary units - warriors who care nothing for politics and will fight for any side that can afford them!
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 9
Category1: Cards
Category2: partnership
Rating: 4
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2009 |
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| Skippity | | | | | |
| JUMP TO CAPTURE, STACK TO WIN
If Susan McKinley Ross Qwirkle can be described as a simplified Scrabble – with colors and shapes replacing letters – then her 2010 release from MindWare – Skippity – might be dubbed checkers for the Timothy Leary set.
On a blazingly colored 10x10 game board, players randomly lay out one hundred tokens in five colors, then remove the tokens from the four central squares. On a turn, a player takes a single token and jumps orthogonally over an adjacent token to an empty space, capturing the token jumped. Multiple jumps are possible, with the player capturing each token jumped.
The game ends when no more jumps are possible. Players then compare their stacks of tokens, with each set of five differently-colored tokens counting as a set. The player with the most sets wins, with the tiebreaker being the number of tokens captured but not in sets.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 5
Category1: Abstract Strategy
Category2:
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2010 |
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| Serenissima Second Edition | | | | | |
| TRANSPORT RESOURCES WHILE BATTLING IN THE SEA
Serenissima is the new Ystari edition of the 1996 game (Méditerranée in France). The rules have been updated and the game is more fluid.
In Serenissima players represent a merchant family during the Renaissance. Players attempt to balance the need of trading and open commerce versus the cut-throat economic piracy of the day. Players create a fleet of ships to purchase and move various commodities around the Mediterranean while also keeping well manned ships to attack and defend against other players fleets.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 13
Category1: Resource Management
Category2: Worker Placement
Rating: 5
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2012 |
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| Kings of Artifice | | | | | |
| ABSTRACT WAR GAME
Kings of Artifice is a strategy board game for 2 to 4 players. The game is played in a series of building rounds, followed by one final crowning round. Victory Points (VP) are awarded for building structures during the game as well as at the end. In each game, two special scoring cards are drawn from a deck that allow players to gain bonus points by meeting certain conditions.
In the building rounds, the players summon their specialized characters onto the game board and employ them (using Action Points) to construct valuable structures such as Walls, Houses, Battlements, Towers, Palaces, Fountains, and Pastures. These are built from their supplies of colored building blocks. In addition to expanding their own kingdoms, the players can use their forces to hinder the progress of their rivals.
In the crowning round, the players display their completed kingdoms and flaunt their power over the realm. The player with the most Victory Points at the end of the game is the winner!
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 13
Category1: Abstract Strategy
Category2: Area Control
Rating: Not Rated
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2013 |
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| Skyline 3000 | | | | | |
| Players represent corporations competing to assemble city buildings in their orbiting plants and install them onto specially-prepared platforms in the city districts. Each player wants to construct the most living space in the blocks that feature the most desirable improvements (Greenspaces, Spaceports, and Megamalls). Players can also erect Billboards at a loss, to entice customers and to reserve space for future construction. At the end of four rounds of play, the player who has earned the most points is the most successful developer and the winner of the game!
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 10
Category1: Area Control
Category2: Auction/bidding
Rating: 5
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2009 |
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| Love Letter | | | | | |
| A SIMPLE GAME OF CHANCES
All of the eligible young men (and many of the not-so-young) seek to woo the princess of Tempest. Unfortunately, she has locked herself in the palace, and you must rely on others to take your romantic letters to her. Will yours reach her first?
Love Letter is a game of risk, deduction, and luck for 2–4 players. Your goal is to get your love letter into Princess Annettes hands while deflecting the letters from competing suitors. From a deck with only sixteen cards, each player starts with only one card in hand; one card is removed from play. On a turn, you draw one card, and play one card, trying to expose others and knock them from the game. Powerful cards lead to early gains, but make you a target. Rely on weaker cards for too long, however, and your letter may be tossed in the fire!
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 8
Category1: Cards
Category2:
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2012 |
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| Love Letter - Legend of the Five Rings | | | | | |
| LIGHT LUCK AND DEDUCTION
All of the eligible young men (and many of the not-so-young) seek to woo the princess of Tempest. Unfortunately, she has locked herself in the palace, and you must rely on others to take your romantic letters to her. Will yours reach her first?
Love Letter is a game of risk, deduction, and luck for 2–4 players. Your goal is to get your love letter into Princess Annettes hands while deflecting the letters from competing suitors. From a deck with only sixteen cards, each player starts with only one card in hand; one card is removed from play. On a turn, you draw one card, and play one card, trying to expose others and knock them from the game. Powerful cards lead to early gains, but make you a target. Rely on weaker cards for too long, however, and your letter may be tossed in the fire!
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 8
Category1: Bluffing
Category2: Cards
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2012 |
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| Tikal | | | | | |
| MOVE, EXPLORE, OCCUPY TEMPLES
Tikal is a game of exploration within the Central American jungles in search of lost temples and the treasures within. Players send their team of explorers into the jungle, exposing more and more of the terrain. Along the way, you find temples that require further uncovering and treasures. Players attempt to score points for occupying temples and holding onto treasure.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 10
Category1: Area Control
Category2:
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 1999 |
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| Ubongo | | | | | |
| SPEED SOLVE PUZZLES TO WIN
The board of this game consists of six rows. On each row, twelve gems (of several colors) are arranged. Each player places his pawn in front of one of those rows.
Each player receives a playing card on which a shape consisting of several squares is depicted. Each player also gets 12 tiles consisting of 2, 3, 4, or 5 squares in some shape. By means of a dice roll, each player is assigned three or four tiles that he has to use to fill the shape on his card.
The players try to solve their own puzzle. The race is timed by a sand glass. The outcome of this race determines the play on the main playing board.
The player who was the first to solve his puzzle in time gets to move his pawn up to three rows, the player who came second may move two rows, and the player in third may move a single row. The players may collect two gems from the front of the row their pawn is on, so the more rows you can move, the more control you have on what color gems you can collect.
After collecting gems, each player receives a new playing card with a new puzzle to solve, and a new round starts. In total, nine rounds are played.
In the end, the player who has collected the most gems in a single color wins the game.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 8
Category1: Real Time
Category2: Puzzle/Maze
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2003 |
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| Asgard | | | | | |
| PREPARE FOR FINAL BATTLE
The end of days is close. Darkness and light will clash.
All Gods know what this means for them. Blood ties will no longer be respected, brother will fight against brother, and no man will spare another. Odin, Freyja, Týr, Loki, Hel, Thor, and Baldr forge their plans and promise great rewards to the ones who will help them prevail. Eventually Fenrir, Mímir, and Surtr will join the battle.
Ask for help at the right time, and the gods will grant you their powers. Will you ask Freyja to recruit the fallen warriors of Valhalla, or will you use the cunning of Loki and Hel to make an opponents armies die or switch sides at a critical moment? Will you ask Týr to help win a decisive battle, or will you consult Mímirs wisdom in order to gain a tactical advantage?
In Asgard, you want to support the gods by erecting temples and by convincing brave warriors and mighty giants to side with them. You can influence which god will fight which during the final battle — Ragnarök — the outcome of which will depend on how well you strengthened their armies.
Beware, only a few of them will come out victorious. Will you side with the right ones? As a mortal, your place in the new world depends on it.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 12
Category1: Worker Placement
Category2:
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2012 |
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| BattleLore (Second Edition) | | | | | |
| TACTICAL TWO PLAYERS SCENARIO WAR GAME
Prepare for fantasy battles beyond your wildest imagination with the onslaught of BattleLore Second Edition. Set in the fantasy realm of Terrinoth, BattleLore Second Edition is a two-player board game focused on squad-based battles between the hardy defenses of the Daqan Lords garrison in Nordgard Castle and the unleashed ferocity of the demon-worshipping Uthuk Y’llan. You must strategically command your troops and use the power of lore to tip your battles in your favor.
In every game, you will create new maps and scenarios, before mustering a new army for each game, so you can tailor your army to suit your favored play style. Command armies of fearsome warriors and deadly creatures, and lead them against the enemy in this intense game of warfare and military strategy. By seizing victory points from objectives on the battlefield and by eliminating enemy units, a skilled commander can raise his banners as the victor over the borderlands of Terrinoth!
BattleLore Second Edition comes with a game board, ninety-two detailed figures, forty-three map overlay pieces, more than one-hundred fifty cards, rules, four custom dice, and everything else you need to win the borderlands of Terrinoth!
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 14
Category1: Scenario Based
Category2: War Strategy
Rating: 5
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2013 |
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| Ventura | | | | | |
| WAR STRATEGY WITH LIMITED LUCK
In an age of great battles, valiant leaders, and unscrupulous mercenary armies, fortune lies within your grasp.
Ventura is a board game of nobility and conquest for 2-4 players. Set in 14th century Italy, Ventura puts players in control of warring noble houses, each vying for control of the countrys growing wealth. Balance your house’s earnings and maintain your hired soldiers to keep your family’s noble standing. Remember, the best armies are also the ones that cost the most!
With more than 120 plastic pieces, 40 Territory tiles, 4 Family Boards, a scoring board, and over 100 cards, Ventura will whisk players into a world of warring mercenaries and noble families, all seeking control of Italy’s burgeoning wealth.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 12
Category1: Area Control
Category2: War Strategy
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2011 |
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| Aztlan | | | | | |
| AREA DOMINATION OR COEXIST
In the mythical land of Aztlán, four tribes strive to survive and prosper under the scrutiny of the gods themselves. Peaceful coexistence brings wealth and prosperity to all, but the fearsome Aztec gods favor those who are mighty in war and bring to them their subdued enemies as cruel offerings...
Only one of the four tribes will be granted the right to stay in this blessed land when the Time of Exile comes at the end of the Fifth Age of the Sun. Guide your tribe to build the mightiest empire through the Five Ages, win the favor of the gods, and become the greatest ruler in the land of Aztlàn.
Aztlán can be played by three or four players (or two players with the Aztec Gods variant). In a multi-player game, each player guides one of the four tribes. A game is divided into five stages, called ages; at the beginning of each age, each player secretly chooses one of his power cards, and then one at a time places a certain number of his tribe pawns in one of the territories on the game board, which is divided into five different types of territory: deserts, terraced fields, jungles, mountainsvolcanoes, and cities. The power card chosen for the age indicates the strength of that players tribe and identifies one type of territory (of the five different types). The greater the domains of that player, and the greater the number of territories of that type included within them, the higher the victory point score.
If a territory is disputed by several players, the strongest tribe may defeat the weaker ones – but war is not the only path to victory and peaceful coexistence with the other tribes sometimes brings greater rewards. At the end of the fifth age, the player who scores the most victory points wins. His tribe rules Aztlán, while the time of Exile befalls his opponents!
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 13
Category1: Area Control
Category2:
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2012 |
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| Merchants of the Middle Ages | | | | | |
| TRADE TO VICTORY
A Medieval game of trade and commerce, Die Händler is set in Europe, where trade wagons carry wares between six cities on the board. Essentially, players buy goods, load them onto wagons and send them for maximum profit in other cities.
The whole game looks very inviting. The medieval cities depicted on the board, together with the player crests, cardboard coins, money pouches, sticker decorated wagons and wooden commodity pieces, immediately creates the right atmosphere for the players.
There are six cities - Paris, Cologne, Brugge, Gent, Vienna and Genoa - which are interconnected by roads. Three wagons carry goods from one city to another. No-one owns the wagons or controls any of them single-handedly, and in principle a player can put commodities on any transport. There are six different commodities - salt, iron, wine, silk, cloth and food - all of limited supply.
The goal of the game is to make money by delivering goods to the towns, and use the money to buy increases in status. The game ends after a certain number of deliveries have been made and the winner is the player with the highest level of status.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 10
Category1: Resource Management
Category2: Worker Placement
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 1999 |
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| 3012 | | | | | |
| CARD GAME WITH A FIGHTING BOARD
The year is 3012. Its been a millennium since the Armageddon. Deep in the Yucatan jungle, humanity has mutated, degenerated, and segregated into five clans: Jaguar, Snake, Monkey, Gar, and Bat. These clans now battle it out for dominance in the region, cooperating when it suits them and actively working against each other when the opportunity arises.
In 3012, players start the game with small decks of Scout cards, which provide gold to make purchases. Two piles of cards – an Ally deck and a Weapon deck – provide static cards to buy, with three cards from each deck always available to purchase each round. Cards that are not bought remain there for other players to buy. Two non-static Action decks – one with cheap cards, the other expensive – are also available, and at the start of your turn, you reveal one card from each of these two Action decks. You get the benefits of the Action cards you reveal, whether you buy them or not, and theyre removed from play if you dont buy them.
When you have amassed enough combat skill through Allies, Weapons, and Action cards, you can attempt to prove your worth by facing a beast in four decks of Encounter cards, ranging from easy to very difficult.
Unlike most deck-building games, there are many points of interaction in 3012, so players are never out of the action! And you always get to refill your hand to its maximum size at the start of your turn, so you are never penalized for interacting during other players turns.
The game ends when one of the Heroes reaches Level 5. The player with the most victory points wins the game.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 14
Category1: Cards
Category2:
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2012 |
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| GOSU 2: Tactics | | | | | |
| A HYBRID OF MAGIC AND RACE FOR GALAXY
GOSU 2: Tactics plays like a hybrid of Race for the Galaxy and Magic: The Gathering with each player trying to recruit an army of goblins made up of soldiers, heroes, magicians, and other classes – then swing it into action against the other players. Five clans of goblins are represented on the game cards, with goblins in one of three ranks. To build an army, a player must first recruit level I goblins, then build on those goblins with level II and finally level III. Those higher level goblins can be played only if a lower level goblin is of the same clan, and since goblins of the same clan have similar abilities or powers that mesh well, players tend to specialize in who they recruit to their ranks.
Each turn, a player can play a new goblin, use a goblins power, draw cards, or pass. Many goblins have special powers that come into play when theyre recruited, attacked, removed from play, placed with other goblins, and so on.
Once all players have passed, the player with the most powerful army wins the battle. Players keep cards in hand from one battle to the next, so laying out all your forces at once can leave you with little to do but get hit in later battles. The first player to win three battles wins the game.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 13
Category1: Cards
Category2:
Rating: 4
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2012 |
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| Milestones | | | | | |
| SIMPLE WORKER PLACEMENT RESOURCE MANAGEMENT GAME
The settlement of the country is the work of the players in their role as noble builders in Milestones!
In this game, players work together to build roads, create marketplaces, and erect houses. With each milestone set along the way, they move further into the country.
But while they build together, when it comes to procuring construction materials, money, and grain each player is on his own. Thus, you must carefully develop your own network of goods, trade and colonization materials and optimize its use cleverly. Whoever also develops a keen sense of timing can grab the most valuable building sites and in the end win out.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 10
Category1: Worker Placement
Category2: Resource Management
Rating: 4
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2012 |
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| EPIGO | | | | | |
| ABSTRACT STRATEGY BY OUTGUESSING YOUR OPPONENTS
Epigo is a new two or four player strategy game that should feel both fresh and familiar. Epigos simultaneous action selection makes every round of the game exciting, even though Epigo features relatively simple rules and mechanics. Epigo is also modular - the boxed game includes rules for 21 variants, with more variants available on our website. Variants modify one or more of the core rules, providing unique challenges and adding countless hours of replayability.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 13
Category1: Abstract Strategy
Category2:
Rating: 4
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2011 |
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| Terra Nova | | | | | |
| AREA CONTROL SCORING GAME WITH SIMPLE MECHANICS
In Terra Nova, players try to claim areas of land by moving control markers and placing fences. Each turn, a player must take three actions, first moving a control marker, then taking two further actions from these possibilities:
moving a control marker (whether the same one or a different one) andor
placing a fence next to a control marker that moved this turn.
