Sunlight glaring through the windshield. Your favorite songs blasting through the speakers. Candy bar wrappers piled next to a warm drink in the cheap plastic cupholder. Your companion riding in the passenger seat, snapping pictures of landmarks as you settle into the hypnotic rhythm of the road. But be careful: this fun road trip could get dangerous as you drive through Death Valley.

Trails of Tucana is a flip-and-write game from the creators of Avenue and Doodle City that is quick and easy to play, but has enough depth to entertain gamers.

This new edition includes the Ferry expansion, which adds two new island maps: Isla Bahía and Isla Habita. On both maps, ferries will help players cross the bays.
On Isla Habita, 3 additional villages provide new challenges and opportunities.

Each player is given a map of the island Tucana, showing its villages and important sights. The positions of the villages are randomized for each player, so every game will provide a unique puzzle.

Each turn, one player flips over two terrain cards. Each player must draw — on their own map — a trail between two neighboring spaces of the shown terrains. Gradually, the trails will grow into a network of roads. Players score points by connecting matching harbors, and by connecting sights to harbors. Being the first to connect a pair of harbors provides bonus points.

To add depth to the game, there are varying distribution of the different terrain cards. Mountain cards are for instance rarer than desert cards, so it would be harder to build a trail through a mountain range or over water than through desert or forest. Players need to take this into account when planning their routes. And they should maximize the probability that they will be able to make use of any combination of terrain cards that may come up.

—description from designer

AWARDS AND HONORS:

2021 Finnish Game of the Year (family) WINNER
2020 Norwegian Game of the Year WINNER
2020 Norwegian Game of the Year NOMINEE
2019 The Dice Tower SEAL OF EXCELLENCE

Pictures is a quick-playing family game with very simple rules. Form the image on your secret picture card with one set of components, either shoelaces, color cubes, icon cards, sticks and stones or building blocks in such a way that the other players guess what image you have pictured:


Pull out a marker from the bag that determines your secret picture card.
Then form that image with your components in such a way that it is recognizable.
And finally guess what image each other player has pictured.


The players get points for correctly guessing other players images and for other players guessing their image. The most points wins!

ROOM 25 DUEL reprend l’univers du jeu télévisé futuriste familier des joueurs de ROOM 25. Il retrace l’épreuve de sélection des candidats où deux adversaires s’affrontent dans le complexe mais cette fois, un seul doit en sortir.

The King is on vacation. He entrusted the city and its treasure to the prince. The brigands know it and intend to fill their pockets.. or at least try! Will you play prince or brigand?

Brigands is an asymetrical game of deduction and trickery that pits a prince against rival bands of brigands. The prince must protect the coffers of the city against brigands. If no brigand succeeds in stealing 50 Ducats from the kingdom at the end of the 6 game turns, the prince is victorious! Otherwise, the richest bandit wins.

On a turn, each player will send their 3 crew members to the districts of their choice. The choice is secret and simultaneous. When everyone has set their mind, it's time to reveal choices and place every crew member in the city. If a prince's crew is on the same district as a brigand's crew, thieves are arrested before they could hope to get richer. Otherwise, they will be able to plunder the district. Each district allows looting the treasure in a unique way. Be careful, if someone has played an action token on the district in the beginning of their turn, they will be able to steal or push other player's crew, or maybe to run to another district at the last minute. Once in jail, thieves can choose to await trial or attempt to escape.

The prince player will improve their skills during the game to better recover their treasure or better trap brigands.

—description from the publisher

Power Grid is the updated release of the Friedemann Friese crayon game Funkenschlag. It removes the crayon aspect from network building in the original edition, while retaining the fluctuating commodities market like Crude: The Oil Game and an auction round intensity reminiscent of The Princes of Florence.

The objective of Power Grid is to supply the most cities with power when someone's network gains a predetermined size. In this new edition, players mark pre-existing routes between cities for connection, and then bid against each other to purchase the power plants that they use to power their cities.

