The Black Southern Host has arisen, corrupting the hearts of the indigenous creatures. Afflicted by a mysterious sickness, they are attacking human cities. The last remaining hope for restoring peace to Xidit lies with the Kingdom's noble heirs, the Idrakys. As one of them, you must roam the Kingdom recruiting brave soldiers and reclaiming threatened cities. Your bravery will not go unrewarded: accumulate wealth, send bards to sing your praises, and build Sorcerers' Guilds!

Lords of Xidit features simultaneous programming and an elimination-based scoring system that leaves no room for complacency! In more detail, at the end of the game players compare their influence in one category and the player with the least influence is eliminated and his pieces removed from the board; players then compare influence in another category, with a player again being removed. The order of elimination is randomly determined at the start of play, forcing you to thinking in different ways each game.

Prepare to ride out, Idrakys, and forge your legend!

Note: Contained inside the box are 2 copies of a promo for other game: Seasons: Speedwall the Escaped

Lost Cities is a card game in the Kosmos two-player series. The game originally consisted of a single deck of cards of rank 2–10 in five different colors with three special "handshakes" ("HS" in scoring examples below) in each suit, but as of 2019 the game now includes six colored suits, with the sixth color being optional for gameplay. A game board is included to organize discarded cards and help players organize their card collections.

The object of the game is to gain points by mounting profitable archaeological expeditions to the different sites represented by the colored suits of cards. On a player's turn, they must first play one card, either to an expedition or by discarding it to the color-appropriate discard pile, then draw one card, either from the deck or from the top of a discard pile. Cards played to expeditions must be in ascending order, but they need not be consecutive. Handshakes are considered lower than a 2 and represent investments in an expedition. Thus, if you play a red 4, you may play any other red card higher than a 4 on a future turn but may no longer play a handshake, the 2, or the 3.

The game continues in this fashion with players alternating turns until the final card is taken from the deck. The rest of the cards in hand are then discarded and players score their expeditions. Each expedition that has at least one card played into it must be scored. Cards played into an expedition are worth their rank in points, and handshakes count as a multiplier against your final total; one handshake doubles an expedition's value, while two handshakes triples that value and three handshakes quadruple it. Expeditions start at a value of -20, so you must play at least 20 points of cards into an expedition in order to make a profit. If you are left with a negative value and have a handshake, the multiplier still applies. A 20-point bonus is awarded to every expedition with at least eight cards played into it. A complete game of Lost Cities lasts three matches, with scores for each match being added together.

Scoring example 1: An expedition has a 2,3,7,8,10 for a total of 30. This expedition is worth 10 total points: 30 plus the initial -20.

Scoring example 2: An expedition has 2 HS, and 4,5,6,7,8,10 for a total of 40. This expedition is worth 80 total points: 40 points for cards, plus the initial -20, ×3 for the two multipliers, plus the 20-pt bonus for playing 8+ cards.

Scoring example 3: An expedition has 1 HS, and 4,6,7 for a total of 17. This expedition is worth -6 total points: 17 plus the initial -20, ×2 for the multiplier.

Redevelopment of Lost Cities, first published with altered rules as Keltis, and then published by Rio Grande as Lost Cities: The Board Game with Knizia's original rules and theme.


Reiner Knizia: "The original version that we developed is exactly what Jay [Tummelson, owner of Rio Grande Games] has now published [LCBG]"


Primary differences between Lost Cities: The Board Game and Keltis:

1. In LCBG you play 3 rounds, scoring at the end of all 3 for the monuments you collect. (Normal scoring occurs each round.) In Keltis, you only play 1 round, and score everything each round. This is not just a rule difference, as the scoring is different for the monuments/stones based on the number collected.

2. In Keltis, you may play your cards in either order, descending, high to low, or ascending, low to high. In LCBG, you must play in ascending order.

Note: the rules for LCBG have the Keltis rules as variants, and have the board elements necessary for #1 above. Keltis does not have the rules nor board elements to play LCBG.


Kosmos (Keltis publisher) changed the card play to ascending and descending order to lower the luck level and add balance to the game.
Kosmos changed the theme to fit in with other Kosmos abstract game series.