Areas are scored once theyre enclosed and contain no more than three types of landscape. Whoever has the majority of pieces in an area scores points based on the number of spaces and the number of types of landscape in the area, with fewer types scoring more points. Points are split in case of a tie. The game ends once all areas have been scored.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 13
Category1: Area Control
Category2: Abstract Strategy
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2006 |
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| Demigods Rising | | | | | |
| PRETTY MINIATURES IN A BATTLE FOR GLORY
Demigods Rising is a skirmish-style board game for 2 or 4 players in which they take the roles of demigods, commanding armies of heroes to prove supremacy over others and ascend as the new God of War. As a demigod, a player initially has access to 16 heroes from which he can choose his army. With his choice he then faces his opponent(s) on sacred battleground.
There are different game modes regarding picking heroes (chieftain, random, mirror, free pick mode), and regarding conditions on which victory is achieved (skirmish, tactics). It is the game that relies heavy on tactics, that is fairly simple to learn but hard to master and that has a great replayability.
In time of Chaos, the God of War was supreme ruler over all other gods. But Time of Peace came, and lasted so long that God of War started to lose his power. He grew weaker as the years went by and was pushed to the side by other gods. When his power faded so much that he felt that the end was near he gave the task to his four sons, the demigods, to try to prove themselves as best commanders in the field of battle. The one who can emerge victorious should become the new God of War and bring back the former glory to their name.
Gather your heroes, challenge your friends, become the God of War!
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 13
Category1: War Strategy
Category2:
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2014 |
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| Splendor | | | | | |
| Splendor is a fast-paced and addictive game of chip-collecting and card development. Players are merchants of the Renaissance trying to buy gem mines, means of transportation, shops — all in order to acquire the most prestige points. If youre wealthy enough, you might even receive a visit from a noble at some point, which of course will further increase your prestige.
On your turn, you may (1) collect chips (gems), or (2) buy and build a card, or (3) reserve one card. If you collect chips, you take either three different kinds of chips or two chips of the same kind. If you buy a card, you pay its price in chips and add it to your playing area. To reserve a card — in order to make sure you get it, or, why not, your opponents dont get it — you place it in front of you face down for later building; this costs you a round, but you also get gold in the form of a joker chip, which you can use as any gem.
All of the cards you buy increase your wealth as they give you a permanent gem bonus for later buys; some of the cards also give you prestige points. In order to win the game, you must reach 15 prestige points before your opponents do.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 10
Category1: Cards
Category2:
Rating: 4
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2014 |
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| Koryo | | | | | |
| WIN WITH THE LARGEST COMBINED SETS
Koryŏ is a game based on an uchronian and politico-steampunk universe.
Each turn, players simultaneously choose a family of politician from their hand, and play as many cards of this family as they have and wish to. Each family has a value ranging from 1 to 9, which indicates both the number of cards in the family and the number of victory points the player controlling this family will score at the end of the game.
A game lasts exactly eight turns, and on each turn a family grants its specific power to the player controlling it. Thus, efficient handling of these powers is the key to success! While their influence increases turn by turn due to the number of authorized cards in their council, the number of cards drawn each turn dwindles, making choices all the more difficult.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 13
Category1: Cards
Category2:
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2013 |
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| oddville | | | | | |
| CITY BUILDING WITH CARDS AND WORKER PLACEMENT
OddVille is a card-based city-building game in which all actions are carried out by playing one of your four Worker cards. Each Worker card has a different power and can be used in different ways: to get a project, to obtain resources, or to collect coins. During your turn, you can either play a card or add a building to the city. Connect it to adjacent buildings with roads and you will gain their bonus.
The city grows with each players contribution, ever changing the values of players buildings. As soon as a player builds his sixth building, the game ends and the player with the most points wins.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 10
Category1: Worker Placement
Category2: Resource Management
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2012 |
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| Unita | | | | | |
| DICE ARMY BATTLE
Helvetia: a country in evolution, divided between the surrounding Empires who claimed taxes and allegiance. Primitiva was the first to wake up and decide to fight to obtain independence. The other regions followed their example: Luserna, Zugriga, Berena, Friburga, etc. However, between year 1 of unification and the day of the nation, several centuries went by with alternating periods of war and diplomatic peace, troubled and bloody times which you will discover in Unita!
Unita features 64 dice but not an iota of luck! You can be the men of Primitiva, the Nuns of Friburga, the Engineers of GermanLand or the Frogs of the Hexagone, but no matter your role, forge ahead on the warpath, lead your army in the mad rush to get to the Magic Gate, and put an end to all these afflictions. Move forward on the path of the war with your army compound of six-sided dice. Every time you contact an opposing army, a fight takes place, with the least hardy losing a point of strength. When your army reaches the magic gate, the army disappears, and the total of its points of strength (its dice) becomes your points of victory.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 13
Category1: Abstract Strategy
Category2:
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2014 |
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| before the wind | | | | | |
| AUCTION TO GET THE MOST MONEY
In the harbor a fleet of commerce ships is waiting to be loaded with goods. Each vessel needs a certain combination of goods. The players take the roles of traders, trying to fill their warehouses with goods which are then in turn transferred to the ships in the harbor. They have to pay attention to the right combination of goods because the captains only accept the goods from a single trader and expect a complete delivery before their ships leave the harbor. It is also very important to not let the right moment to transfer goods to the vessels pass, because the fleet will leave the harbor when the storage space is full and the winds are helpful. The players always have to be before the wind to actively influence the events.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 10
Category1: Cards
Category2: Auction/bidding
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2007 |
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| Age of Discovery | | | | | |
| BUY SHIP AND SEND TO EXPEDITIONS TO SCORE
In Age of Discovery the players supply famous expeditions of well-known explorers like Columbus and Magellan with their ships. They have to purchase these ships and cleverly direct them to the most successful expeditions. Of course, they need a lot of money for this! The players receive income by accepting trade assignments with their ships. In the end, the player who received the most victory points by assigning ships to expeditions and fulfilling his special contract wins the game.
From the publisher (Phalanx Games B.V.):
During the 15th and 16th centuries, the great royal houses of Europe sent explorers and conquerors all over the world, hoping to discover and secure new areas of influence and sources of wealth. Without the right naval vessels, these voyages would have been impossible. But even the incredible wealth of the royal houses could not sustain these expeditions for long. So they were happy that private entrepreneurs were ready to finance these expensive journeys. Now your king has come to offer you the opportunity to invest in the great voyages of famous explorers like Columbus and Magellan. You will need to purchase a fleet of ships, and assign them to the most successful expeditions. Of course, you will need a lot of money! To earn money, you must fulfill trade contracts. Can you balance the needs of trade with the demands of the great explorers? It is time to seek wealth and glory in the Age of Discovery!
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 10
Category1: Resource Management
Category2:
Rating: 4
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2007 |
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| Island Fortress | | | | | |
| BUILDING THE GREATEST FORTRESS
In Island Fortress, you play a master builder chosen by Governor Cortland Hansen to help construct the mighty Fort Aldenford using the penal colony on Alcott Island. Your goal is to become the most distinguished architect with the help of your Taskmaster, Workers, and the Governor himself!
In the game, all players use identical decks of five Role Cards to plot their actions such as purchasing workers, building the wall, collecting money from the treasury, and more. In addition to scoring points for having built the majority of blocks on each row of the fortress wall, players can also gain various bonuses for completing favors for the Governor by building the walls in specific ways, following the Governors preferred patterns.
Island Fortress, formerly known as Huang Di and sporting a Great Wall of China theme, won the first ever ProtoSlam competition held by Cambridge Games Factory in August 2006 and is the first published game by designer Bryan Johnson.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 6
Age & Difficulty: 13
Category1: set collection
Category2: Worker Placement
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2013 |
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| Nika | | | | | |
| Command a Greek citys hoplite soldiers. Push and rout enemy lines. Coordinate allied attacks to secure victory, but watch your flanks!
Nika, inspired by ancient Greek geography & warfare, is based around two core mechanisms: facing and formations. Pieces can be routed off the board if attacked from the side or back, but not from the front. A routed piece can rally back onto the board at the cost of an action. Your pieces can move or rotate together in a phalanx if they are adjacent and facing the same way, and you can push back enemies facing you if your phalanx is deeper than theirs.
There are four cities: Athens (white) and Messene (blue) are allied against Sparta (red) and Thebes (black). Allies start across the board from each other, and you win by getting a piece into your victory area in the heart of your allys territory. Each two-city alliance can be played either solo or with a partner, so the game can support two, three, or four players.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 8
Category1: Abstract Strategy
Category2: partnership
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2014 |
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| Toledo | | | | | |
| MAKE THE BEST SWORDS AND DELIVER THEM TO THE KING
In Toledo players try to forge magnificent swords and bring them into the fortress of the city, the “Alcazar”.
Each player can send his five helpers on the map and on to the roads of Toledo, in order to acquire steel and jewels from dealers. Thus they get swords manufactured at the most famous armorer in the city. Afterwards those swords are to be delivered to Alcazar.
In addition there are two taverns (at which one “refuels” cards) as well as a place where the works of art of the resident painter, El Greco, are available.
There is a lot to discover in Toledo.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 8
Category1: Worker Placement
Category2: Race
Rating: 4
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2008 |
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| New Haven | | | | | |
| FARM TO COLLECT RESOURCES, THEN USE THEM TO BUILD SETTLEMENTS
In New Haven, set in colonial New England, players must develop the riches of the land and build a thriving settlement. Players place tiles strategically to a shared game board to cut timber, quarry stone, plant fields of wheat, and fill pastures with fat sheep. Players then use these resources to erect buildings on their own village boards, attempting to complete rows and columns for population points. Whoever can build the biggest and most prosperous town will end up with the biggest population and win the game!
New Haven is a tile-laying game with a drafting component. The center board is the land between the player villages from which resources will be gathered. Players select from their two hidden tiles and play on this board to generate available value in some of the four resources. Once per game, each player can get a shipment which delivers a large value of one specific resource type.
This value is then used by the player to play building tokens on his personal village board. However, he can play only building tokens already owned behind his player screen, with restrictions on how buildings must be arranged. He can elect to play a token face down for more flexibility, but this means a lower score if he successfully completes that row or column of buildings.
Once a player is done building, any value he hasnt used is available for his opponents to use to build! Thus, the goal when placing resource tiles is to generate just enough for what is needed, not the most that can possibly be created. Finally, the player drafts new building tokens for use on future turns; plan your creation and consumption of resources to perfectly match your needs, and youll be rewarded with additional tokens.
The base game lasts ten turns, and the player who attracts the most colonists to his village by completing roads and avenues of buildings wins the game.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 12
Category1: Puzzle/Maze
Category2: Abstract Strategy
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2013 |
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| Tragedy Looper | | | | | |
| RETURN IN TIME TO CHANGE FATE
Tragedy Looper is a scenario-based deduction game for two to four players: one mastermind and one to three protagonists. The game consists of four location boards and a number of character cards. Each scenario features a number of characters, hidden roles for these characters (serial killer, conspiracy theorist, friend), and some pre-set tragedies (murder, suicide).
Each day (turn), players and the mastermind play three face-down cards onto the characters, then reveal them to move the characters around or affect their paranoia or goodwill stats. At the end of each day (turn), if the scenario has a tragedy set for that day, it happens if the conditions are met, i.e., certain characters have certain stats or are in a certain location together (or not together) with others. As tragedies happen, players loop back in time, restarting the scenario from the beginning and trying to deduce who the culprit was and why the tragedy occurred.
The players win if they manage to maintain status quo — that is, if no tragedies occur to the key individuals — for a set number of days, within a set number of loops. If not, the mastermind wins.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 13
Category1: Deduction
Category2:
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2011 |
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| Coal Baron | | | | | |
| DELIVER COAL AND FILL CONTRACTS
Coal Baron – or Glück Auf in German, after a greeting German miners use when wishing one another luck – has players sending meeple miners underground to dig tunnels and acquire coal, which comes in four levels of quality and which is used to fulfill contracts.
The game lasts three rounds, and in each round players take turns placing their workers on action spaces; you can go on a space occupied by another player, but you need to place additional workers in order to do so. Each player has an individual elevator shaft, and hell need to use workers to extract coal and bring it to the surface, while also competing for contracts and scrounging for cash in order to do everything else that needs to be done!
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 10
Category1: Worker Placement
Category2: Resource Management
Rating: 5
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2013 |
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| Five Tribes | | | | | |
| INSTANT STRATEGY FOR BEST SCORING
Crossing into the Land of 1001 Nights, your caravan arrives at the fabled Sultanate of Naqala. The old sultan just died and control of Naqala is up for grabs! The oracles foretold of strangers who would maneuver the Five Tribes to gain influence over the legendary city-state. Will you fulfill the prophecy? Invoke the old Djinns and move the Tribes into position at the right time, and the Sultanate may become yours!
Designed by Bruno Cathala, Five Tribes builds on a long tradition of German-style games that feature wooden meeples. Here, in a unique twist on the now-standard worker placement genre, the game begins with the meeples already in place – and players must cleverly maneuver them over the villages, markets, oases, and sacred places tiles that make up Naqala. How, when, and where you dis-place these Five Tribes of Assassins, Elders, Builders, Merchants, and Viziers determine your victory or failure.
As befitting a Days of Wonder game, the rules are straightforward and easy to learn. But devising a winning strategy will take a more calculated approach than our standard fare. You need to carefully consider what moves can score you well and put your opponents at a disadvantage. You need to weigh many different pathways to victory, including the summoning of powerful Djinns that may help your cause as you attempt to control this legendary Sultanate.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 13
Category1: Abstract Strategy
Category2: Worker Placement
Rating: 4
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2004 |
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| origin | | | | | |
| HUMAN EVOLUTION ABSTRACT SCORING GAME
Starting from the heart of Africa, players in Origin will determine the course of mankinds expansion on our planet, with the tribes gradually growing more diversified over time while still maintaining links to their ancestors and to all inhabitants of Earth.
The game tokens in Origin come in three colors, three heights, and three thicknesses, and at the start of the game one of the smallest, skinniest pieces is placed in the center of Africa. In addition, you place three technology tiles at random on the tan, orange and violet sections of the tech chart and six random tiles on the brown section; the tech tiles show 1-5 arrows. You also shuffle tan, orange and violet decks of cards and place them in the appropriate places. Tan cards provide an one-shot effect, orange cards give you a permanent power, and violet cards present you with an objective you must meet; if you do so, you can play the objective card on your turn, and immediately draw another. You can play at most one card of each color each turn.
On a turn, a player takes one of three actions:
Place a new piece on a region of the game board, with this piece sharing two of the three characteristics of a piece in a neighboring region; the new piece cannot be shorter than the original piece. Mark this piece with a token of your player color.
Move one of your pieces on the board to an empty region, with short pieces moving only one space, medium height pieces moving up to two spaces, and tall pieces up to three.
Take over a region controlled by an opponent by moving one of your pieces into this region and relocating the opponents piece to the region your piece left. You can do this only if the attacking piece is thicker than the opponents piece.