However, as plants are purchased, newer, more efficient plants become available, so by merely purchasing, you're potentially allowing others access to superior equipment.

Additionally, players must acquire the raw materials (coal, oil, garbage, and uranium) needed to power said plants (except for the 'renewable' windfarm/ solar plants, which require no fuel), making it a constant struggle to upgrade your plants for maximum efficiency while still retaining enough wealth to quickly expand your network to get the cheapest routes.

Power Grid FAQ - Please read this before posting a rules question! Many questions are asked over and over in the forums... If you have a question about a specific expansion, please check the rules forum or FAQ for that particular expansion.

Friday, the second game in the Friedemann Friese Series: Freitag-Project (Friedemann Friese), is based on the story of Robinson Crusoe and his loyal partner Friday (Freitag). You play as Friday, and when Robinson Crusoe crashes his ship on your island, your peaceful times are disturbed. You must help Robinson to survive the island and prepare him to defeat the pirates that are coming for the island.

Friday is a solitaire deck-building game in which you optimize your deck of fight cards in order to defeat the hazards of the island. During a turn the player will attempt to defeat hazard cards by playing fight cards from their deck. If defeated, a hazard card will become a fight card and is added to the player's deck. If failed, the player will lose life points but also get the opportunity to remove unwanted cards from their fight deck. In the end, the player will use their optimized fight deck to defeat the two pirate ships coming for the island, allowing Robinson Crusoe to escape the island and allowing you to finally have your peace back!

Try to gain as much gold as possible by dealing in shares before the huge stock market crash. Try to earn enough cash by cleverly buying and selling shares so that you can spend it on the coveted precious metal. If you are the best in manipulating the market development and share prices, you have the biggest chances to win the game.

Black Friday includes an independently acting opponent, the M.I.B.S. (minimally intelligent broker service), and depending on the number of players you have, you may be able to opt to play with or without the M.I.B.S. Are you able to cut it down in size?

Black Friday is a completely revised and updated edition of the version from 2010.

—description from the publisher

On the day when the last snowflake of winter has melted away, all of the critters emerge from their cozy homes to celebrate...and that day is today! Maple Valley's annual Spring Festival is a gathering of friends welcoming the warm months ahead, and you don't have a lot of time to prepare!

While the adults get the village into shape, the youngest (and swiftest) forest animals from each den are sent scrambling through the blossoming woods, completing the last-second tasks that will make the Festival a success. The trails aren't always clear; you'll need to climb, swim, and dig your way to the most bountiful groves, forage for fresh spring ingredients to help villagers complete their errands, and unearth curiosities that will attract skillful scouts to your growing team. The sun will set before you know it; will it be your hard work that makes this year's Festival the best one ever?

Set in the delightful world of Creature Comforts, Maple Valley is a game of traveling trails, finding friends, and celebrating new beginnings for 1-5 critters.

—description from the publisher

In Neotopia, a competitive fast paced tile placement pattern building game, you are part of a team of Visionaries who are building a futuristic pilot city focused on the fields of Energy, Technology, Community and Sustainable food.

You will be building elements on the three regions of the city in order to complete feature cards that you have in hand. A good combination of tile placement and card management can result in very impactful turns, where several cards are completed and the city expands. Interaction between players is important, because all players are building on the same board and can take advantage of what other players have built on their previous turns.

You will try to build the most harmonious city possible, because that will be vital for your score: in the end of the game you will score normally the regions where you have your two highest scores but you will triple the score of your lowest scoring region. So be aware! Even if it’s tempting to build on regions that are more developed and where you have already scored a lot points, if you don’t start working on the development of the other regions you will not be able to win the game. Balance is the key point on Neotopia, just like the type of future that the players are trying to build.

—description from the designer

As the Count of the small territory of the Nine Estates, you must build up the county into a powerful economic and cultural center. However, limited nearby resources force you to make difficult decissions. Can you earn the favor of the King?

Count of the Nine Estates is a 18-card reimplementation of Count of Nine.

