"The robot was advancing fast towards the base, loaded with crystals – but the opponent team's robot was nearing. 'Bzzzzt!' Lightning sparked briefly, and the Bot changed course to unload the crystal a few meters from his base, his programming slightly jammed by the shock wave. The opponent Bot immediately loaded the crystal and proceed to rejoin his base; two other Bots were nearing and they didn't look too friendly! The mechanic sighed heavily as he knew this would inevitably end up in a melee, damaged Bots, and long hours in the repair shop afterwards..."

In Twin Tin Bots, the robot-programming game for the new generation, many corporations have invested in crystal mining after they were discovered as a potent energy source. They designed and improved robots to harvest crystals and a few people can now run a big crystal harvesting rig. Many teams work on the same harvesting plant, but the game's always on to bring more crystals back than the others.

In the game, each player programs two robots to harvest crystals from the game board and bring them back to his base. The catch is that robots repeat their programming, but changes to the program from turn to turn are limited. Robots can also interact with other robots so even the best laid plans can end up slightly different than expected.

The player who harvests the most valuable crystals wins.

In Puerto Rico, players assume the roles of colonial governors on the island of Puerto Rico. The aim of the game is to amass victory points by shipping goods to Europe or by constructing buildings.

Each player uses a separate small board with spaces for city buildings, plantations, and resources. Shared between the players are three ships, a trading house, and a supply of resources and doubloons.

The resource cycle of the game is that players grow crops which they exchange for points or doubloons. Doubloons can then be used to buy buildings, which allow players to produce more crops or give them other abilities. Buildings and plantations do not work unless they are manned by colonists.

During each round, players take turns selecting a role card from those on the table (such as "Trader" or "Builder"). When a role is chosen, every player gets to take the action appropriate to that role. The player that selected the role also receives a small privilege for doing so - for example, choosing the "Builder" role allows all players to construct a building, but the player who chose the role may do so at a discount on that turn. Unused roles gain a doubloon bonus at the end of each turn, so the next player who chooses that role gets to keep any doubloon bonus associated with it. This encourages players to make use of all the roles throughout a typical course of a game.

Puerto Rico uses a variable phase order mechanism in which a "governor" token is passed clockwise to the next player at the conclusion of a turn. The player with the token begins the round by choosing a role and taking the first action.

Players earn victory points for owning buildings, for shipping goods, and for manned "large buildings." Each player's accumulated shipping chips are kept face down and come in denominations of one or five. This prevents other players from being able to determine the exact score of another player. Goods and doubloons are placed in clear view of other players and the totals of each can always be requested by a player. As the game enters its later stages, the unknown quantity of shipping tokens and its denominations require players to consider their options before choosing a role that can end the game.

In 2011 and mostly afterwards, Puerto Rico was published to include both Puerto Rico: Expansion I – New Buildings and Puerto Rico: Expansion II – The Nobles. These versions are included in the other game entry Puerto Rico, not this regular game entry for Puerto Rico. Some editions of Puerto Rico list the player count as 2-5 instead of 3-5, and they include variant rules for games with only two players.

The year is AD 79. Pompeii, sitting at the foot of Vesuvius, is at the high point in its development. People come to the city from far and wide to try to make their luck in the city. So far nobody has dreamed of the danger that will bury all of their dreams under mountains of ash just ten years later. Who will survive the eruption of Vesuvius unscathed?

The simple rules make it easy to get started with The Downfall of Pompeii, a game in which a lot of tactical know-how is required – along with a little luck – in order to bring your pieces out of the city at the right time.

The game falls into two halves: before and after the eruption of Vesuvius. Before the eruption, players play cards to place their pieces in buildings. After the first eruption, they can also place as many relatives as the number of pieces already in the building they placed their piece in. When Omen cards are drawn, the player can take any opponent's piece and throw it into the erupting volcano. In this manner, players try to get as many pieces onto the board as close to the exits from the city as possible.

After the second eruption, the game changes. Now each player places a lava tile, which kills any pieces on that square and may block exits from the city. Then they move two pieces toward the exits, moving them a number of squares equal to the pieces on the square from which they started. The player who gets the most pieces out of the city wins.

•••

The 2013 second edition of The Downfall of Pompeii includes three dual vent tiles and a new "Dual Vent" variant.

On May 16th, 1703, Czar Peter laid the cornerstone for the first building in Saint Petersburg. Quickly, glorious buildings were added, always being expanded, so that Nobility (bringing victory points) may want to move in. But to accomplish this, one needs merchants who can provide the necessary Rubles, or the glory is over. The competition isn't sleeping either, and can sometimes steal a desired card right out from under your nose.