When you place a new piece on the board or move an existing piece, youre rewarded based on the color of the space you occupy. If you place in or move into a tan, orange or violet region, either you take a tile and the top card of this color or you draw three cards of this color and keep one of them. For a brown region, you either draw two tiles from the brown section of the tech board or draw one tile from anywhere. The technology tiles must be acquired from low to high – so you cant acquire a 4 unless you have a 3 – but you can have multiple tech stacks. You must meet a certain technology threshold in order to play the orange cards and acquire their special power.
In addition, you can score points during the game by occupying a grassland on a continent or the two regions on opposite sides of a waterway strait.
Players take turns until either all of the pieces are on the game board or all the tiles have been acquired or all the cards of one color have been drawn. Once this happens, players tally their points for objectives, grasslands, straits, tech tiles, and cards still in hand to see who wins!
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 8
Category1: Area Control
Category2:
Rating: Not Rated
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2013 |
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| Helios | | | | | |
| MOVE THE SUN, SHINE THE LAND AND TEMPLES TO VICTORY
In Helios, players are high priests in a distant world of the sun god AHAU, and the power of the sun drives everything in the game as players try to build temples, expand cities, and make their civilization flourish.
Development can succeed, though, only if youve secured a supply of the limited raw materials available, and the more that youve built of your temple, the more expensive the remaining parts will be. Glass manastones are the games currency, and with them you can acquire people, increase the number of points youll score, and more.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 10
Category1: Resource Management
Category2:
Rating: 5
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2014 |
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| Mykerinos | | | | | |
| FAST AREA CONTROL
Mykerinos. Embody archaeologists seeking relics from ancient Egypt for powerful benefactors. Will you be convincing at the museums final exhibition?
The game takes place over four rounds. The game board is composed of four (or six in the last round) areas of two cards. These cards have 6 squares, possibly occupied by an obstacle (pyramid), and belonging to one of five benefactors (with their own color and symbol): Sir Brown, Lady Violet, Miss Blackmore, Lord Lemon and Colonel Tangerine.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 10
Category1: Area Control
Category2:
Rating: 4
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2006 |
| | | | | | |
| Panic: War of the Khan Succession | | | | | |
| WAR AREA CONTROL WITH BLUFFING
In fighting off the Western Xia, Genghis Khan died a sudden illness. The golden head of the family had not time to establish a successor to the empire. Now each surviving prince ranked himself heir to the empire. When word of the Khans death spread throughout Eurasia, the princes went to war to establish their worthiness.
Play Introduction:
1. Place the map on the center of the table.
2. Separate the 4 different region cards and shuffle the each stack, then place each stack on the corresponding position on the map.
3. Mix troops in their draw bag.
4. Prepare an discard area.
5. Each player takes a corresponding color screen and 10 tokens, and then randomly takes six troops card from the bag, and places behind their screen as the starting Standby Force
The game takes place over several battles. The first player to win a battle to earns the first player token (the Scarecrow).
In order, the players choose cards from the four regions where the battle will take place. Each battle takes place in player sequence, and takes place in 3 stages. After the 3rd stage of the battle is complete, a new region card is turned over, and play continues until a victor is declared.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 0
Category1: War Strategy
Category2: Bluffing
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 0 |
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| Yspahan | | | | | |
| DICE ROLLING DECISION BASED AREA MAJORITY GAME
1598. Yspahan the fair becomes the capital of the Persian empire. Thus, being placed at the center of the world, the city enjoys a period of cultural and economic blossoming. The cities and villages of the region intend to take advantage of this expansion. Caravans loaded with goods and jewels set out for the desert, bearing the promises of a radiant future....
The players embody merchants trading with Yspahan. Meaning to take advantage of the coming of the Shah’s supervisor, they score points by placing their merchandise in the right shops, by sending them to the caravan, and by constructing buildings.
In Yspahan, players draft their action for the turn in order, but a roll of the dice determines which actions are available and how powerful they will be. You can earn points in the short-term by claiming shops in the city or by sending your traders to the caravan. You can also improve your infrastructure by constructing buildings that improve your actions or picking up action cards that give you extra options. Every 7 turns (each week), points are scored in the city and caravan, and after 3 weeks, the wise traders will see who among them has profited the most...
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 8
Category1: Area Control
Category2: Luck driven
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2006 |
| | | | | | |
| Asara | | | | | |
| CARDS AS WORKER, COMPETE FOR TALLEST TOWER
In Asara, you take on the role of a wealthy builder competing to bring the most prestige to your name through constructing the largest and most ornate towers in the city. The game is played over 4 rounds (years), during which you will be acquiring the pieces for your towers and assembling them.
Players are given a hand of cards with different colors. On their turn, players play a card from their hand to an action space on the board. These spaces allow players to acquire tower pieces, get money, build a portion of their towers, etc. Once a card has been played in one of the action spaces on the board, all subsequent cards played in that area have to follow the original card’s color. Turns continue around the table until all players are out of cards for that round.
Scoring happens at the end of each round based on the number of towers a player has and the ornamentation present on those towers. After the scoring at the end of round 4, a final scoring occurs and bonus prestige points are given to the players with the largest towers of each color, the most towers, and the largest tower overall. The player with the most prestige points is the winner.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 10
Category1: Worker Placement
Category2:
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2010 |
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| Metropolys | | | | | |
| ABSTRACT BIDDING AND OUT POSITION YOUR OPPONENTS
Talented Urban planners and architects rival each other to construct luxury, elegant buildings of glass and steel, defying the laws of balance. Who will eventually impose their style to leave an indelible trail in the history of the city? The answer is in your hands!
The players are urban planners in quest of prestige. Over the course of the game, players will try to construct their buildings in the best locations. As soon as a player has placed all of their buildings, the game ends. The player with the most prestige is the winner.
Each turn a player will pick a space on the board and place one of their buildings (bidding markers) into the space, with the bidding number shown. Each following player can then either pass or raise the bid by placing a higher numbered building into an adjacent space. The eventual winner of the bid flips his building number side down and all losing bids are returned to players. A new round commences.
Spaces on the board are differentiated by Metro spaces, which are worth points and reward the player with the most at game end; archaeological sites, which are worth minus points and penalize the player who most recently built on one; and fashionable locations, which are just worth extra points. In addition, each player has up to two hidden agendas that they are secretly trying to achieve, such as trying to surround water fountains or occupy both sides of bridges.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 8
Category1: Area Control
Category2: Auction/bidding
Rating: 4
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2008 |
| | | | | | |
| Six | | | | | |
| Six is a deceptively simple-looking abstract strategy game in which two (or four) players take turns placing their colored hexagonal tiles while trying to create one of the three winning shapes – triangle, hexagon or line – out of six of their tiles. If all tiles have been placed from players hands without someone winning, players then take turns picking up a previously placed tile and moving it to a new position.
With the advanced rules, players are allowed to move a tile that will separate all the tiles into two or more groups; by doing this, some pieces are removed from the game, and this provides an alternate way to win by reducing the opponent to five or fewer pieces (as the opponent cannot possibly form a winning shape).
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 7
Category1: Abstract Strategy
Category2:
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2003 |
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| Ovo | | | | | |
| The eggs are done!
The aim of Ovo is to get all of your eggs back home after theyve been flipped over in your opponents camp. On the way to that camp, the players symbols on each egg are visible –
but on the way back those symbols are hidden so that the eggs, which can be moved by any player, are no longer identifiable. Since nothing looks more like an egg than another egg, your challenge is to keep track of your eggs as they hop, skip and jump their way home!
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 8
Category1: Abstract Strategy
Category2:
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2013 |
| | | | | | |
| Battle Sheep | | | | | |
| FOUR PLAYERS DENSE ABSTRACT
In Battle Sheep (first released as Splits), players start the game by constructing the board from identical four-hex tiles, then each player places hisher tall stack of discs on one of the border hexes. Players take turns removing some number of discs from the top of one of their stacks, moving that new stack of discs as far away as it can go in a straight line. Players must leave at least one disc behind when moving, so the board gradually fills up and movement opportunities become more and more scarce. The player occupying the most spaces at the end of the game wins!
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 0
Category1: Abstract Strategy
Category2: Area Control
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2010 |
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| Princes of the Dragon Throne | | | | | |
| DRAGONS, PRESTIGE, SHEEP, GOLD, AREA CONTROL
Princes of the Dragon Throne is an area control and resource management board game that uses deck building as a driver for the other game elements. Players select cards from a continually changing pool of opportunities to build a unique deck of recruits. Players manage resources to support their uprising, and use the influence of their recruits to gain control of the various Guilds of the Kingdoms, which in turn gives them special abilities to further their cause.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 14
Category1: Area Control
Category2: Deck Building
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2014 |
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| Red7 | | | | | |
| CONSTANTLY CHANGING SEVEN RULES
The rules of Red are simple: Highest Card Wins!
But Red is just one of seven games you’ll be playing. If you’re not winning the current game at the end of your turn, you’re out! And the last person standing wins the round.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 9
Category1: Cards
Category2:
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2014 |
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| Coda DaVinci Code | | | | | |
| SIMPLE GAME OF LOGIC AND GUESS
Conceal your secret code, outguess your opponent, deduce the solution, amaze your foes. In the game of CODA players try to crack each others code - a sequence of secret numbers. Guess an opponents secret number and it is revealed (by knocking it down). Guess incorrectly and you must reveal one of your own secret numbers! On each turn, a new number enters play, which helps you to narrow the possibilities and grow your own code. Common sense, intuition and your detective skills will guide you to success.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 8
Category1: Deduction
Category2: Abstract Strategy
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2002 |
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| Sky Tango (Sonne und Mond) | | | | | |
| PLAY WITH THE SUN AND MOON
In Sky Tango, you trace the cycles of the moon and the sun by creating series of cards that illustrate the passing of time. Eclipses can appear and ruin your paths, but dont let them discourage you for the sun and moon will always reappear. Will your solar and lunar cycles lead you to victory?
In game terms, the deck of cards consists of numbered sun and moon cards (some of which feature animals) as well as eclipse cards. Players place the cards in stacks in ascending order, either in front of themselves or in front of others. When a stack is five cards high, it can be removed and scored for points. Stacks can be interrupted by eclipse cards, which in turn can be covered by the appropriate sun or moon cards. Playing a card with an animal allows a player to play again, which is sometimes advantageous, but sometimes not. The player who removes the most cards from play wins!
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 8
Category1: Cards
Category2:
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2012 |
| | | | | | |
| Enigma | | | | | |
| SOLVE PUZZLES!!
In Enigma, players are exploring an ancient temple, solving different problems to make their way from room to room.
Problem solving is done simultaneously in four different categories — tangrams, block-stacking, canal-building and balance problems — and those who succeed expand the temple with the problem tile they solved, thus adding a new chain of rooms inside the temple or extending an existing chain of rooms. After placing a tile, a player can occupy a room on that tile with one of his three archeologists as long as no other room of the same color is already occupied in that chain. When the chain is closed — that is, when the chain has no loose ends that can be expanded upon — any archeologists in that chains room return to their players, and players score 1 point for each archeologist they receive. The game ends when somebody reaches 15 points, and the player who has the most points wins.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 0
Category1: Puzzle/Maze
Category2: Real Time
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2012 |
| | | | | | |
| Trajan | | | | | |
| Set in ancient Rome, Trajan is a development game in which players try to increase their influence and power in various areas of Roman life such as political influence, trading, military dominion and other important parts of Roman culture.
The central mechanism of the game uses a system similar to that in Mancala or pit-and-pebbles games. In Trajan, a player has six possible actions: building, trading, taking tiles from the forum, using the military, influencing the Senate, and placing Trajan tiles on his tableau.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 0
Category1: Worker Placement
Category2: Resource Management
Rating: 5
New Copy for sale: In Stock
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2011 |
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| Twister Hoopla | | | | | |
| PLAY A GAME WITH YOUR ENTIRE BODY
Its a TWISTER game with a twist! Instead of the game mat, you get 16 colorful rings and five different ways to play! Game 1 challenges you to use your bodies to hold the rings in place and the last team standing wins. Game 2 is a ring toss with your hands and feet to catch! Game 3 is a race to make it to the finish line with colored rings in hand. Game 4 is a fun version of the traditional TWISTER game: scatter the rings and then call out the moves; but dont fall or youre out! Game 5 gets you all tangled up with other players as you reach for rings, hang on to your TWISTER and try to stay on your feet. Inside or out, this game makes sure youre ready to throw a TWISTER party just about anywhere!
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 6
Category1: Party
Category2:
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2011 |
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| Kaiten Sushi | | | | | |
| SUSHI GAME WITH DEXTELITY
Players using chopsticks to remove wooden sushi from a central board. The score penalty if they lose the sushi on the way. If they dont, they put them on their own board, trying to from combinations of certain colours (Each sushi has a colour). In total its a cross between tile placing and dexterity.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 8
Category1: dextility
Category2:
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2010 |
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| Taluva | | | | | |
| ABSTRACT LAND BUILDING
In Taluva, players place tiles consisting of volcanoes and other terrain. Tiles can be placed adjacent to other tiles or on top of other tiles. Thus, the island expands outward and upward during the course of the game. At the same time, the players are trying to settle their people on the island by building huts, temples and towers. Each building type has a different restriction regarding placement. The game ends when all the land tiles have been played or when a player builds all of his buildings in two of the three types.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 8
Category1: Abstract Strategy
Category2:
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2006 |
| | | | | | |
| The Ancient World | | | | | |
| KICKSTARTER TOP WORKER PLACEMENT GAME OF 2015
In an ancient world forgotten by time, enormous titans terrorize the land. Five tribes have been fleeing from the titans for centuries, but things are about to change. Growing city-states pledge to end the reign of terror, determined to take on the titans and make the world a safer place for all. Each city-state competes to attract the tribes, eager for the strength of the combined peoples, who are now leaving behind old traditions with the hope that the titans can be defeated once and for all.
In The Ancient World, players compete to grow the largest and most influential city-state by managing citizens, treasury, and military and by defeating titans. Players take turns sending citizens to take special actions or using military cards to attack titans. One of the actions a citizen can perform is to build Empire cards, which give more citizens, money, and abilities.
A city-states influence in the world is measured by sets of tribe banners that it owns. Each Empire card has one or more tribe banners, and tribe banners can also be gained by defeating titans. Players gain victory points (VPs) for sets of tribe banners. After six rounds, the player with the most VPs from sets of tribe banners wins.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 13
Category1: Worker Placement
Category2:
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2014 |
| | | | | | |
| Scoville | | | | | |
| The town of Scoville likes it hot! Very hot! That means they love their peppers – but theyre too busy eating them to grow the peppers themselves. Thats where you come in.
Youve been hired by the town of Scoville to meet their need for heat. Your role as an employee of Scoville is to crossbreed peppers to create the hottest new breeds. Youll have to manage the auctioning, planting, and harvesting of peppers, then youll be able to help the town by fulfilling their orders and creating new pepper breeds. Help make the town of Scoville a booming success! Lets get planting!
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 6
Age & Difficulty: 13
Category1: set collection
Category2: action point allowance
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2014 |
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| The King is Dead | | | | | |
| The King Is Dead is a board game of politics and power struggles set in Britain in the chaotic period following the death of King Arthur. For the good of the country, a leader must unite the Scots, Welsh, and Romano-British — not by conquest but by diplomacy.