Search your land for resources to build basic structures that will provide more resources. Use these structures and resources to build up your estates into a powerful economic force.

—description from the publisher


For Count of the Nine Estates, I did want to focus more on the experience. Looking back on Count of Nine, it seemed the player experience was a bit "on rails": once you pick a major structure to build, you are going to find the stuff you need to build that major structure. For Count of the Nine Estates, the player will have more freedom, and will have to make a couple strategic decisions during a match. So, I guess the "experience" I was going for CotNE is: a more strategic and "free" feeling compact, solo euro game.

—description from the designer


Count of the Nine Estates is a solo city building game played with 18 cards. Nine Estate cards are your targets to build: City Walls, a Cathedral, a Castle, and more. The other 9 cards make up the Structures deck which contains resources plus structures to be built. Play through the Structures deck in multiple rounds to build the structures needed that will enable you to build one or more of the Estates. The goal is to score the most victory points in the game, which is made up of 2 separate eras.

Victory points are awarded several ways:

Victory points marked on the Estate cards and some of the structure cards

+ 1 victory point for each structure built

+1 victory point for each duplicate structure built
-2 victory points for each round played

Take a stroll along the beach. Feel your toes digging into the sand. Discover a world of beautiful objects just waiting to be found. Whether you're picking up driftwood for your sculptures or sea glass for earrings, let Mother Nature be your muse as you follow the tides.

Tides is a game about collecting items from a beach. The goal is to score as many points as you can by making the most interesting sets of items. The tide is always changing; you never know what you’ll find on the beach!

Take cards from the row during LOW TIDE to collect items from the beach. During HIGH TIDE, flip the double-sided cards; the back side has scoring conditions. Score a set in either LOW or HIGH TIDE, by combining items you collected with a scoring card. Play until someone reaches 50 points. Finish the current low tide/high tide cycle. The player with the highest score wins!

Stockpile is an economic board game that combines the traditional stockholding strategy of buy low, sell high with several additional mechanisms to create a fast-paced, engaging and interactive experience.

In Stockpile, players act as stock market investors at the end of the 20th century hoping to strike it rich, and the investor with the most money at the end of the game is the winner. Stockpile centers on the idea that nobody knows everything about the stock market, but everyone does know something. In the game, this philosophy manifests in two ways: insider information and the stockpile.

First, players are given insider information each round. This information dictates how a stock’s value will change at the end of the round. By privately learning if a stock is going to move up or down, each player has a chance to act ahead of the market by buying or selling at the right time.

Second, players purchase their stocks by bidding on piles of cards called stockpiles. These stockpiles will contain a mixture of face-up and face-down cards placed by other players in the game. In this way, nobody will know all of the cards in the stockpiles. Not all cards are good either. Trading fees can poison the piles by making players pay more than they bid. By putting stocks and other cards up for auction, Stockpile catalyzes player interaction, especially when potential profits from insider information are on the line.

Both of these mechanisms are combined with some stock market elements to make players consider multiple factors when selling a stock. Do you hold onto a stock in hopes of catching a lucrative stock split or do you sell now to avoid the potential company bankruptcy? Can you hold onto your stock until the end of the game to become the majority shareholder, or do you need the liquidity of cash now for future bidding? Do you risk it all by investing heavily into one company, or do you mitigate your risk by diversifying your portfolio?

In the end, everyone knows something about the stock market, so it all comes down to strategy execution. Will you be able to navigate the movements of the stock market with certainty? Or will your investments go under from poor predictions?

Remplissez votre maison de chats, de souris et de dés ! House of Cats, est un jeu de Roll & Write, rapide et intelligent dans lequel les joueurs forment des pièces à l'aide de chiffres pour utiliser les capacités spéciales des pièces et marquer le plus de points !

Avec 4 niveaux uniques et des combinaisons aléatoires de capacités, les joueurs bénéficient d'une rejouabilité presque infinie et de nouveaux défis à chaque partie !