There are more differences, which are non-substantive. Lost Cities: The Board Game has a different-looking board, tiles and figures (meeples) to connect with its predecessor. Card-play in descending order is an optional variant in this edition. The numbers have been multiplied by 5 to strengthen the relation to the card game, and instead of a scoring track you collect your points as golden coins.


From the Keltis entry:

Players play cards to move their playing pieces along stone paths. There are cards with 5 different colors/symbols, each corresponding to one path; in addition, each card shows a number (0-10, twice each). In each color, each player can play his cards either ascending or descending. Like Lost Cities, it's better to concentrate on a few paths, since the last spaces grants high points, but ending early gives negative ones.

The player in turn plays one card (out of a hand of 8), or discards one. He moves the corresponding playing piece on the path. Many of the spaces have a token that grants some bonus - either direct points (counted on the scoring track), an extra move on a path, or wish stones that are needed at game end to avoid negative points.

The game ends when a total of 5 playing pieces have reached the 7th space (or more) on their paths. Now, scoring happens:


Pieces which only moved 1-3 steps give negative points (-4, -3, -2).
Pieces with 4+ steps grant points (1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 10).
One piece of each player is higher and scores double.
Fewer than two wish stones grants negative points (-3 / -4)
5+ wish stones yield a bonus of 10 points.
All this is added to the points scored during the game

Lost Legends is a fantasy card game by Mike Elliott that combines a streamlined Euro game design and card drafting with an interesting fantasy theme and battle mechanic. Players take on the role of heroes trying to assemble an arsenal of equipment in order to vanquish a series of monsters that they will encounter.

The game begins with all players choosing one of five heroes each with their own strengths and weaknesses. Each player fights their own monster; this is not a cooperative game. The monster each hero will likely face is revealed to them before players draft cards for their equipment. An interesting aspect in this game is you may, if the conditions are right, evade a monster in front of you, and pass it to the hero next to you. But be aware if you do this you have to fight the monster you draw next!

Players then select an equipment card drafted from a hand of cards, and pass the remainder of the hand to your left to prepare for battle with the monster in front of them. The equipment draft continues in this manner until only one card is left in each hand, which is discarded. Players then compare their drafted equipment to their monster to determine the result of the battle! The game consists of 3 levels filled with monsters to slay and new equipment to pick up.

Players need Legend Points to win the game! These come in the form of trophies awarded for most monsters as well as sets of monsters slain. Can you defeat the monsters thrown in your path to glory and become the most Legendary?

You have discovered an ancient chart to a lost valley. It shows that once the valley was occupied by a fierce tribe of natives who had collected a vast wealth of treasure and used vicious dinosaurs to help protect it.

No humans inhabit the valley now and the chart shows that the 'treasure' is still hidden in a temple at the top of the valley but the dinosaurs are still there!

The secret of the valley and its treasure have been stolen and you know that other expeditions are currently journeying to discover the lost secret of the valley.

As your party enters the valley a volcano which has been dormant for centuries rumbles and threatens to engulf the valley in lava.

The race is on, who will win the fabulous riches of the temple and who may die?

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 Annette's 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!

Number 4 in the Setting: Tempest Shared World Game Series

The low land is a rough area where hard-working folk make a living by the sweat of their brow. Under constant threat of storm and flood, communities here rally together to build dikes that keep the rising water at bay. But every citizen constructing a dike is one fewer citizen tending flocks and maintaining the family farm. The residents here are constantly torn between selflessness and self-interest, and only those who can strike this delicate balance can thrive in this harsh landscape.

In Lowlands, you carve your farm out of this unforgiving land, gathering and spending resource cards to transform your farmyard into pastures that allow you to profit from breeding sheep. Adding expansions to your farm will unlock new options and score you victory points, but helping to build the dike that collectively protects all players is also rewarded. No matter what, the tide will rise and, if the dike isn't high enough, it could rush in and sweep away your hard-earned profits. Will you sacrifice your own farm for the good of the community, or will you pursue your own agenda? The choice is yours.