Players are members of King Arthurs court. Whether a loyal knight, a scheming lord, or an ambitious noblewoman, you all have one thing in common: power. As prospective leaders, each player uses their power to benefit the factions, gaining influence among their ranks. The player with the greatest influence over the most powerful faction is crowned the new ruler of Britain.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 12
Category1: Area Control
Category2:
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2015 |
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| Assyria | | | | | |
| WORKER PLACEMENT AND HAND MANAGEMENT SCORING
In Assyria, players represent tribes living in Mesopotamia, trying to develop on the desert and a limited fertile area located between two rivers that divide the board. In their quest for power (points), players build Ziggurats (permanent outposts), wells, make sacrifices to gods and try to get along with nobles of Assur - the capital of Assyria. The game is a light-weight eurogame, built around the short-term rapid point gains vs long-term investments dilemma.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 12
Category1: Worker Placement
Category2: Cards
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2009 |
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| Trickerion: Legends of Illusion | | | | | |
| PERFORM THE BEST MAGIC SHOW
Trickerion is a competitive Euro-style strategy game set in a fictional world inspired by the late 19th century urban life and culture, spiced with a pinch of supernatural.
Players take on the roles of rival stage illusionists, each with their own strengths and characteristics. They are striving for fortune and fame in a competition hosted by a legendary magician, looking for a successor worthy of the mighty Trickerion Stone, which is fabled to grant supernatural power to its owner.
Using worker placement and simultaneous action selection mechanisms, the Illusionists and their teams of helpers — the Engineer, the Assistant, the Manager, and a handful of Apprentices – obtain blueprints and components for increasingly complex magic tricks, expand the team and set up performances by visiting the Downtown, Dark Alley, Market Row and Theater locations on the main game board depicting a late 19th century cityscape.
The tricks are stored and prepared on the Magicians own Workshop game board, while the performances themselves take place at the Theater in the form of a tile placement mini-game with lots of player interaction. The performances yield Fame points and Coins to their owners based on the tricks they consist of. Fame points have multiple uses, but they also serve as a win condition - After turn 7, when the last Performance card is revealed, the game ends and the illusionist with the most Fame points wins.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 14
Category1: Worker Placement
Category2: Resource Management
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2015 |
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| Cappuccino | | | | | |
| STACK UP YOUR CUPS TO WIN
Cappuccino features 64 beautiful plastic coffee cups in four different colors, with each player owning one color. At the start of the game, place all the cups face down on the table, shuffle them, then group them together. On a turn, a player can capture a stack thats adjacent to one of his own stacks as long as his stack is the same height as or taller than the adjacent stack. As long as a players color stays on top of the stack, he controls that stack. If one or more stacks are isolated from the main group and all of these stacks are controlled by the same player, he can take possession of them, removing them from the game. When all the cups have been captured, players stack all of the cups they captured and whoever has the highest stack wins.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 8
Category1: Abstract Strategy
Category2:
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2013 |
| | | | | | |
| Deus | | | | | |
| CARDS AND LAND COMBOS
In Deus, players work to develop their own civilizations in a shared environment. Each player starts the game with five building cards, and on a turn a player either uses one of these cards to construct a building or discard one or more cards to make an offering to a god. Cards come in six colors: red for military, green for resource production, blue for trade, brown for scoring, purple for temples, and yellow for a variety of effects.
When you construct a building, you build it in the appropriate location on the modular game board — which is sized based on the number of players with the hexagonal tiles composed of seven landscape circles — then you place the card in your personal tableau in the appropriate stack of colored cards and activate the power of all of those cards already in your tableau, starting with the card at the bottom of the stack.
When you make an offering, you discard cards, then receive the help of a god associated with one of the cards that you discarded, with the number of cards determining the strength of the associated action. You then refill your hand to five cards.
The game ends either when all the barbarian villages on the game board have been surrounded and attacked or when all the temples have been constructed. Whoever has the most points wins.
Minimum Players: 0
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 14
Category1: Cards
Category2: Resource Management
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2014 |
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| Elysium | | | | | |
| SET COLLECTION WITH CARDS
Elysium is a game of set collecting and combinations in which players recruit cards representing heroes, items, powers and gods. These cards have many different powers and you can create powerful combination to earn gold (the help of the gods) and victory points (the favor of the gods). Each card belongs to one of the eight Olympians gods (a family), and shows a level (1 to 3).
During the five turns of the game, players will try to transfer their cards to the Elysium and write their own Legends, which are series of cards from the same family or from different families of the same level. The more epic the Legends, the more favor from the gods they’ll earn. But as they go to Elysium, most cards lose their power and players will therefore have to renounce some of their combinations !
A game of balance and opportunity with simple action, but constant dilemmas and complex strategies.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 14
Category1: Resource Management
Category2: Cards
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2015 |
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| Mythotopia | | | | | |
| AREA CONTROL THROUGH DECK BUILDING
Mythotopia is a deck-building game set in a medieval fantasy world that draws on the mechanisms found in A Few Acres of Snow with players customizing their personal card decks by drafting cards and expanding into provinces.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 13
Category1: Area Control
Category2: Deck Building
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2014 |
| | | | | | |
| Sultaniya | | | | | |
| TILE LAYERING WORKER PLACEMENT GAME
The sultan has issued a decree: Whoever can build the most amazing palace in the city of Sultaniya will be made Grand Vizier. Become a character from 1001 Arabian Nights and build graceful minarets, dazzling gates and soaring cupolas to draw the eye of the sultan and carve your name in history. Players will carefully select the best building tiles to erect the most impressive structures, scoring points for following patterns and fulfilling secret objectives. Earn sapphires, and use them to secure the services of the mighty Djinn, whose aid will be invaluable in your quest to create the most stunning palace the city has ever seen.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 8
Category1: tile placement
Category2: gambling
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2014 |
| | | | | | |
| The Builders: Antiquity | | | | | |
| BUILD, BUILD, AND BUILD
From the Hanging Gardens of Babylon to the Pyramids of Egypt, and without forgetting the Greek Parthenon, The Builders: Antiquity — a standalone card game based on The Builders: Middle Ages — offers a whole range of challenges to its builders. To face these challenges, you must put on your foreman clothes. Between hiring workers, managing their organization, purchasing slaves or tools, and taking out loans, youll have to make the right decisions to fulfill your dream: Becoming the greatest builder the age has ever known.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 10
Category1: Cards
Category2:
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2015 |
| | | | | | |
| Banana Party | | | | | |
| BANANA... HAVE A PARTY
Out of my way! cries Ben Banana, the boss of the jungle monkey gang. On which limb is he sitting now? If you jiggle the proper tree limbs in this 3D jungle, you might annoy Ben and his gang enough that you can then pilfer their beloved bananas.
In the end, whoever collects the most bananas in Banana Party will win the game and be able to host a party of her own...
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 5
Category1: Memory
Category2: Luck driven
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2013 |
| | | | | | |
| Fresco | | | | | |
| PAINT TO GLORY
In Fresco, players are master painters working to restore a fresco in a Renaissance church.
Each round begins with players deciding what time they would like to wake up for the day. The earlier you wake up, the earlier you will be in turn order, and the better options you will be guaranteed to have. Wake up early too often, however, and your apprentices will become unhappy and stop working as efficiently. They would much rather sleep in!
Then, players decide their actions for the turn, deploying their apprentice work force to various tasks. Youll need to buy paint, mix paint, work on painting the fresco, raise money (which youll need to buy the aforementioned paint!) by painting portraits, and perhaps even send your apprentices to the opera in order to increase their happiness. Points are scored mostly by painting the fresco, which requires specific combinations of paints, so youll need to buy and mix your paints wisely, in addition to beating other players to the paints and fresco segments you would like to paint.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 10
Category1: Worker Placement
Category2: Resource Management
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2010 |
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| Maharani | | | | | |
| ABSTRACT TILE LAYERING GAME
In Maharani, the players are architects helping the King to complete the Taj Mahal palace by placing beautiful mosaic tiles. These tiles come into play through a rotating rondel, which enables every player to place the tiles in different parts of the palace. Once the mosaic is complete, the best architect wins the game.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 8
Category1: Abstract Strategy
Category2:
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2012 |
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| Queens Architect | | | | | |
| MATH...CALCULATE YOUR PATH TO VICTORY
In Queens Architect, youre in demand all over the realm! Villages, monasteries, and towns need your help to construct important buildings and establishments. Assume the role of an architect and assemble a competent band of craftsmen. Raise buildings and assist the people with small repairs or farm work. The Queen will reward you with her appreciation and with coins. Gain the privilege of constructing the new royal palace, and you will win the game as the lands most successful architect!
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 10
Category1: Resource Management
Category2: Worker Placement
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2015 |
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| Gold am Orinoko | | | | | |
| LUCK AND TACTICS COMBINED WITH SIMPLICITY
Gold fever at the Orinoco river! Deep in the heart of the jungle explorers have discovered the ruins of an ancient culture on the shores of this mysterious river. The brave teams of adventurers immediately set off from the legendary rocky knoll, Guarda – the guardian of the gold – in search of treasure amongst the ruins. The gold, however, lies on the other shore of the raging river, and the river can be crossed only by leaping from trunk to trunk, as the tree trunks float dangerously downstream.
In Gold am Orinoko, the players need the right amount of luck and tactics to get their adventurers over the tree trunks to the other side of the river because, as they shift and jump over the tree trunks, they always have to keep an eye on the drifting trunks and the other players. The one who proves to be extremely brave and who brings his adventurers safely and surely across the Orinoco will be able to collect the most gold, thus winning the game.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 7
Category1: Luck driven
Category2:
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2013 |
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| Da Luigi | | | | | |
| SIMPLE GAME FULFILLING FOOD ORDERS
Buying ingredients, greeting guests, serving tables — running a restaurant can be hectic, and in the end only the one who is Da Luigi can keep an overview of everything and earn a star for the restaurant. If only you didnt have to deal with the other players who always act as unwelcome guests...
Your goal in Da Luigi is to get as many guests as possible, although only satisfied customers will always be good customers. Variety in the gameplay comes from the 90 individual guest cards, with you always wanting to find a free table for wealthy guests with plenty of time while pushing off grumpy customers in a hurry to your opponents.
Players buy ingredients for their meals from the market and pay for them in time — and time is always against you because if you dont serve a guest his desired food quickly, say, by the end of the game, youll lose points in the end.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 8
Category1: Cards
Category2: Resource Management
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2015 |
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| The Magic Labyrinth | | | | | |
| A BIT OF MEMORY, DEDUCTION AND LUCK
The little magician apprentices have lost some magic objects inside of the master’s maze. Now they try to collect them before the Master notices anything. However, in the maze there are invisible walls and only one of the missing objects is revealed at a time. So they have to make their way through the maze by means of a good memory and lots of skill.
Each player moves their magician over the board while trying not to bump the labyrinth below. Each magician is joined with a magnetic ball so if you hit a wall the ball drops and you have to start all over again.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 9
Category1: Abstract Strategy
Category2: Memory
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2009 |
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| The Palaces of Carrara | | | | | |
| SCORE AT THE RIGHT TIME
In The Palaces of Carrara, players want to buy the marble from this famous region of Italy as cheaply as possible – but any reduction in price will benefit opponents as well. Maybe youll find it profitable to instead invest in the buildings created from this marble? Maybe itll be more worthwhile to grab the expensive raw material when bigger buildings in town turn out to be not so lucrative?
The game includes two levels of play: beginner and advanced. Co-designer Wolfgang Kramer says, To understand the game, its important that players play the beginner version to learn the game mechanisms and how they mesh together.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 10
Category1: Resource Management
Category2: Worker Placement
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2012 |
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| Automania | | | | | |
| BUILD A CAR IN ONE OF TWO MARKETS
In Automania, you run a car factory, trying to produce the most popular cars in the market. To achieve this, you buy tiles to upgrade and customize your factory, and hire specialist employees to help you.
Central to the game are the factory boards: Each player has a factory with three assembly lines, and each assembly line produces one type of car. You can put machine tiles along your assembly lines to change the specifications of your cars. However, your three assembly lines intersect, so each machine tile placed might affect more than one type of car — which means you have to think carefully about where you put those machines.
When a car is produced, it must be sold in one of two markets, and the better the specifications of the car is in line with the demand in the chosen market, the more popular the car will be. The most popular cars reap the highest profits, earning money or prestige — which is what you need to win this game.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 12
Category1: Resource Management
Category2: Worker Placement
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2015 |
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| Discoveries | | | | | |
| ROLL AND COMPLETE EXPEDITIONS
In Discoveries, you play one of the Expedition members: Lewis, Clark, Gass or Ordway. Your goal is to compile as much knowledge as possible in your journal, and in this way advance science thanks to your discoveries.
The TribeDiscoveries cards you gain during the game score discovery points at the end. To get these cards, you have to perform exploration actions, and to do this you use dice.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 14
Category1: Luck driven
Category2: Resource Management
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2015 |
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| Coconuts | | | | | |
| THROW THOSE COCONUTS INTO THE CUP
Coconuts is a dexterity game based on the Monkey King character from Chinese mythology.
In the game, players launch coconuts toward a field of cups in the middle of the playing area. Land in a cup, and you get to stack it on your player board; land in a cup on someone elses board, and you get to move it to yours. By playing special Monkey King Magic cards, you can force opponents to shoot blind, take long shots, or otherwise bollix their efforts to cup a coconut. Whoever first completes a pyramid of six cups on his player board wins!
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 4
Category1: dextility
Category2:
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2013 |
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| Biblios | | | | | |
| CHOOSE CARDS THEN BID CARDS
The object of the game is to score the most Victory Points. You win Victory Points by winning any of the 5 categories: Illuminators, Scribes, Manuscripts, Scrolls, and Supplies. You win a category by having the highest total number of workers (Scribes, Illuminators) or resources (Manuscripts, Scrolls, Supplies) in that category. This is determined by the numbers in the upper left corner on the cards. At the start of the game, each category is worth 3 Victory Points. As the game progresses, the values on the Value Board will change and some categories will become worth more or less Victory Points than others. The game is divided into 2 stages: a Donation stage and an Auction stage. During the Donation stage, players acquire free cards according to an established plan. In the Auction stage, players purchase cards in auction rounds. After the two stages, winners of each category are determined and Victory Points awarded. The player with the most Victory Points wins.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 8
Category1: Auction/bidding
Category2: Cards
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2007 |
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| Gold West | | | | | |
| EURO GAME OF 2015
In Gold West, players compete as prospectors building their mining empires while vying over the precious metals of the frontier. In a delicate balance of resource management and area control, players must plan their building strategies while carefully managing their supply tracks to refine the right resources at the most opportune times. Stay a step ahead of the competition and you could lead the West into the Golden Age.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 13
Category1: Resource Management
Category2: Worker Placement
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2015 |
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| Karuba | | | | | |
| MULTI SOLITAIRE TILE LAYING FUN
This is a tile-laying race game with players starting with boards that are identical, and one player drawing tiles that they all will use. They race to get their explorers to temples first and earn points. Along the way they can collect additional points by collecting items off the paths they create.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 8
Category1: tile placement
Category2:
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2015 |
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| Survive: Escape from Atlantis 30th Anniversary Edition | | | | | |
| SURVIVE BY ESCAPING FROM THE ISLAND
Survive is a cutthroat game where players seek to evacuate their pieces from an island that is breaking up, while remembering where their highest-valued pieces are located to maximize their score.