Saint Petersburg has a board to tally victory points and to set out the four types of cards. It is the cards themselves that players need to collect. In each round – with the number of rounds dependent on the number of players and the randomness of card availability – players first pay for CRAFTSMEN who supply money for further purchases; then BUILDINGS to score points; then ARISTOCRATS, who are needed for money, points, and end-of-game scoring; and finally, unique cards from all three categories which give greater benefits. During the first rounds, players never have enough money to buy every card they want. During later rounds, they have plenty of money, but the cards they'd like to buy may have already come and gone...

Expanded by:

Sankt Petersburg: Das Bankett
Saint Petersburg: New Society & Banquet Expansion (includes The Banquet)

Developer Stefan Brück at alea describes Las Vegas as "an easy, dice-rolling, fun-and-luck game with a lot of interaction and 'schadenfreude'". Who doesn't love schadenfreude? (Well, other than those being schadened, I suppose...)

In more detail, Las Vegas includes six cardboard casino mats, one for each side of a normal six-sided die. For each mat, players draw money cards until at least $50k is showing, but the amount may end up being a lot more, making that casino more desirable.

Each player has eight dice of a different color, which they take turns rolling. When you roll your dice, you can choose to place them on the relevant casino cards; for example, a die showing a 1 will be placed on the casino mat marked "1". You must place all dice of one number on one casino in your turn. All players take turns doing this until all the dice have been used. Finally, the player with the most dice on each casino card takes the money associated with it. In case of a tie, the next non-tied player takes the highest-valued money card at that casino.

Las Vegas rates a 1 out of 10 on alea's difficulty scale.

This game is inspired by the Portuguese Age of Discoveries in the 15th-16th century. Players take actions such as contracting workers, acquiring ships and buildings, sailing the seas, establishing colonies in discovered lands, trading goods on the market, and getting privileges.

Each player starts with only two ships and three workers and tries to expand his wealth.

There are several lands that, once sailed to, allow players to found colonies. Colonies exist in different places where sugar, gold and spices are available and can be sold to the market to make some money. Money is used to build ships, erect buildings such as factories, shipyards and churches, and to get workers. Workers are necessary to found colonies or to acquire buildings and privileges, which exist in five categories and therefore encourage players to follow different strategies competing with each other.

At the end of the game the player who is most successful in combining their privileges with their achievements (colonies, factories, discoveries, shipyards, and churches) is the winner.

In 1271, 17-year-old Marco Polo started on a journey to China with his father and older brother. After a long and grueling journey that led through Jerusalem and Mesopotamia and over the "Silk Road", they reached the court of Kublai Khan in 1275.

In The Voyages of Marco Polo, players recreate this journey, with each player having a different character from history with a special power in the game. The game is played over five rounds. Each round, the players roll their five personal dice and take turns performing actions by placing their dice onto the board. Players may choose from a variety of actions, each require the use of one or more dice: collecting resources or money, acquiring contracts, traveling on the map or using a special action granted by a city. When traveling, each player begins at Venice and can decide between several routes eastward, all the way to Beijing. When a player stops at a city, they place a trading post there, giving them access to extra actions or resources for the rest of the game. The higher the value of the dice used for an action, the better the options that may be chosen, but also the more money the player must pay if an opponent has already chosen the same action.

After five rounds, the game ends with players receiving extra victory points for having trading posts in Beijing, fulfilling the most contracts, and having trading posts in the cities on secret goal cards that each player gets at the start of the game.

This game should not be confused with Marco Polo Expedition, which has the same German title.

The peaks of Snowdonia rise before you, encased in mist, their summits barely visible. The highest is Snowdon (Wyddfa) herself at 1,085 metres. The year is 1894, and the Snowdon Mountain Tramroad and Hotels Company Limited has been formed to build a branch line from Llanberis to the summit. You can scarcely believe it's possible!

In Snowdonia players represent work gangs providing labour for the construction of the Snowdon Mountain Railway. Unlike other train games you will have to excavate your way up a mountain side, as well as make and lay the track, construct viaducts and stations. All this in competition with the weather of the Welsh mountains (and the game itself)!

You may be assisted by a train (though that's not always best) and you'll be able to collect essential materials from the Stock Yard. You will obtain special work contracts that give you bonuses.

Can you contribute more than the other players to the magnificence of the Snowdon Mountain Railway?