Even without the poor weather, life on a farm is one of constant work where you find yourself tending flocks of sheep, extending their pastures, and looking for the right moment to sell them for a profit. To complete all these tasks, Lowlands gives you a group of farmers that you can assign to various tasks around your farm. To get the most out of them, you must think strategically, deciding which actions you want to take and the best time to take them. Once they've been assigned, your farmers help you build a bustling farm where there was once scrubby bushes, trees, and lakes. You begin the game with only two sheep and a small pasture, but your farmyard is rife with possibilities, its many empty spaces inviting you to customize your farm as you see fit.

While you could simply focus on creating more area for your sheep to roam, the game also provides plenty of options for customizing your farm with various buildings and features. Not only are these tiles worth victory points at the end of the game, they also make your farm more efficient and more profitable. You might add a feeding trough to your farm, for example, to immediately earn another sheep and the ability to house two sheep per pasture space instead of just one. Or you could construct a lake cabin on your property to get away from it all for a bit. While this tile doesn't give you any special abilities, it increases the value in victory points of the farmyard spaces immediately adjacent to it. Ultimately, you are free to pursue whatever strategy you see fit, building a farm wholly your own.

On top of the challenges of building a successful farm, of course, you also have to deal with the tempestuous weather that comes with living on the wave-battered coast of the North Sea. Here, the tides always seem to rise a little higher, threatening to take a dent out of your profits by sweeping away some of your flock. To ensure that this doesn't happen, you always have the opportunity to send your farmers to contribute to the dike instead of working on your farm. When you do, you also commit resources to creating dike elements that are added to the board as a buffer against the rising waters. Add enough of these pieces and you might prevent disaster for everyone. The tide turns repeatedly, bringing with it new flood pieces. If there are enough dike elements in place to hold back the rising waters, players' farms are spared. If the dike breaks, however, you could be forced to take dike breach tokens that have adverse effects at the end of the game.

While lending a hand with the dike at the expense of your own farm is certainly a nice gesture that keeps everyone safe from the floodwaters, it has rewards of its own. For each resource you contribute to the dike, you advance one step up the dike track. Not only does advancing far enough on this track grant victory points, it also amplifies your reward if the dike holds and lessens the blow when it breaks. It is in your best interest, then, to keep pace with other players on the dike in order to protect your investments back home one the farm.

—description from the publisher

Welcome to the city of Machi Koro. You've just been elected Mayor. Congrats! Unfortunately the citizens have some pretty big demands: jobs, a theme park, a couple of cheese factories and maybe even a radio tower. A tough proposition since the city currently consists of a wheat field, a bakery and a single die.

Armed only with your trusty die and a dream, you must grow Machi Koro into the largest city in the region. You will need to collect income from developments, build public works, and steal from your neighbors' coffers. Just make sure they aren't doing the same to you!

Machi Koro is a fast-paced game for 2-4 players. Each player wants to develop the city on their own terms in order to complete all of the landmarks under construction faster than their rivals. On their turn, each player rolls one or two dice. If the sum of the dice rolled matches the number of a building that a player owns, they get the effect of that building; in some cases opponents will also benefit from your dice (just as you can benefit from theirs). Then, with money in hand a player can build a landmark or a new building, ideally adding to the wealth of their city on future turns. The first player to construct all of their landmarks wins!

Description from the publisher:

After being stripped of all their possessions, a mage, a warrior, an elf, and a dwarf are forced to go rob the local Magic Maze shopping mall for all the equipment necessary for their next adventure. They agree to map out the labyrinth in its entirety first, then find each individual’s favorite store, and then locate the exit. In order to evade the surveillance of the guards who eyed their arrival suspiciously, all four will pull off their heists simultaneously, then dash to the exit. That's the plan anyway…but can they pull it off?

Magic Maze is a real-time, cooperative game. Each player can control any hero in order to make that hero perform a very specific action, to which the other players do not have access: Move north, explore a new area, ride an escalator… All this requires rigorous cooperation between the players in order to succeed at moving the heroes prudently. However, you are allowed to communicate only for short periods during the game; the rest of the time, you must play without giving any visual or audio cues to each other. If all of the heroes succeed in leaving the shopping mall in the limited time allotted for the game, each having stolen a very specific item, then everyone wins together.

At the start of the game, you have only three minutes in which to take actions. Hourglass spaces you encounter along the way give you more time. If the sand timer ever completely runs out, all players lose the game: Your loitering has aroused suspicion, and the mall security guards nab you!