An island made up of 40 hex-tiles is slowly sinking into the ocean (as the tiles are removed from the board). Each player controls ten people (valued from 1 to 6) that they try and move towards the safety of the surrounding islands before the main island finally blows up. Players can either swim or use boats to travel but must avoid sea serpents, whales and sharks on their way to safety.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 8
Category1: Luck driven
Category2: Adventure
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 1983 |
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| Stratego Conquest | | | | | |
| QUICK WAR
Stratego Conquest is an entirely new Stratego game for two to four players. The game is played on a map of a small continent that forces players to confront each other on multiple fronts.
The object of the game is to capture your opponents flags while protecting your own. Before the game begins, players divide up the continent and place their units on the map. During the game you can use action cards to deploy more units, spy on your opponents, and even make pinpoint strikes deep into enemy territory. Maneuver your units across the board, wage war, and be the last player with a flag to win the game.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 8
Category1: War Strategy
Category2:
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2015 |
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| Hungry Hungry Hippos | | | | | |
| SIMPLE GAME OF SPEED WITH LUCK
Some marbles are released onto the playing area; players attempt to get their hippos to eat as many marbles as possible.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 4
Category1: dextility
Category2: Real Time
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 1903 |
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| Dont Rock the Boat | | | | | |
| STAY ON THE BOAT TO WIN
A 3D boat and 2-piece water wave are assembled, and 16 pirate penguins are divided according to the number of players. The object is to balance your pirate penguins on the boat without making it tip. Players take it in turns to place their penguins standing up on the boat, wherever they wish. As soon as the boat rocks and one or more penguins fall over the game, or round, ends. The last player before the player who rocked the boat is the winner.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 5
Category1: dextility
Category2: Real Time
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2012 |
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| skyliners | | | | | |
| In Skyliners, players collectively build buildings and skyscrapers in a shared building plot, with each player trying to satisfy bets theyve made as to which buildings theyll be able to see in the five rows of buildings on their side of the playing area.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 8
Category1: Area Control
Category2: gambling
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2015 |
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| Quadropolis | | | | | |
| Each player builds their own metropolis in Quadropolis (first announced as City Mania), but theyre competing with one another for the shops, parks, public services and other structures to be placed in them.
The game lasts four rounds, and in each round players first lay out tiles for the appropriate round at random on a 5x5 grid. Each player has four architects numbered 1-4 and on a turn, a player places an architect next to a row or column in the grid, claims the tile thats as far in as the number of the architect placed (e.g., the fourth tile in for architect #4), places that tile in the appropriately numbered row or column on the players 4x4 city board, then claims any resources associated with the tile (inhabitants or energy).
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 8
Category1: gambling
Category2: set collection
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2016 |
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| Greedy Greedy Goblins | | | | | |
| Greedy Greedy Goblins is a simultaneous play, strategic tile placement and bluffing game.
Players lead a clan of goblin miners who want to gather the most valuable collection of gems. Coins are scored for gem tiles on the mines you have claimed, with bonuses for dynamite tiles — but if there is too much dynamite, the mine (and all the riches within) are destroyed!
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 14
Category1: set collection
Category2: Real Time
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2016 |
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| Orongo | | | | | |
| Who can first build his stone statues in Orongo? The players are part of the exciting story of the mysterious Easter Island, far away from civilization in the midst of the harsh Pacific Ocean. During the game, they pay homage to the gods in the Orongo ceremonial grounds and with their help create the giant stone heads that everyone in the modern world recognizes, the still unique to the world moais.
Whoever bids more shells than his opponents will grab the best building sites and the most profitable resources for the construction of the stone colossi. Orongo is an original bidding and building game with simple rules.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 10
Category1: Auction/bidding
Category2:
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2014 |
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| Bora Bora | | | | | |
| In Bora Bora, players use dice to perform a variety of actions using careful insight and tactical planning. The heart of the game is its action resolution system in which 5-7 actions are available each round, the exact number depending on the number of players. Each player rolls three dice at the start of the round, then they take turns placing one die at a time on one action. Place a high number on an action, and youll generally get a better version of that action: more places to build, more choices of people to take, better positioning on the temple track, and so on. Place a low number and youll get a worse action – but youll possibly block other players from taking the action at all as in order to take an action you must place a die on it with a lower number than any die already on the action.
Three task tiles on a players individual game board provide some direction as to what he might want to do, while god tiles allow for special actions and rule-breaking, as gods are wont to do. The player who best watches how the game develops and uses the most effective strategy will prevail.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 12
Category1: set collection
Category2:
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2013 |
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| Dead Drop | | | | | |
| Dead Drop is a game that involves elements of memory, deduction, and crafty maneuvering. As secret agents working for different organizations, players scour the globe seeking information that will help them find the location of a hidden explosive device. Agents must trade information and sell secrets in order to learn the location of the device and grab it before it falls into the hands of another agency!
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 13
Category1: Deduction
Category2: Cards
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2015 |
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| Kenjin | | | | | |
| A merciless war is raging throughout feudal Japan, fueled by the hunger for power or the desire for peace of its great lords. As one of them, you must defend your territory from the enemy threatening your borders. Now its time to command you troops and read through your opponents strategy to take over the battlefield and prevail!
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 12
Category1: Cards
Category2: Bluffing
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2015 |
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| Sapiens | | | | | |
| Sapiens is a short and easy-to-learn tile-placement game that can prove much deeper than it seems for gamers. Each player has a personal game board that represents the valley on which they will play tiles to determine the journey of their tribe through several prehistoric life scenes. Their aim is to gather food points on the plains and in the forests of the valley and to get shelter points for reaching caves in the mountains.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 10
Category1: tile placement
Category2:
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2015 |
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| City of Iron: Second Edition | | | | | |
| In City of Iron, 2-4 players compete to build up a small nation in a world of machines, magic, and money. Become the leader of one of four rival nations: the industrious humans, the toad engineers, the scholarly Cresarians, or the clever hogmen. Produce goods like machine parts and bottled demons to gain wealth, or research steam-age technology and recruit mercenaries to control the continent. If you want to establish new cities, you’ll build schooners or airships to reach faraway lands and flying islands. Your cities have limited capacity, so you’ll have to decide what to keep and what to demolish when building advanced structures. The future of a nation is in your hands. Build unbreakable foundations for an empire or disappear into the dusty pages of history.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 13
Category1: Deck Building
Category2: Cards
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2016 |
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| My Village | | | | | |
| A new chapter opens in the Village chronicles! In this standalone game, each player is in charge of his very own village, controlling its entire fate. Known places and characters conjoin with new mechanisms to make up a gaming experience that feels so familiar and is yet so different from Village!
Village enthusiasts will recognize some core elements, for example, the life-time track and the village chronicle, yet the new dice mechanism gives a whole new twist and dynamic to taking actions. My Village is of similar game weight as Village.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 12
Category1: gambling
Category2:
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2015 |
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| The Club | | | | | |
| The Club is a slightly satirical game about life in the fast lane - a board game about love and about peoples need to meet one another.
The whole game takes place in a nightclub and the game board is the dance floor. On their turn players push three new dancers to the dance floor from their own bar counter (edge of the game board) and as they come into play they push others towards the center of the dance floor. Once two dancers meet in the heat of the night they can be made into couples and the better the match the more players score. If only two of the four visible qualities match then the dancers have a one-night-stand which is not a very long term fun and is thus worth only one point. With three matching qualities the dancers actually like one another, start dating and that is worth four points. If all the four visible qualities match then the dancers get the happily ever after the one true love we all search for and thus it is worth full 5 points.
In the end the player who has been the best cupido wins the game. In other words the best scorer wins.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 15
Category1: set collection
Category2: tile placement
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2008 |
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| Wyatt Earp | | | | | |
| In Wyatt Earp, the players are bounty hunters who work cooperatively and competitively to try to capture the most notorious outlaws of the old west. They do this by collecting and playing sets of cards for the various outlaws. When a player plays a set, he both adds to the reward and improves his chances for collecting the reward for that outlaw. At the end of each hand, players collect money for the outlaws that they helped in capturing. After several hands, the player who has collected the most money in rewards is the winner!
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 8
Category1: Cards
Category2: set collection
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2001 |
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| Ships | | | | | |
| Ships deals with the history of shipping, from the time of the Phoenicians to the modern era. The game is divided into three ages, marked with different ship types. The first age is that of the galley, followed by the age of the galleon, then finally the steamship age. The board combines a track showing the development of ships, similar to that in Automobile, with a map of Europe and an area representing the rest of the world.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 13
Category1: Area Control
Category2: action point allowance
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2015 |
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| Cry Havoc | | | | | |
| Cry Havoc is a card-driven, asymmetric, area control war game set in a brutal science fiction setting. Each player commands one of four unique factions with varying abilities and units. The game includes 54 custom miniatures, a large format board, and over one hundred unique cards, all with stunning new artwork.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 10
Category1: War Strategy
Category2:
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: In Stock
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2016 |
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| London Dread | | | | | |
| London Dread is a co-operative game set in Victorian England. Players take on the role of investigators trying to uncover plots on the way to confronting a story specific finale.
The game is gritty and thematic, featuring a series of dark events and story lines (such as the appearance of a caped killer on the streets of London) with a hint of the supernatural.
The game is broken into a series of stories, usually played over the course of 2 chapters, in which players alternately participate in a timed planning phase where various obstacles and plots are uncovered and then an untimed story phase where players resolve the effects of their planning.
The result is a tense and truly cooperative experience where players must work together, communicate well, plan effectively, and use the strengths of their investigators in an attempt to stay a step ahead on the mean streets of the city.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 14
Category1: story telling
Category2: Cooperative
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2016 |
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| The Oracle of Delphi | | | | | |
| In Stefan Felds new game The Oracle of Delphi, the players ships travel across a large variable game board of hexagonal tiles showing islands and the surrounding waters. Each player aims to reach certain islands to perform the twelve tasks given by Zeus: e.g., to collect offerings of different colors and to deliver them to corresponding temples, or to slay monsters of a specific type (and color), all of which can be discovered on the islands.
In order to execute these color-dependent actions, you are given three colored dice each turn, the so-called oracle dice. Rolling the dice (at the start of the turn) is equivalent to consulting the oracle, whereas the results represent her answers. The answers determine which actions you will be able to take, but you will always have three actions per turn. However, a slight divergence from your fate is often possible.
In addition to the oracle, you can request support from the gods and you can acquire favor tokens, companions, and other special abilities that will help you win the race against other competitors.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 12
Category1: pick and deliever
Category2: Resource Management
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2016 |
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| Kanagawa | | | | | |
| In Kanagawa, the great bay of Tokyo, the Master Hokusai decided to open a painting school to share his art with his disciples. You are one of these disciples, and more than anything, you want to prove yourself worthy of the “crazy, old artist”. Follow his teachings to expand your studio and paint your preferred subjects (Trees, Animals, Characters, Buildings), all while paying attention to the changing of the seasons in order to make the most harmonious print… the one that will become the work of your lifetime!
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 10
Category1: set collection
Category2: Cards
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: In Stock
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2016 |
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| Animals on Board | | | | | |
| The accessible and clever game Animals on Board features a two-tiered cardboard ark that will hold each players animal tiles. At the start of the game, each player draws three animal tiles, chooses one of these tiles, and places it on a bracket of his ark without showing it to the other players.
The leftover animals that players initially drew begin forming what will become a single animal collective in the center of the table. The total number of animals in the collective is based on the number of players, but one animal in the collective will always be face-down. Each player also starts with one food crate and may never have more than five food crates at any time.
On each turn, a player has two options: (a) split a collective of animals into two groups and take a food crate, or (b) take one of the animal collectives into their ark by paying a food crate for each animal in that group. As players choose their group of animals, they drop out of the turn. The first player to drop out of a turn starts the next turn. The game ends when an ark has at least ten animals on board.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 8
Category1: set collection
Category2:
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: In Stock
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2016 |
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| Ice Cool | | | | | |
| Ice Cool is a flicking game in which each round one of the players takes the role of the Hall Monitor (also called the Catcher) – his aim will be to catch each other penguin and get points for that. The others (also known as Runners) will try to run through several doors, thus gaining fish (that give them points) on their way. When either the Hall Monitor has caught each other penguin once or any of the others has gone through all 3 doors that have fish on them, the round is over. Each player will take the role of the Hall Monitor once and at the end of the game the winner will be the one with the most points on their fish cards.
The penguins can be flicked in a straight line, make curves and even jump over the walls! Each player will have to use the best of their skills in order to get the most points in this fun and exciting game. Its not just cool, its ICE COOL!
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 6
Category1: dextility
Category2:
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: In Stock
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2016 |
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| Sunrise City | | | | | |
| In the tile-laying game Sunrise City, players build a city with zone tiles, bid for control of those zones, then place building tiles on the city zones to their best advantage. Each round the players use role cards to grant them special abilities in the various game phases. Points earned during play move score tokens up a ten point track. Players score one benchmark token if their score marker overshoots the star at the top of their score track but earn two benchmarks if their token lands on the star by exact count.
Thus, Sunrise City is not a race to score the most points; its a contest to grow the city in a manner that will earn you the right number of points at the right time to maximize your benchmarks. After three rounds, the player with the most benchmarks wins.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 10
Category1: Civilization/City Building
Category2: tile placement
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2012 |
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| Ulm | | | | | |
| Ulm is at its heyday. The construction of the Ulm cathedral has not yet been completed, but the city is already wealthy and prestigious.
In Ulm, players try to expand their spheres of influence and to make optimal use of the hustle and bustle on the marketplace around the cathedral.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 10
Category1: Puzzle/Maze
Category2: Resource Management
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: In Stock
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2016 |
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| The Golden Ages | | | | | |
| In The Golden Ages, you lead your civilizations through history. The game lasts four different eras, during which you develop technologies, create fine arts, erect buildings, and build wonders. Youll send explorers to discover the continents, found cities in distant lands, and send your soldiers into battles.
The first player starting a Golden Age during an era chooses a History Judgement card that states the way all the players will score in that round. Each player who started a Golden Age continues taking money at his turns until all other players have passed.
There are many ways to score points — artists, the judgement of history, wonders, technologies, attacks, money, secret future technologies, etc. — as well as many different ways to achieve a victory. Will you succeed in evolving your civilization through history, overwhelming your opponents on the way to glory?
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 12
Category1: Resource Management
Category2: Worker Placement
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2014 |
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| Signorie | | | | | |
| Italy during the 15th century was a country full of intrigue and magnificence. The tumultuous political conditions created the perfect breeding ground for the birth of a new form of government (called Signoria) and the rise of the most ambitious noble families. After having acted in the dark for a long time, the time has finally come for them to take control of the cities and shape Italy’s future. Their stories will go down in history.
In Signorie, you will play the role of a Signore, a Lord of one of the most prestigious families of the Renaissance. One at the time, players choose one die from a common pool. (Twenty dice in five colors are rolled at the beginning of each round.) You place it on your player board (your city) and perform one of the possible actions. The color of the chosen die determines the action, and the number on the die is a discount on the cost of the action.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 12
Category1: Resource Management
Category2: Worker Placement
Rating: 4
New Copy for sale: In Stock
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2015 |
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| Final Touch | | | | | |
| In Final Touch, players hire themselves out as art forgers willing to copy the masterworks of great artists, with all of them competing to create — or rather, re-create — the same image. But only the player who uses the right colors to finish the image will receive money for their work, and this skill is sure to reveal the best painter...or the best bluffer...