The end result is a vast set of bird cards – mechanically identical to their counterparts in Wingspan and the Europe, Oceania and Asia expansions.

The card box is designed for both storage and recycling; it fits into the bottom layer of the Nesting Box. You can mix these alternate cards with the standard Wingspan cards, select certain cards to replace the ones you have, or play only with these birds (their percentages closely match those noted on the bonus cards).

Once your ancestors found or created a source of magic - the exact knowledge of its origin, as far as you know, has long been lost. A small community has developed around the source, which seeks to protect this place and keep it as secret as possible.

Unfortunately, some magical beings — half corporeal, half ethereal — have now tracked down this source. These beings of dubious character, which you call "Djinn", have appeared in various places of the city to dispute your access to the source. You are young members of the Magic Guild, and to prove your abilities, you are tasked with capturing the Djinn so that they can do no harm. You can control them permanently only if you catch them in special Djinn bottles. To seal these bottles, you also need corks made from the bark of a tree near the magic source.

Whichever of you succeeds best in protecting your small town will be accepted into the inner circle of the Magic Guild and will soon be allowed to learn even more secrets...

In Djinn, you take turns moving across a map that shows thirteen locations. These locations are linked to actions where you can get the resources you need and catch the Djinn that are in six locations. In those locations you can do things like receive bottles and corks, collect magical power, buy magical items, hire mages to accompany you, discover secret passages, and more.

In each round, you can reach only one of two or three of the locations, so you must plan carefully to have all the resources you need in time to catch the Djinn. The game ends when all six "Boss Djinn" have been captured and removed from the map, then you score points for all captured Djinn.

-description from developer

Tucana Builders is a sequel to the award winning Trails of Tucana.

Place tiles on spaces that match the revealed terrain card to connect animals to corresponding huts.

All connections that score in round 1 will score again in round 2. So, do you go for high scores in round 1, or will you try to create smart intersections for long-term benefits?

Tucana Builders is an easy-to-teach game for those who enjoy challenging tile-laying puzzles.

—description from the publisher

Celt — Latin Celta, plural Celtae — were an early Indo-European people who from the second millennium BCE to the first century BCE spread over much of Europe. Their tribes and groups eventually ranged from the British Isles and Portugal to as far east as Transylvania, the Black Sea coasts, and Galatia in Anatolia, and they were in part absorbed into the Roman Empire as Britons, Gauls, Boii, Galatians, Celtiberians, and Lusitans.

Celtae is a "worker swapping" game powered by a rondel in which players choose actions to perform during their turn. On their turn, players swap one of their three active workers with one of the three workers on the action space they wish to perform, then they perform the action — which will be boosted if they have in their worker pool specific types of workers: farmers, builders, soldiers, and nobles.


The farming action allows players to draw cards, and it's boosted by farmers. Cards have three types of uses in the game: building, preparing for battle, and engaging with the druid order.
The build action allows players to build and expand citadels on the board by placing their discs on them, and it's boosted by builders. At game's end, only completed citadels will score, and players have to work together to complete them and score their presence on them. Each time players build in a citadel, they gain a bonus that was randomly assigned during set-up. The combination of these bonuses with a timely performed action often results in powerful combos.
The battle action, which is boosted by soldiers, allows players to defeat increasingly stronger Roman armies and to garrison the outskirts of the citadels on the map.
The recruit action, boosted by nobles, allows players to recruit workers to their tribe, increasing the number of available workers to boost future actions. However, if you manage to send certain types of workers from your tribe into the druid order, you'll get their favor and a druid worker who functions like a joker and boosts almost every type of action.


Every player has a leader card assigned to their tribe at the beginning of the game. At a certain point on the game, players will have to choose if their leaders stay on its regular side and like that gain a small number of points at game's end or forfeit those meager points and flip it to its heroic side, which has much harder requirements for much larger endgame points.

Each time the action marker on the rondel completes a full turn, the player who currently holds the favor of Teutates places a progress marker on one of the progress cards next to the game board. At game's end, only progress cards with progress markers will score, so as the game advances, players determine what will score...and what will not.