In Mangrovia, a light "gamer's game"/family game with a Caribbean mangrove setting, a clever role selection mechanism allows the players to choose two different bonuses/actions as well as the turn order in which they want these actions to be carried out — all by placing just one marker. Victory is achievable through a number of viable options, which guarantees high re-playability.

The game is a fight over acquiring the best locations for your huts in this appealing and unspoiled landscape. If you manage to do so, you will become the rightful successor of the old chief and win the game. You gain Chief points by having the most huts (and the secondmost huts) along each of the eight divine paths monitored by the statues of Gods. Additional Chief points are earned by controlling sacred locations, by collecting amulets, and simply by building huts at lucrative spaces.

Building a hut requires that the space's landscape is "active" and that you can pay the exact price (not overpay) for the space. Therefore, the game feels tight even from the very start. The game gets tighter and tighter towards the end of the game as you have fewer choices of spaces, and as the actions you choose become more and more crucial.

In order to succeed in this game, you should carefully choose and time the best possible combination of actions, called "ritual sites". A boat goes from ritual site to ritual site, first on the west side, then on the east side (in opposite order), triggering each action. If, for instance, you choose a ritual site high up, you will have an early choice of cards, but a late choice of space to build your huts or to collect amulets (and vice versa). A fourth action type is to select "active landscapes" and become starting player, which makes it possible to control the next round. After all players have performed two actions, the round ends. The game is usually played over 10-14 rounds and ends when one player builds his last hut.

Collecting amulets may be key in this game. Instead of keeping them as Chief points, you may use them to build huts on designated spaces which require payment in amulets instead of cards — and still to the exact price. Building huts on such spaces may be exactly what you need to get the majority along one or two divine paths. In order to gain enough amulets — and amulets of the appropriate values — you should position some of your huts on amulet spaces. The more huts you build on such spaces, the more amulets you can draw. The probability of getting the amulets you need will therefore increase.

The game board is built as a matrix system, with some spaces being part of two divine paths while other spaces belong to just one. The spaces that are part of two divine paths are obviously most tempting, but can you afford to build your huts there?

In Ingenious, a.k.a. Einfach Genial, players take turns placing colored domino-style tiles on a game board, scoring for each line of colored symbols that they enlarge. The trick, however, is that a player's score is equal to their worst-scoring color, not their best, so they need to score for all colors instead of specializing in only one or two.

In more detail, the game includes 120 domino-style tiles, each consisting of two conjoined hexes; each hex has one of six colors in it, with most tiles having different-colored hexes. Each player has a rack with six tiles on it, and on a turn a player places one tile from their rack onto two hexes of the game board. For each hex on this tile, they score one point in that color for each hex of the same color that lies adjacent to it and each hex in a straight line from it. If a player brings the score of a color to 18, they immediately take another turn. At the end of their turn, they refill their rack to six tiles. (Before refilling their rack, if they have no tiles on it that contain hexes in their lowest-scoring color, they can discard all of their tiles, then draw six new tiles from the bag.)

When no more tiles can be placed on the game board or when one player scores 18 in each color, the game ends. Players then compare their lowest scores, and whoever has the highest low score wins.

Ingenious includes rules for solitaire and team play; in the latter case, two teams of two play, with each player not being able to see their partner's tiles and teams keeping a combined score that maxes out at 36 instead of 18.

In Mind Up!, you start with a line of cards on the table, with as many cards as players. Each turn, players pick a card from their hand and simultaneously reveal it to make a new line, ordered from the lowest to the highest card. Each player then takes the card in the previous line at the same position as the one they just played, adding it to their tableau. These cards will score points at the end of the round, depending on their color and the order they were picked. After being scored, they become the player's hand for the next round.

Master Scabbers is ready to test the ability of his gardening apprentices to create bright and colorful mini-gardens as quickly as possible to satisfy customers' requests. As an apprentice, try your best to win the title of master gardener from this test!

On a turn in Mini Garden, a.k.a. 迷你花園, start by rolling the five dice and placing them on the corresponding flower cards. The number on the die and the corresponding flower cards identify the needs of the customer. After this, each player races to place their six garden cards together — flipping, rotating, and covering them as needed — to match the customer's wishes. Whoever does so first stops play so that others can verify whether the garden is correct; if so, the player scores a point.