In more detail, players play Touch of Color cards from their hand to either improve or smear the forgery, working both together and against their fellow painters. The first player to put the final touch on any forgery in the making earns the money for that forgery, while smearing pays out to their opponents and moves them on to the larger paydays. The first artist to earn $25 by putting the final touch of paint on a forged painting wins!
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 8
Category1: Bluffing
Category2: Cards
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: In Stock
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2016 |
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| Cave Troll | | | | | |
| In Cave Troll, each player controls a party of explorers raiding the cave troll’s lair. Using knights, dwarves, thieves, and other adventurers, the players search the lair for gold and magical artifacts. The players must be careful, however, because they aren’t only competing against each other, but against savage orcs, terrifying wraiths, and the fearsome cave troll itself!
Cave Troll is a fast-paced dungeon-crawling board game of strategy, looting, and monster-bashing from Tom Jolly, the creator of Drakon.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 10
Category1: action point allowance
Category2: Area Control
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2002 |
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| Via Appia | | | | | |
| Via Appia, the most famous road of the Roman Empire, is under construction. Be a part of this historic event and finish the road that connects Rome and Brindisi. Prove your intuition in the quarry to get the best stones. Whoever builds the most valuable sections and reaches the different cities early will be victorious and the most famous builder in all of Rome.
Goal of the Game (from the Rules)
Rome needs a connection to Brundisium, and the players have been tasked with building the Via Appia in order to allow for fast travel between the two cities. To create the road, they’ll need to break off stone tiles in the quarry, then travel to Brundisium, laying out the tiles and creating the path that all will follow in the years ahead. This travel costs sesterces, but will bring crucial victory points and glory from Rome in return.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 8
Category1: dextility
Category2: tile placement
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: In Stock
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2013 |
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| City of Spies: Estoril 1942 | | | | | |
| In City Of Spies: Estoril 1942, players are competing against each other to form the most powerful and influential secret organization of spies. Based on historical facts, the game takes place on famous locations in Estoril.
Six locations are randomly selected to be used for the first round, such as casinos, hotels, beaches, etc. Control of these will be fought over in each of the four rounds of the game. Special Agents are then placed on each location as the reward for who have the most influence on that location.
Players begin the game with the same hand of Agents (tiles) and will take turns placing these tiles in the open spaces of the various locations on the board. At the end of each round players check each location to see which player gains the reward for that location.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 10
Category1: Area Control
Category2: Bluffing
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: In Stock
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2015 |
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| Android: Mainframe | | | | | |
| Run fast, score big! Android: Mainframe is a fast-paced strategy game set in the not-too-distant future of the Android universe!
In the game, you and up to three opponents are elite cybercriminals known as runners who are competing for control of a vulnerable banks various accounts. At the beginning of the game, you mark your arrival by the placement of your first access point. Then, each turn, you get to take a single action: establish another access point, execute a program, or pass. Your goal is to use the programs at your disposal to secure your access points so that they control as many of Titans vulnerable accounts as possible.
Most of the generic programs write pathways between Titans various nodes, allowing you to place a blue partition between the nodes on the board. Whenever your partitions seal off a section of the board containing only your access point or access points, they are secured and flipped face down. They are no longer vulnerable to your opponents programs, and you will score the accounts they control at the end of the game.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 12
Category1: Abstract Strategy
Category2:
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: In Stock
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2016 |
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| World Monuments kickstarter version | | | | | |
| Dive into the world of master builders and construct monumental buildings of historic significance.
In each game of World Monuments, you and your fellow players choose one of four buildings and start constructing it from the ground up: The Capitol in Washington, the Notre Dame cathedral in Paris, the basilica San Pietro in Rome, or the Taj Mahal mausoleum in Agra. Only the most talented master builder among the players gains many points and has a chance of winning the game, after the building is completed.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 8
Category1: set collection
Category2: Puzzle/Maze
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: In Stock
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2016 |
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| Aquasphere | | | | | |
| News from the depths! The AquaSphere is a research facility stationed deep below the oceans surface, and your skilled team — consisting of an engineer, a scientist, reprogrammable bots, and exploratory submarines — is trying to gather as much data as possible.
The game board in AquaSphere has two main areas: A research station comprising six sectors in which your scientist conducts experiments and a headquarters where your engineer supervises preparation of the bots.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 12
Category1: Resource Management
Category2: Worker Placement
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: In Stock
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2014 |
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| Quarantine | | | | | |
| In Quarantine, players seek to build the biggest and most efficient hospital, while trying to keep ahead of the steady stream of incoming patients arriving at their doors. In this tense struggle for medical supremacy, players must infuse new life into their hospitals through the timely addition of special rooms and abilities. But beware the highly contagious patients! Infection can spread quickly, causing entire wards to be shut down under quarantine!
In game terms Quarantine is a tile-laying game with each player having an entrance and lobby. More than fifty other tiles are available, with two each of 14 different special room tiles. Players acquire these tiles and others via a novel Price-Drafting mechanic. Players set a price for the tiles they want to draft, but other players get the chance to buy them first, so youll need to price your services accurately in order to supply your hospital while not overpaying. With dozens of tiles available, no two hospitals will be set up the same way...
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 13
Category1: tile placement
Category2: action point allowance
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Not available
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2013 |
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| Prêt-à-Porter | | | | | |
| Pret-a-Porter is an economic strategy game set in a world of fashion. Players run clothes companies and fight for dominance during fashion shows. It is – perhaps – one of the most cruel and ruthless of all our games. Money can be a dangerous weapon.
During the game players open new branches and outlets, hire new workers and try to gain new capabilities. New Design Agencies, Brand stores or Preparation rooms are opened, Accountants, Models and Designers are hired, lucrative contracts are signed to allow for short-term profits and expand company’s competencies.
Every single month player’s company gains new capabilities.
Each quarter held fashion shows – each player has to prepare a collection of clothing and has to show it on the show. The public, media, experts estimate collections in four categories and award prizes and diplomas. The more awards (represented by ‘stars’ in the game) will be collected at the show, the more money the players earn for selling their collection!
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 10
Category1: Worker Placement
Category2: Resource Management
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Not available
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2010 |
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| Imhotep | | | | | |
| In Imhotep, the players become builders in Egypt who want to emulate the first and best-known architect there, namely Imhotep.
Over six rounds, they move wooden stones by boat to create five seminal monuments, and on a turn, a player chooses one of four actions: Procure new stones, load stones on a boat, bring a boat to a monument, or play an action card. While this sounds easy, naturally the other players constantly thwart your building plans by carrying out plans of their own. Only those with the best timing — and the stones to back up their plans — will prove to be Egypts best builder.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 10
Category1: Abstract Strategy
Category2: Puzzle/Maze
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: In Stock
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2016 |
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| The Voyages of Marco Polo | | | | | |
| In The Voyages of Marco Polo, players recreate this journey, with each player having a different character and special power in the game. The game is played over five rounds. Each round, the players roll their five personal dice and can perform one action each turn with them.
After five rounds, the game ends with players receiving victory points for arriving in Beijing, fulfilling the most orders, and having reached the cities on secret city cards that each player gets at the start of the game; these points are added to the VPs gained during the game.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 12
Category1: Worker Placement
Category2: set collection
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Not available
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2015 |
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| Kanban: Automotive Revolution | | | | | |
| The setting for the game Kanban: Automotive Revolution is an assembly line. The players are ambitious managers who are trying to impress the board of directors in order to achieve as high a position as possible in the company and secure their careers. With promotions come advantages at the factory, such as more space to store precious materials and greater prestige to accelerate your ascent. Through solid management, you must strive to shine next to your peers. You need to manage suppliers and supplies, improve automobile parts, innovate — anything to stay on the cutting edge, or getting your hands greasy on the assembly line in order to boost production. You must exercise wisdom in choosing which projects you should start, selecting only those that will give you the upper hand and shunning those that will bog you down or cause the unthinkable — failure — which would diminish you in the eyes of the board.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 12
Category1: Resource Management
Category2: Worker Placement
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2014 |
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| Dead Mans Draw | | | | | |
| Dead Mans Draw is a simple and strategic card game of risk and reward for 2 to 4 players. Players take turns drawing cards and combining their special abilities to plunder the most loot without busting their entire hands.
The core of your turn in Dead Man’s Draw is all in the flip: pulling the top card off the deck and using its special ability. Your turn isn’t over until you say it is, though. You can keep pulling cards as long as you like – until you play a card of a suit already seen, at which point you lose everything. Knowing when to stop and bank your cards is the biggest decision you make in Dead Man’s Draw, but being too timid lets braver opponents pass you up with bigger, more profitable turns.
The cards’ special abilities are key to success in Dead Man’s Draw, and they build off of each other. Each suit in DMD has an effect that the player can target when they flip a card of that suit.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 13
Category1: Luck driven
Category2: Cards
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: In Stock
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2015 |
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| Yokohama | | | | | |
| Once Yokohama was just a fishing village, but now at the beginning of the Meiji era its becoming a harbor open to foreign countries and one of the leading trade cities of Japan. As a result, many Japanese products such as copper and raw silk are collected in Yokohama for export to other countries. At the same time, the city is starting to incorporate foreign technology and culture, with even the streets becoming more modernized. In the shadow of this development was the presence of many Yokohama merchants.
In YOKOHAMA, each player is a merchant in the Meiji period, trying to gain fame from a successful business, and to do so they need to build a store, broaden their sales channels, learn a variety of techniques, and (of course) respond to trade orders from abroad.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 12
Category1: Resource Management
Category2: Worker Placement
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2016 |
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| Worlds Fair 1893 | | | | | |
| The Worlds Fair of 1893 in Chicago was a spectacular international exhibition that showcased many great achievements in science, technology, culture, and entertainment. Acting as organizers of the fair, players work diligently to increase their influence throughout the fair and obtain the grand exhibits that will be put on display. The organizer who has earned the best reputation when the fair begins will emerge the victor.
On each turn of Worlds Fair 1893, the active player sends a supporter to one of the five areas and gather all of the cards by it. New cards are then added to some of the areas, and the next player takes a turn.
The five areas represent sections of exhibits, like Fine Arts and Electricity. Some cards represent exhibit proposals in one of those five areas, others represent influential people who give you bonus supporters, and other cards represent tickets for attractions and concessions along the Midway.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 10
Category1: Area Control
Category2:
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: In Stock
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2016 |
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| Super Motherload | | | | | |
| The Solarus Corporation discovered an infinite source of rare and precious minerals deep in the red crust. Resources that will end the energy crisis on Earth and fuel the deep space expeditions planned as population swells beyond capacity.
You have been chosen to lead an elite crew of Pod pilots who will delve below the surface of Mars in Solarus Corporations first major drilling expedition. As a part of this maiden voyage, the corporation has agreed to let you reinvest any wealth you uncover back into training your Pod pilots, increasing their skills and efficiencies. Will you be remembered as the greatest Solarus Corporation employee in the galaxy?
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 13
Category1: Deck Building
Category2:
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2015 |
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| Battalia: The Creation | | | | | |
| A competitive, fast pace, strategic deck builder, which combines map construction, hero and area control and unique calendar mechanics.
In the base game, all players will buy useful artefacts and hire battle and labor units to support their armies. They will build roads and cities and send their heroes to battle - every opponent will have to find the most powerful mixture of all these assets and apply them at the right moment, so eventually the player could claim to be the rightful ruler of Battalia and win the game. A victory can be obtained through aggressive conquest or a peaceful development of your own city system (if a player is lucky enough and the others let him ... :). Battalia has 2 game end conditions - full conclusion of the game board or first player, who achieves 5 cities of level four, immediately ends the game. The winner is the player with the most victory points at the and of the game and this is not necessary the same person, who made the final cut!
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 13
Category1: War Strategy
Category2: Deck Building
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Not available
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2015 |
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| Vikings | | | | | |
| Vikings is a fast economic game. Despite the nominal Viking theme, no actual exploration or pillaging is involved.
The resources in the game consist of coins and several types of ship tiles, island tiles and meeples. In each of 6 rounds, a random set of 12 tiles and 12 meeples becomes available. Players take turns buying and placing pairs of meeples and tiles. There is no direct player interaction, only indirect contention for resources during the buying phase.
The most unusual aspect of the game is the pricing wheel, which pairs meeples with tiles and sets their prices.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 10
Category1: Auction/bidding
Category2: tile placement
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2007 |
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| Vikings on Board | | | | | |
| Vikings on Board is a family-strategyworker-placement game in which your objective is to set sail with your clan of Vikings on board the ships best supplied for a successful voyage, while simultaneously placing bets on which clan you think will control each ship as they set sail.
Ships are divided into three sections: the front (bow), the middle (body), and the end (stern). During the course of the game, you will place supplies on the ships’ bows, while moving around their body pieces so that your clan has majority control of a ship when it sets sail. Stern pieces are used to show which ships have already set sail.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 8
Category1: other
Category2:
Rating: Not Rated
New Copy for sale: Not available
In-store Play Copy: Not available
Year Published: 2016 |
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| Antarctica | | | | | |
| In a distant time – so far in the future that either global warming or technical progress is so advanced that windmills are going swimmingly in the antarctic climate – the rising sea level and increased resource consumption has driven mankind to increase investment in polar research. The Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research sees an increasingly creative interpretation of the Antarctic Treaty System.
Your objective in Antarctica is to develop research centers in Antarctica and to mine resources – for research purposes only, of course. The sun orbits Antarctica counter-clockwise, and each ship it thaws moves on for scientific progress. At the end of the game, victory points for all kinds of majorities are granted. Will your consort be the one that gained a fortune ... er, has done most to rescue mankind?
Turn order is determined by the sun. Whenever it shines on one of your ships, you may erect buildings, recruit new scientists, build more ships, or do scientific research. The game ends when all buildings have been erected, or when one player has placed his last scientist.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 10
Category1: Area Control
Category2: Worker Placement
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2015 |
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| Medina second edition | | | | | |
| The year is 1822. After years of decay, it is time to rebuild the medina, located at the foot of the Atlas mountains. The architects and engineers of the city work to erect large and beautiful palaces and to renovate the damaged city wall. As the reconstruction of the old city progresses, the citys inhabitants flock through the alleys, and the contours of the new city gradually reappear!
Each turn, players must place two pieces on the board (except when allowed to skip this with a tea tile), either augmenting an existing building (or starting a new building if the current building of that color is finished), or expanding one of the other features of the city, like the market or the walls. Each player will claim one building of each of the four colors by the end of the game, giving one point per wooden piece attached to the building.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 10
Category1: Civilization/City Building
Category2: Puzzle/Maze
Rating: 4
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2014 |
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| Cacao | | | | | |
| Cacao is a tile-placement game that immerses players in the exotic world of the fruit of the Gods. As the chief of your tribe, you must lead your people to prosperity through the cultivation and trade of cacao — and to do that, youll need to put them to work in the best way possible.
In the game, each player has an individual deck of square worker tiles, with the number of workers on each side of the tile varying from tile to tile. The playing area starts with only a couple of jungle tiles in play: a cacao field and a small market; two jungle tiles are laid face up, and the remaining jungle tiles stacked as a draw pile.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 8
Category1: tile placement
Category2:
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Not available
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2015 |
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| Bomarzo | | | | | |
| In Bomarzo, you will have to delve into the mystery of the park, to propitiate the gods and obtain their favor. You’ll play the role of one of the feudal lords of the Orsini and you’ll manage one of four minor feuds, Collepiccolo, Castelvecchio, Montenero or Mompeo, trying to earn the esteem of your lord. If you’ll develop your feud in the best way you will manage to prevail over your rivals. Do not forget the supernatural forces that dwell in Bomarzo: your existence and your achievement will be influenced by how you manage to turn in your advantage the will of the monsters of the park.