—description from the publisher

Thousands of years ago, near the end of the ice age,
humans once again dwelt on fertile land. But a new challenge awaits!
The ice is still melting, and that fertile land will soon be flooded. All living creatures must escape to the mountains.
Your engravings and cave paintings will stand the test of
time, and the skills you have honed will be passed on to your descendants. It's up to you to leave your "footprints on the ground" for the generations to come.

Maneuver your clan through difficult terrain, improve your skills to advance more efficiently, gather needed resources, make cave paintings and engravings at important sites, and use your leader to inspire your clan beyond their limits, while trying to reach the cairns on the horizon before time runs out...

Footprints is a competitive game with asymmetric player powers (each player has their own clan deck) and variable setup through a modular game board. Your abilities in route planning, skill improvement (engine building), and hand management will increase your chances of winning the game.

The game can be played solo.

—description from the designer

In the far reaches of space where humankind still dares not go, a sturdy ROVE — short for Results-Oriented Versatile Explorer — is often deployed. You are one such unit. Unfortunately your navigation systems malfunctioned and you were forced to make a crash-landing on a hostile alien planet. Armed only with your array of movement-enhancing modules you’ll have to roll, stretch, shimmy, and bounce your way to safety and complete the mission before your power supply runs out…permanently.

ROVE is a solo spatial puzzle game. In each game of ROVE, the player will face a series of mishaps that can only be solved by arranging the 6 module cards in a specific pattern. Moving a module requires Movement Points gained by discarding cards from hand for the listed amount. Players may gain additional Points if their current module layout matches the pattern shown on the discarded card.

Each module costs 1 Movement Point per activation and uses its own unique movement style, such as only moving diagonally or pushing other modules a single space. Modules also have powerful single-use abilities that can help get players out of a tight spot. Properly timing these abilities -- as well as effectively using the limited number of Movement cards -- will help the player complete ROVE’s mission successfully.

Welcome back to the Istanbul Bazaar!

Once again, players take on the role of shrewd merchants whose goal is to gather goods and lira, then trade them for the precious rubies needed to win. In Istanbul: Choose & Write, instead of a common set of locations in the middle of the table, each player has a bazaar in front of them as a game plan, a personal tracking sheet where players will mark their choices as they play.

On their turn, players must choose to play either a Location card or a Guild card. Location cards will allow all merchants to perform the action of the specified location, or the action of an adjacent space on their sheet. If a player would rather prevent others from taking this follow action, they can instead play a Guild card, which is expensive but triggers powerful effects.

Fans of the Istanbul game series will recognize familiar locations in Istanbul: Choose & Write, such as the Large Market and the Gemstone Dealer. However, thanks to the innovative choose-and-write mechanism, this visit to the bazaar will challenge players in a completely new way.

—description from the publisher

Dans Gold West, les joueurs incarnent des prospecteurs qui construisent leurs empires miniers tout en se disputant les métaux précieux de la frontière. Dans un équilibre délicat entre la gestion des ressources et le contrôle des zones, les joueurs doivent planifier leurs stratégies de construction tout en gérant soigneusement leurs voies d'approvisionnement afin de raffiner les bonnes ressources aux moments les plus opportuns. Gardez une longueur d'avance sur la concurrence et vous pourriez mener l'Ouest vers l'âge d'or.

Le but de Gold West est d'accumuler le plus grand nombre de points de victoire en gérant intelligemment votre empire minier en pleine expansion. Le jeu comporte cinq ressources : les métaux Cuivre, Argent et Or sont utilisés pour acquérir des points de victoire de différentes manières, tandis que le Bois et la Pierre sont des matériaux de construction utilisés pour bâtir des camps et des colonies sur le plateau afin de collecter davantage de ressources et d'influencer le paysage.