After nine rounds, the game ends, and whoever has scored the most points wins!

Play as one of the great houses in this Monopoly: Game of Thrones Collector's Edition and employ your cunning and wit to determine who will hold dominion over the realms of men.

-Description from back of box

Monty Python themed version of Fluxx. The random and chaotic nature of the Fluxx engine makes it a perfect vehicle for the crazy world of Monty Python!

At the start of the game, each player holds three cards and on a turn a player draws one card, then plays one card. By playing cards, you can put new rules into play that change numerous aspects of the game: how many cards to draw or play, how many cards you can hold in hand or keep on the table in front of you, and (most importantly) how to win the game.

The card mix focuses on Holy Grail with other references added from Flying Circus and other Python material. For example, one win condition card might require you have to have the Knights who Say Ni and a Shrubbery card face up in front of you.

Part of the Fluxx series.

Moon River uses the Kingdomino game system — but without dominoes.

In the game, you will build a personal landscape of tiles to score points, but instead of tiling dominoes in your landscape, the game uses half-dominoes in which one edge has a jigsaw puzzle-style connection. You combine two of these half puzzle pieces to craft your own dominoes. This mechanism is meant to provide more variability and randomization in each play.

Instead of building your landscape around a central castle, you start from the river and expand away from it. Also, the crowns (i.e., the victory point multiplier) from Kingdomino are replaced by cow meeples, with players being able to use cowboys to move them.

"Mousquetaires du Roy" is based on the novel "The Three Musketeers" by Alexandre Dumas.

The Musketeers (a team of 1-4 players) are fighting against Milady to find the Queen's pendants before the end of the game. Meanwhile, they also have to defeat other plots in several places (Le Louvre, La Rochelle...).

A turn begins with Milady playing plots/cards, and secretly programming a destination.

Then, each musketeer (D'Artagnan, Athos, Porthos, or Aramis) has 3-4 actions to choose amongst: move, draw a card, get equipment, exchange cards/equipment, challenge in one of his four characteristics, fight against one of Richelieu's guards, reinforce La Rochelle... Milady can also reveal herself and send Rochefort to fight the Musketeers.

The game includes rules for an AI-controlled Milady and can therefore be played as a pure co-op.

"One against all, all against one!"

Essen 2010 release.

You’re part of a team of brilliant scientists working on the super secret lab: CERN. While experimenting with teletransportation your team came across a wonderful discovery: portals to new dimensions!

Just imagine! Once a portal is open a whole new magical dimension is suddenly very close. All you need to do is take one step forward and you're there.

The problem is... The crazy wild creatures from those other dimensions can now walk in.

Oh no.

Close the portals NOW!

Multiuniversum is a card game puzzle in which players use actions on their cards to do research, move between 5 modules of the Hadron Collider, preparing tools so they can close portals to alternative realities.

Each player has 3 cards on hand and 3 actions to make during their turn. Using these cards players can:

do research (draw 2 cards)
prepare a tool
move to any machine module
close portal
use module ability


When the player closes a portal they get a sample from this universe (allows player to get bonus points) and knowledge points - described on card.

Each 5 modules open 5 portals. The game ends immediately when three portals piles have run out. The scientist who got the most knowledge points receive a Nobel prize and wins the game.

My City is a competitive legacy game in which you develop a city on your own playing board through the ages.

The game consists of 24 episodes, beginning with the development of a city in its early preindustrial stages and progressing through industrialization. During each game, players customize their experience by adding elements to their personal boards and adding cards to the game. Players' choices and action made during one session of gameplay carry over into the next session, creating a personalized gaming experience.

For players who do not want to experience My City as a legacy game, a double-sided game board offers an alternate set-up for repeatable play (some elements from the legacy experience are needed for the repeatable play game, players can unlock these elements by playing through the first 4 episodes).

My City: Roll & Build is a dice game in which over four chapters, each with three episodes, you create a unique city. The roll of the dice shows everyone which building to draw on their game pad, and from episode to episode, you have to face new challenges. First the land is developed and later gold is found. This brings bandits into your city who must be surrounded and taken into custody.

You can play through the campaign or pick your favorite individual episodes or chapters to play over and over again.