Bomarzo is a game of deep strategy for 2-4 players, the short duration of which gives to the players choices even more decisive importance. The careful management of resources will allow you to easily take advantage of the power of the monstrous deity of the park. Each turn you will be able to perform various operations in your fief and also you will have to choose which god ingratiate, through workers placement bound by auction. But beware: each divinity of the park requires a very specific offer to concede his favor otherwise unleash his monstrous fury on unwary visitors! To triumph in Bomarzo you not only need the best development but mostly to have tied your for-tunes to the most powerful and prestigious deity.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 12
Category1: action point allowance
Category2: Civilization/City Building
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Not available
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2015 |
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| Il Vecchio | | | | | |
| Il Vecchio is set in the 15th century, when Cosimo de Medici – also called Il Vecchio (the Elder) – and his family ruled over Tuscany and its capital Florence. The players represent the heads of Florentine families trying to rise their families to power. To achieve this, they send out their family members to locations in Tuscany to perform various tasks, specifically to recruit followers (knights, assassins, abbots) and collect money as both are needed to take control of provinces in neighboring regions; controlled provinces provide power and a bonus action. Another task is to gain the favor of the squirearchy as these favors are indispensable when it comes to getting an official position in Florence, e.g., a seat on the town council to enhance actions in Tuscany, or a noble rank to gain power at the end of the game.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 10
Category1:
Category2:
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Not available
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2012 |
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| Bounce-Off | | | | | |
| Bounce-Off is a ball-bouncing game for two to four players where the object is to use the balls to make a pattern shown on a card. If youre playing with two two-player teams, each team gets four balls. If youre only playing with two players, each player gets eight balls. Flip over one of the pattern cards to see which pattern you need to create. The green cards are easier than the blue cards. Then, you can either take turns bouncing your balls into the grid or bounce the balls all at once. If your balls create the pattern first, you win that card. The first team or player with three cards wins the game.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 7
Category1: dextility
Category2:
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2013 |
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| Touria | | | | | |
| In Touria, Princess Tara has decided to marry – but not just anyone, of course. She expects a lot from her husband-to-be: Heroic deeds and precious gifts are a must.
A group of bold adventurers set out to pit themselves against dragons, dig up gems from the haunted mines of the country – and make a good deal from time to time, since the father of the bride demands an appropriate price for his daughters hand. Tourias dancing towers show the heroes the way, so the brave men and women go from one adventure to the next. Brave women? Of course – or have we forgotten to mention that Taras handsome brother, Prince Talan, is also of marriageable age?
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 10
Category1: Worker Placement
Category2: Luck driven
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2016 |
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| Taluva Deluxe | | | | | |
| The Deluxe edition contains the basic Taluva game at increased size, as well as the following new expansions: Ship expansion (A new wooden piece, which can be placed in lagoons, adjacent to settlements), 2-Hex tiles expansion, and game-boards.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 8
Category1: Abstract Strategy
Category2:
Rating: 5
New Copy for sale: Not available
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2015 |
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| VOLT: Robot Battle Arena | | | | | |
| VOLT: Robot Battle Arena is a tactical game of robotic combat. Be the first player to score five victory points. Players earn victory points by having their robot on the active control point at the end of the round or by destroying opposing robots. You must use your wits to out-think and out-maneuver your opponents to win!
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 13
Category1: fighting
Category2:
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2014 |
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| Covert | | | | | |
| Control your network of spies, gather intel, and break codes in Covert, a game of tactical dice placement, set collection, and timing set in Cold War Europe. Players race to complete high risk Missions by deploying their agents and acquiring the necessary equipment, all while keeping an eye on the needs of future missions and the advances of rival agencies.
Each round, players roll their hand of dice and in turn allocate them to different actions, like moving their Agents, acquiring Agency Cards, completing and acquiring new Missions, and more. Dice are placed on action circles that require players to place their dice numerically adjacent to dice that have already been placed, allowing for rival agencies to thwart their plans — but a good Agent always has a backup plan, and there are ways around everything that stands in your way.
Covert combines simple concepts with a depth of play that allows players the freedom to combine special abilities and card combos to complete their Missions and overcome obstacles. Utilize your assets. Make your move. Dont let anyone stand in your way.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 10
Category1: other
Category2:
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2016 |
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| My Happy Farm | | | | | |
| My Happy Farm is a game in which players strive to become the best farmer.
All players have their own farm with four nice animals. They feed those cuties. Animals which are fed well fill their stomachs with tasty food, grow and become longer and longer, even reaching unnatural lengths. The longer your animal, the better a farmer you are. The owner of the longest animal receives bonus points. Animals which arent fed even one time lose their weight, take offense, and leave their bad master. Moreover, they will take some victory points from the bad master to punish him, so players have to be good and careful farmers and feed their animals well to create Their Own Happy Farm.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 8
Category1: Resource Management
Category2: Cards
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2011 |
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| Village | | | | | |
| Village is a game full of tactical challenges. A smart and unique new action mechanism is responsible for keeping turns short and yet still tactically rich and full of difficult decisions. Also unique is the way this game deals with the delicate subject of death; as a natural and perpetual part of life in the village, thoughts of death will keep you focused on smart time-management.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 12
Category1: Worker Placement
Category2: Resource Management
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2011 |
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| Nippon | | | | | |
| Nippon is an Area Majority Game in which players control Zaibatsu and try to develop their web of power by investing in new industries, improving their technological knowledge, shipping goods to foreign countries or using them to satisfy local needs, and growing their influence and power as they oversee the era of rapid industrialization of Japan.
The foundations of the big Zaibatsu were the traditional silk workshops, but soon the conglomerates diversified their influence and power, building a complex structure of interconnected companies that made them giant players in the world’s new industrial era. Each player takes the reins of one of these big corporations and tries to develop it in order to grow and achieve power.
To win the game, players must carefully choose which types of industry to invest in to get the most influence over the Japanese islands. Every action that is taken helps to forge their own path to new opportunities.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 12
Category1: Worker Placement
Category2: Resource Management
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: In Stock
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2015 |
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| Burano | | | | | |
| Burano is played over four seasons, 14 rounds altogether. Through the novel cube pyramid-driven mechanism, players take turns paying coins to operate their cube pyramid during each round. The operation of the color-coded cubes would trigger certain actions, such as fishing, lace making, and house roofing, which will earn players victory points (VP). At the end of the game, whoever has earned the most VP wins.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 12
Category1: set collection
Category2: Civilization/City Building
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2015 |
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| La chasse aux Gigamons | | | | | |
| This is the last event to enter the guild of magicians. It remains the ultimate lesson to master: the invocation of Gigamons. After this test, one that will catch more Gigamons be promoted to Elemage. Good luck and good luck to all!
Aim of the game
Find the pairs Elemons to the exchange against Gigamons.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 5
Category1: Puzzle/Maze
Category2:
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: In Stock
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2014 |
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| tahiti | | | | | |
| In Tahiti the goal is to collect crops (coconuts, taro, bananas, spice) and fish from the surrounding islands to score points with bonuses for making full sets and acquiring the most of their family favorites which are hidden from the other players.
The game starts off with just your home island and its immediate neighboring islands. Players build up the archipelago of fertile islands with the guidance of Haumea for the first part of the game until all islands are in play. Players seed the islands each turn giving them some control over where crops replenish. Once the archipelago is formed, the late season is triggered when crops start becoming scarce, with players occasionally stopping an island from producing altogether. Although the late season may not be as good for crops, fishing becomes easier with bonuses given to the waters around some of the islands.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 13
Category1: pick and deliever
Category2: tile placement
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Not available
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2012 |
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| kingdomino | | | | | |
| In Kingdomino, you are a Lord seeking new lands in which to expand your kingdom. You must explore all the lands, wheat fields, lakes, and mountains in order to spot the best plots. But be careful as some other Lords also covet these lands...
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 8
Category1: tile placement
Category2:
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Not available
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2016 |
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| The Legend of Cheung Po Tsai | | | | | |
| During the Qing Dynasty, following the death of the infamous pirate Cheung Po Tsai, four factions compete to claim his treasure map by being the first to sail all the way around Cheung Chau island.
Each round, players must play cards matching the wind direction determined by the spinner, in order to make progress around the board. They can also play cards to shoot at opponents (they can return fire) to move them backwards along the track, steal cards from opponents hands, swap places with an opponent, or just to move extra spaces or draw extra cards.
Each factions character has some special abilities. The factions are fishermen, pirates, and the Qing and Portuguese navies. The first player to reach the last (24th) space on the board wins.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 6
Category1: Race
Category2:
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Not available
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2012 |
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| kingdoms | | | | | |
| In Kingdoms, the English-language version of Auf Heller und Pfennig, players try to collect the most gold by establishing castles in the richest regions of the realm while avoiding hazards like dragons, swamps, and trolls. The 2011 edition includes detailed plastic castles, a streamlined rulebook, and the addition of a wizard tile—one that increases the rank of adjacent castles, multiplying their scores—previously available only at game conventions.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 9
Category1: Area Control
Category2: Abstract Strategy
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Not available
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 1994 |
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| Ubongo 3d | | | | | |
| Newest addition to the Ubongo series. This time players place wooden tiles over two layers in 2-sided puzzle cards, one side for beginner players and one for more advanced ones. Players collect gemstones for their performance and player with the most valuable gem collection at the end wins the game.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 10
Category1: Puzzle/Maze
Category2: Real Time
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Not available
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2009 |
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| City Hall | | | | | |
| City Hall sees players competing to become Mayor of New York City. They do this by attempting to be the most successful at both bringing people into the city as well as campaigning for the citizens approval. Whoever best balances these two goals will win the election.
There are seven offices within City Hall. These offices deal with a different aspect of building the city or campaigning, such as the Tax Assessor, Surveyor, or Zoning Board. In a round, each player will get to activate one of these offices. However, just because you activate an office doesnt mean you will get to use it. The other players will have an opportunity to use their influence to steal control of the office away from you. Keeping it will require countering with your own influence. However, you can instead let another player control that office this round and add their influence to your own, giving you a leg up on controlling things later on.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 13
Category1: Auction/bidding
Category2: Civilization/City Building
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: In Stock
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2014 |
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| Château Roquefort Castle of Appenzell | | | | | |
| Each player controls colored mice and tries to collect pieces of cheese in Castle Appenzell. On their turn, players spend action points to put new mice into play, reveal corridors in the castle, move their mice around the castle, or push a tile into play, which changes the maze of cheese pieces underneath. If two of a single players mice reach a place with the same kind of cheese showing, the player obtains a piece of this cheese. The first player with 4 different pieces of cheese wins the game.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 6
Category1: Memory
Category2: action point allowance
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: In Stock
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2007 |
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| Eminent Domain | | | | | |
| Survey the galaxy to expand your civilization – will you colonize nearby planets, or take them over by force? Harvest resources for trade, and do research to improve your technology. Build the best civilization and win the game!
Eminent Domain is a civilization-building game in which your civilizations abilities are based on a deck of Role cards. At the beginning of the game each player has the same deck of cards, with just two cards for each Role in it. Every turn you must choose a Role to execute (and like Glory to Rome or Puerto Rico, your opponents will get a chance to follow suit), and in doing so you will add one of those Role cards to your deck. When executing a Role, you can boost its effect by playing cards out of your hand matching the Role you have chosen. For example, the more you Research, the better you get at Researching (because youll have more Research cards in your deck).
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 10
Category1: Deck Building
Category2: Cards
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: In Stock
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2011 |
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| Royal Palace | | | | | |
| Royal Palace is primarily a game of majority. Each player has servants he will place appropriately on the nine parts of the palace. On his turn, a player will perform actions based on the number of servants available on each location. If he has, for example, three servants on the mint, he gets three pieces of gold. As a bonus, the player with the majority of servants on a location receives generally a bonus extra action.
Some places allow you to add new servants or to move them from room to room. The purpose is to earn gold and royal seals and to use those to recruit the lofty noblemen waiting in the castle park. The latter will be the main source of victory points at the end of the game.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 12
Category1: action point allowance
Category2: Area Control
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Not available
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2008 |
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| Geometry Strategy | | | | | |
| Toy of the Year Finalist for Rookie of the Year, as the only board game!
First player to place their Sphere on the Bullseye is the winner. How hard can that be?
Well, you have 1, 2, or 3 opponents with their sets of pieces trying to stop you, and take you out of the game.
Your Sphere has no defense and at the center of the board theres a Red Zone where everything changes….
Geometry Strategy is a strategic and tactic board game where even the element of luck is tactics.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 12
Category1: Abstract Strategy
Category2:
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Not available
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2015 |
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| Crokinole | | | | | |
| This game is like shuffleboard in the round. Players take turns flicking disks on a board, trying to score points by attaining central regions. The main stipulation being that contact with the other teams pieces must be made in order for the disk to remain on the board afterward. Although the game uses quite a bit of skill to flick the disks, theres a very significant strategy element to the game. There are many different variants and rules, as this game is very old and has had many different incarnations over the years.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 8
Category1: dextility
Category2:
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Not available
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 1903 |
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| Super-Vampire | | | | | |
| In Super-Vampire, the evildoer Dr. Garlic has set his evil plan in motion to place garlic everywhere in the freshly cleaned crypt! This means you need to hurry and get rid of all the garlic before sunrise. Luckily, super vampires keep special garlic-eating pets called Gorlocs inside their towers, but Gorlocs dont like to run or walk or do just about anything other than eat garlic, so you must fly around the crypt and collect all the garlic to bring it back to the tower before sunrise.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 6
Category1: dextility
Category2:
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Not available
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2016 |
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| KUMO Hogosha | | | | | |
| A long time ago, the gods decided to pass Earth down to Mankind and retreated to live in the Heavens. They erected the Cloud Temple, a symbolic border between the two worlds and home to the Stone of Balance.
As the sun shone from the Heavens and the Earth blossomed, the gods decided to open the gates of the Temple to only the most skilled people, allowing them to compete to become Kumo Hogosha, Guardians of the Clouds.
Throughout the centuries, valiant warriors – the Kumotori – fought against each other in the Rotating Arena of the Four Winds where the renowned Stone of Balance resides.
Each year, a prestigious tournament is held in which a single winner is elevated to the rank of Kumo Hogosha, a demigod amongst men.
The challengers for this title compete in a duel that combines strength and strategy to demonstrate their skill in a myriad of fighting techniques.
Today it is your turn to continue writing the legend and face these legendary warriors. Climb into the Arena, master its ever-changing environment, and bring the Stone of Balance into your opponent’s camp to become a Kumo Hogosha!