Chaque hexagone contient deux ou trois ressources. L'or rapporte généralement le plus de points aux joueurs, l'argent et le cuivre en rapportant un peu moins. En outre, chaque type de terrain rapporte des points au joueur qui a le plus d'influence à la fin de la partie. Les terrains en cuivre sont les plus précieux, tandis que les terrains en argent, en or et en forêt rapportent un peu moins de points.

Lorsqu'ils obtiennent de nouveaux métaux et matériaux, les joueurs les placent sur leur "piste d'approvisionnement", une piste de type mancala sur laquelle ils gèrent leurs ressources. Plus vous les placez loin sur la piste, plus vous gagnez des points, car cela permet de créer un produit plus raffiné, mais il vous faudra plus de temps pour amener ces ressources au début de la piste d'approvisionnement, où elles pourront être utilisées. Les expéditions, les investissements et les bureaux de Boomtown récompensent souvent les joueurs qui les remplissent plus tôt, il s'agit donc d'un savant équilibre entre le risque et la récompense.

Dans un futur lointain, les humains n'habitent plus la Terre. La cause de leur disparition (ou peut-être de leur mort) est inconnue, mais leur absence a laissé un vide prêt à être comblé par une autre espèce sensible.
Au cours d'innombrables générations, une espèce d'abeille humble a évolué pour combler ce vide. Elle a grandi en taille et en intelligence pour devenir une société très avancée. Ils se nomment eux-mêmes Mellifera et ont réalisé des avancées technologiques substantielles en plus de la technologie qu'ils ont adaptée des ruines humaines, jusqu'au voyage dans l'espace.

In the strategic card game Western Legends: Showdown, which takes part in the same universe as the Western Legends board game, two players compete to seize control over a typical far west town.

At the beginning of the game, select three locations from seven available; and on your turn, you'll be able to pass or put one of your cards on a location. Each location defines how players can gain the cards that are found here. Played cards have special powers, so analyze the your opponent's cards and lay traps to gain the upper hand by unleashing devastating combos. At the end of a game, the player that has the highest total value on the card they have won is declared the winner of the duel.

This town ain't big enough for the two of us, cowboy...

PARTY GAME RIKKI TAHTA BGG

Rankster is a wildly different co-operative quiz game where you have to agree how you would rank famous people (and your friends). Simple but hilarious -

1- Turn over three character cards.

2- One player is the Judge who takes a question card, reads it to themselves, and secretly decides how they want to rank the characters on the basis of the question. They then read the question aloud to the other players.

3- The other players chat and have to all agree how they think the Judge has ranked the characters. Reveal the answer. If the players guessed the correct ranking everyone wins the round; if not everyone loses.

EXAMPLE:
Q: Who would you choose as the drummer in your rock band?
—Hermione Grainger
—George Washington
—Shrek

Start a new round, reveal three new characters and the next player becomes the Judge. Play until all players have been the Judge. You all win if you have succeeded more often than failing. It leads to hilarious arguments but it's not easy!

St Patrick, first released as Salvage, is a simple trick-taking game that combines the fun of Hearts with the assessment of Oh Hell and the fairness of duplicate Bridge. Everyone starts at 20 points and takes damage over the course of play. The game ends when one player reaches 0, at which time the player with the most points wins.

In the original Salvage game, an oil tanker is on fire, and you are part of a rescue team sent to deal with it. You will take damage as you put out the fires, but before the operation begins you can salvage oil as an insurance against the costs you expect to suffer.

The key dynamic of the game is that before playing a hand you assess the strength of your cards and make a bid of how many points you are prepared to lose not to play the hand. That bid acts as an insurance, and you will be penalized only for points you lose above that bid. However, if everyone's combined bids equal the total amount of damage that can be taken, then everyone loses the amount they bid, and the hands get passed around the table so that other players have a chance to do better with the same hand.

In St Patrick, you now compete to retain the most life points by using relics to avoid snake bites.

Monsters are always hungry and never go far from a bag full of provisions, in order to be able to prepare a delicious soup in only instants. But that’s if they can quickly find the ingredients listed on their monstrous cookbook!