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 8
Category1: Abstract Strategy
Category2:
Rating: 4
New Copy for sale: In Stock
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2015 |
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| Bottlecap Vikings | | | | | |
| Bottlecap Vikings is a small rondel game with a ton of replayability. The rondel spaces are not fixed in place- they are randomized at the beginning of the game. Not only that, theyre double-sided, so you might never play on the exact same configuration twice. There are two different victory conditions, and players each have a small tech-tree in their city with multiple viable paths. Furthermore, the city cards are double-sided, one side is identical for all players, and the other side is unique. To top it off, the crux of the gameplay is the push-your-luck damage system, which makes you value spaces differently depending on how damaged you or others already are.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 8
Category1: Resource Management
Category2:
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2015 |
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| Grand Austria Hotel | | | | | |
| In the thick of the Viennese modern age, exquisite cafés are competing for customers. Inspiring artists, important politicians, and tourists from all over the world are populating Vienna and in need of a hotel room. This is your opportunity to turn your little café into a world famous hotel. Hire staff, fulfill the wishes of your guests, and gain the emperors favor. Only then will your café become the Grand Austria Hotel.
The start player rolls the dice, sorting them by the rolled number and placing them on the corresponding action spaces. On a turn, a player chooses one of the six actions and carries it out. The number of the available dice in the corresponding action spaces determines how much the player gets from the action. They then remove one of the dice and can carry out additional actions. With the different actions, a player can get the necessary drinks and dishes, prepare the rooms, or hire staff.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 12
Category1: Worker Placement
Category2: Resource Management
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: In Stock
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2015 |
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| Mystic Vale | | | | | |
| A curse has been placed on the Valley of Life. Hearing the spirits of nature cry out for aid, clans of druids have arrived, determined to use their blessings to heal the land and rescue the spirits. It will require courage and also caution, as the curse can overwhelm the careless who wield too much power.
In Mystic Vale, 2 to 4 players take on the role of druidic clans trying to cleanse the curse upon the land. Each turn, you play cards into your field to gain powerful advancements and useful vale cards. Use your power wisely, or decay will end your turn prematurely. Score the most victory points to win the game!
Mystic Vale uses the innovative Card Crafting System, which lets you not only build your deck, but build the individual cards in your deck, customizing each cards abilities to exactly the strategy you want to follow.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 14
Category1: Cards
Category2:
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2016 |
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| Dingos Dreams | | | | | |
| Dingo and his friends have gotten lost on Walkabout! Visit their dreams to lead them home!
Dingos Dreams is a delightful and clever family game for 2-4 players. Each player competes to be the first to successfully guide his animal through the dream world.
Each player starts with a grid of 25 tiles, set up at random in a 5x5 dreamscape. Each player also starts with one extra tile, with a picture of their animal on it. The opposite side of all dreamscape tiles also has a picture of the animal. Each turn, a random card is drawn, telling players which tile they should flip. When a player flips a tile, it means their animal is traveling through a part of the dreamscape. Each players goal is to guide their animal through the dreamscape by positioning him in a specified pattern (which is different each game). After a card is drawn, a player takes their extra animal and slides him into the dreamscape, shifting one row or column of tiles until a new, different tile emerges from the opposite side. The player will use this tile to shift another column or row on the next turn, and so on, until one players dreamscape tiles match the goal. The player then shouts their animals name-- Dingo!, for example, to win the round.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 8
Category1: tile placement
Category2: Puzzle/Maze
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2016 |
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| Steam Time | | | | | |
| Its the year 1899, and strange phenomena are being observed in places like Stonehenge and the pyramids of Egypt. Time goes crazy, and newly discovered crystals have exhibited strange properties that allow for the creation of fantastic apparatuses.
In a race to exploit these discoveries, the rapidly industrializing nations have used them to construct gigantic steam-driven airships to travel through time and space. In Steam Time, the race is on for long-lost knowledge, vanished cultures, and hidden treasures. Travel to past ages, search for crystals, and use your crystals wisely to stay ahead of your competitors.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 12
Category1: card drafting
Category2:
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2015 |
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| The Castles of Burgundy | | | | | |
| The game is set in the Burgundy region of High Medieval France. Each player takes on the role of an aristocrat, originally controlling a small princedom. While playing they aim to build settlements and powerful castles, practice trade along the river, exploit silver mines, and use the knowledge of travelers.
The game is about players taking settlement tiles from the game board and placing them into their princedom which is represented by the player board. Every tile has a function that starts when the tile is placed in the princedom. The princedom itself consists of several regions, each of which demands its own type of settlement tile.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 12
Category1: Resource Management
Category2: Worker Placement
Rating: Not Rated
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2011 |
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| Wiraqocha | | | | | |
| Wiraqocha Valley is represented by an adjustable board consisting of 22 hexagonal tiles, each of them being identified by a number from 1 to 12, or a dice combo (pairs or straights). In his turn, each player rolls some six-sided dice, combining them to take possession of territories, or to protect from the opponents the ones he already owns. Every hexagon affords resources or special capacities, which are means to influence die results to fit one’s strategy. There are three ways to win: bring back a huge cargo of Somnium to the Empress; acquire enough scientific knowledge to build the Leviathan, a terrifying weapon serving the Kingdom; or find in the temple depths the four relics that will allow you to reach Wiraqocha’s treasure.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 12
Category1: Worker Placement
Category2: Resource Management
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2011 |
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| Isle of Trains | | | | | |
| In Isle of Trains, players are train operators, building trains with the right mix of freight cars needed to complete delivery contracts before your opponents.
Cards are used in multiple ways: they can be built as train cars or buildings supporting your train line, used as currency to pay the cost of building those new train cars and buildings, or used as cargo to load on available train cars.
When loading cargo on an opponent’s train, players receive an immediate benefit or action, but they are also giving their opponent the cargo they just might need to be able to complete a delivery contract and score big!
Balancing the need to upgrade your train, take advantage of benefits from loading other players trains, and complete delivery contracts first is the key to being the most successful train operator on the Isle of Trains!
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 13
Category1: Cards
Category2: set collection
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2014 |
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| Dolmen | | | | | |
| Dolmen is a new edition of eggertspieles Die Dolmengötter (2005) that includes new graphics and minor changes to the gameplay.
In this luck-free majority game, each player has three druids that he moves across the board. When a druid is moved, he usually leaves a stone behind, and in this way stone circles are eventually created on the board. Each time a player gains the stone majority within such a circle, he places a dolmen with a hidden number (1 to 4) in its center. Over time, stacks of dolmen grow all across the board.
The game ends as soon as any player runs out of dolmen or stones. For each dolmen a player has placed, he scores a number of points that depends on the dolmens position within its stack as well as the size of the circle surrounding it. The player with the most points wins.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 10
Category1: Abstract Strategy
Category2: Area Control
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Not available
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2015 |
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| Dust Tactics | | | | | |
| Dust Tactics is a tactical miniatures board game for 2-4 players. In an alternate 1940s reality, alien technology fuels gigantic machines of war as the forces of the Axis and Allies clash over rare mineral deposits that could inevitably decide the outcome of the war. With over 30 highly detailed miniatures, nine double-sided terrain boards, 12 custom dice, unit cards, terrain, and plastic scenery, Dust Tactics delivers everything you need to wage battles in the immersive world of Dust.
A deep and engaging game setting, featuring stunning artwork by Paolo Parente, will draw players into a world desperately at war... and the highly detailed miniatures only add to this immersion. Eight included scenarios and nearly limitless customization ensures hundreds of hours of replayability, while scalable rules offer a satisfying experience for players of all levels.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 10
Category1: War Strategy
Category2:
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Not available
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2010 |
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| Abalone Quattro | | | | | |
| Whereas Abalone was a two-player game with only black and white marbles as playing pieces, Abalone Quattro comes with four colored sets of 14 marbles and a new sculpted board that allows three players to compete against one another or two teams to go head-to-head. The goal of the game remains the same: Be the first player (or team) to push six opposing marbles off the playing area.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 8
Category1: Abstract Strategy
Category2:
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Not available
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2003 |
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| Grog Island | | | | | |
| The core of Grog Island is its unique auction mechanism, which uses five colored dice. The players use these dice and the pips on them to create and raise bids. While the winner of an auction can claim buildings on certain peninsulas, the players who have passed are also rewarded: Not only do they receive goods like grog bottles or treasure maps but they also visit merchant ships where they can trade these goods for money, parrots or treasure chests. The auction mechanism of Grog Island makes for tactical and interesting gameplay as in certain moments, passing can be almost as rewarding as winning an auction. Finding the right balance between bidding and backing out is the key to winning.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 10
Category1: Auction/bidding
Category2: other
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2014 |
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| Essen | | | | | |
| In ESSEN, players are exhibitors who are trying to sell their games at a large board game fair in the well-known western German city of Essen. By placing their sellers, creating buzz, and managing their promotional efforts correctly, they can turn a profit and get board game geeks excited about their games. Each player board is themed as a certain type of game publisher (eurogames, ameritrash, war games, RPGs) with the reverse side showing other possibilities (abstract, childrens games, party games, LARP).
ESSEN is a game for 2-4 players, and by combining two copies of the game up to 8 players can play at the same time.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 12
Category1: Area Control
Category2: action point allowance
Rating: 2
New Copy for sale: Not available
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2014 |
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| Escape: Zombie City | | | | | |
| In Escape: Zombie City, you and your fellow players are survivors of the zombie apocalypse, hiding in a church of a big city. Everything is going great — well, as great as it can be when zombies are all around — but this is all about to change as a big wave of zombies is coming to town, and they want your brainy goodness. Your only option is to gather all the necessary supplies, start up the old VW Microbus, and get the hell outta Dodge (the city)!
Escape: Zombie City is played with a soundtrack that lasts fifteen minutes. After that length of time, the zombie hordes have gotten too big to defeat, and you have lost your mind, so to speak...
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 10
Category1: Real Time
Category2: Cooperative
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Not available
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2014 |
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| Glüx | | | | | |
| Glüx is a family game all about illuminating rooms. Every player tries to play the brightest light tokens in different areas on the board, thus gaining the majority in those areas. Who can place their light tokens in the cleverest way and illuminate the most areas?
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 8
Category1: Abstract Strategy
Category2:
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2016 |
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| ELEMENT | | | | | |
| Fire, water, earth, wind — these four elements have driven mankinds mythology, philosophy and science for eons. Now, master the power of these primal forces in this abstract game of capture and area control.
In Element, players take turns drawing and placing four element stones to encircle opposing sages. Each element has unique properties that players can use to block an opponents movement. Feed walls of flame, move raging rivers, raise impenetrable mountain ranges, and even bend wind to your command. Transform one element into another with the rule of replacement or sacrifice element stones to help your sage avoid capture.
Understanding the subtle, diverse, yet powerful nature of the four elements is key to surrounding your opponent and claiming victory!
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 14
Category1: Abstract Strategy
Category2:
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2017 |
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| Artifacts Inc | | | | | |
| In Artifacts, Inc., 2-4 players compete to grow the most famous archeology company. Players roll dice, which represent their troop of adventurers, and place them on cards in order to find artifacts, sell them to museums, and purchase new cards representing their company assets. Players can choose to focus on making lots of money by selling artifacts, having museum majorities, creating the best combination of expeditions and buildings, or searching below the waves for lost cities and hidden treasures. The first player to reach 20 reputation triggers the end of the game, and the player with the most total reputation wins!
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 13
Category1: set collection
Category2: Area Control
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2015 |
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| Fields of Green | | | | | |
| Fields of Green takes place in the second half of the 20th century. Players take the role of farm owners trying to expand their property and business. By adding fields, livestock and facilities, they build an economic engine that will bring them closer to victory.
Fields of Green, inspired by Among the Stars, is played over four rounds (years) during which players draft cards and add them to their ever-expanding farms. At the end of each year comes the harvest season when they must water their fields, feed their livestock, and pay maintenance costs in order to receive valuable resources that will allow them to further expand in the next year.
Through various means, player eventually convert their wealth to victory points, and the player who gathers the most by the end of the fourth year wins.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 12
Category1: tile placement
Category2: Civilization/City Building
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2016 |
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| CV | | | | | |
| CV means curriculum vitae – your resume – and in the dice and card game CV you will lead a character through his entire life, making many choices about friends, relations, jobs and activities. Everything is possible: a dream job, new relationships and skills. You can be whoever you want!
Gameplay is built around the Yahtzee-style dice rolling and re-rolling system. On their dice, players are trying to roll sets of symbols that allow them to acquire cards; each round these cards give benefits of some kind, such as new symbols and special abilities. At the end of the game, each kind of card scores points for the player.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 10
Category1: Luck driven
Category2: set collection
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2013 |
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| Raiders of the North Sea | | | | | |
| Raiders of the North Sea is set in the central years of the Viking Age. As Viking warriors, players seek to impress the Chieftain by raiding unsuspecting settlements. Players will need to assemble a crew, collect provisions and journey north to plunder gold, iron and livestock. There is glory to be found in battle, even at the hands of the Valkyrie. So gather your warriors, it’s raiding season!
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 12
Category1: Worker Placement
Category2: Resource Management
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2015 |
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| Panamax | | | | | |
| In Panamax each player manages a shipping company established in the Colón Free Trade Zone. Companies accept contracts from both US coasts, China and Europe and deliver cargo in order to make money, attract investment and pay dividends. At the same time the players accumulate their own stock investments and try to make as much money as possible in an effort to have the largest personal fortune and win the game.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 12
Category1: Resource Management
Category2: Worker Placement
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Not available
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2014 |
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| Samurai | | | | | |
| Part of the Knizia tile-laying trilogy, Samurai is set in medieval Japan. Players compete to gain the favor of three factions: samurai, peasants, and priests, which are represented by helmet, rice paddy, and Buddha tokens scattered about the board, which features the islands of Japan. The competition is waged through the use of hexagonal tiles, each of which help curry favor of one of the three factions — or all three at once! Players can make lightning-quick strikes with horseback ronin and ships or approach their conquests more methodically. As each token (helmets, rice paddies, and Buddhas) is surrounded, it is awarded to the player who has gained the most favor with the corresponding group.
Gameplay continues until all the symbols of one type have been removed from the board or four tokens have been removed from play due to a tie for influence.
At the end of the game, players compare captured symbols of each type, competing for majorities in each of the three types. Ties are not uncommon and are broken based on the number of other, non-majority symbols each player has collected.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 10
Category1: Abstract Strategy
Category2: Area Control
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 1998 |
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| Tiki Topple | | | | | |
| Welcome to Tiki Island, home to nine colorful carvings all competing to be the top Polynesian Idol! In the fast-paced game Tiki Topple, players try to maneuver your secret tikis to the top of the line by playing the right combination of action cards. Use a Tiki Up card to move a tiki ahead in line. Tiki Topple sends opponents tikis tumbling to the back of the pack. But watch out for the sneaky Tiki Toast cards, which knock your tikis off the board! Score the most points and call yourself the Tiki Master.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 10
Category1: Cards
Category2: Bluffing
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Not available
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2008 |
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| Halli Galli Party | | | | | |
| Halli Galli Party features gameplay similar to Halli Galli, which celebrates its 25th anniversary in 2017, but now the fruit is hosting a party and playing the instruments to keep things lively. Can you tell when theres a match on stage and react faster than anyone else?
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 8
Category1: Party
Category2: Real Time
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Can be ordered
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2017 |
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| Cavum | | | | | |
| In the mountain there are veins of precious stones. The players build tunnels in the mountain, establish stations in the mountain and in the city, discover veins of precious stones, acquire precious stones, and sell them. The players get points for stations in the city and for selling precious stones. The winner is the player with the most points.
Minimum Players: 2
Maximum Players: 4
Age & Difficulty: 12
Category1: pick and deliever
Category2: Auction/bidding
Rating: 3
New Copy for sale: Not available
In-store Play Copy: In Store
Year Published: 2008 |
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