In this Sid Sackson classic, players must press their luck with dice and choose combinations tactically to close out three columns. The board has one column for each possible total of two six-sided dice, but the number of spaces in each column varies: the more probable a total, the more spaces in that column and the more rolls it takes to complete. On their turn, a player rolls four dice and arranges them in duos: 1 4 5 6 can become 1+4 and 5+6 for 5 & 11, 1+5 and 4+6 for 6 & 10, or 1+6 and 4+5 for 7 & 9. The player places or advances progress markers in the open column(s) associated with their chosen totals, then chooses whether to roll again or end their turn and replace the progress markers with markers of their color. A player can only advance three different columns in a turn and cannot advance a column which any player has closed out by reaching the end space; if a roll doesn’t result in any legal plays, the turn ends with that turn’s progress lost.

A predecessor from 1974, The Great Races, exists as a paper-and-pencil game.

The fierce and friendly pick and pass card game.

Collect enclosures, rescue animals and install upgrades over 3 years and build the highest scoring wildlife park you can in this fast paced card game. Don't let the cutesy looks fool you into thinking this is going to be easy though! Can you keep the Lions away from the Anteaters on the Savannah plains? Are your sloths lonely or living a happy life on an Open-Air island? Your Zuuli adventure awaits!

—description from the publisher

You are an amateur dracologist in the world of Wyrmspan, a place where dragons of all shapes, sizes, and colors roam the skies. Excavate a hidden labyrinth you recently unearthed on your land and entice these beautiful creatures to roost in the sanctuary of your caves.

During a game of Wyrmspan, you will build a sanctuary for dragons of all shapes and sizes. Your sanctuary begins with 3 excavated spaces—the leftmost space in your Crimson Cavern, your Golden Grotto, and your Amethyst Abyss. Over the course of the game, you will excavate additional spaces in your sanctuary and entice dragons to live there, chaining together powerful abilities and earning the favor of the Dragon Guild.

Wyrmspan is inspired by the mechanisms of Wingspan, though its unique elements make Wyrmspan a standalone game (not compatible with Wingspan).

—description from the publisher

In Worta, you step into the shoes of a farmer!
Grow your garden by planting vegetables, and strategically use rabbits, foxes, droughts, and barns to have the highest vegetable production by the end of the game.
However, no farm is complete without animals, and in this game, they might determine the real winner!

Game Instructions

Objective:
In this game, you are a farmer striving to cultivate the best garden. Your goal is to gather animals and grow vegetables to earn the most points.

Setup:

Separate the decks.
Give each player 2 distinct vegetable cards (place them face-up on the table) from the blue deck.
Deal each player 2 additional cards from the blue deck.


Gameplay:

Drawing Cards:
On your turn, draw 2 cards from the blue deck.

Playing Cards:
Play 2 cards by discarding them onto the pile and utilising their power.



Scoring:

Every vegetable you cultivate in your garden adds 1 point to your score.
The game ends when a player gathers 4 different animals. Completing this set adds an additional 4 points to the total score.


Winning the Game:

Count the points from your cultivated vegetables and any bonus points from gathered animals.
The player with the highest total score is declared the best farmer in the county!

Take on the role of the great leaders of the past to build your own Ancient City.

Players will take turns spending their gold each round to build tiles that will increase their city's economy. A city that produces more food and generates commerce brings more population. Make your city grow!

There are 5 types of buildings, each of which provides resources that will help your city evolve from a simple settlement to the largest city in the world.

To place new buildings in your city you will also need a lot of roads. Don’t forget about monuments, which are just as important as the buildings. These will bring you victory points, but claiming one will consume the rest of your gold for the round.

Choose your timing and placement wisely! If your gold runs out, your round is over. Once all players have spent their gold, a new round begins and new buildings and roads will become available.

After 10 rounds or as soon as a player reaches the maximum population limit, the leader of the best city in the ancient world will be the winner of World Wonders!

—description from the publisher

Wordsy is a streamlined re-implementation of Prolix, a word game from 2010.

Each round, players study the 8 letters (always consonants) on the board in real time. The first player to write down a word flips a 30-second timer. That player is now the fastest player, and every other player now has 30 seconds to write down their word.

Once time has run out, the fastest player scores their word by counting the point value of each of the matching letters on the board. Players are not limited to the letters on the board; they can add any letters they'd like. Letters score based on which of the 4 columns of the board they're in, and how rare they are.

After the fastest player scores, the first player clockwise scores their word, and compares it to the fastest player. If that player scored more than the fastest player, they score a small bonus.

Every other player scores their word and checks for a bonus. Once they've all done this, the fastest player scores a bonus if their score is equal to or higher than half the other player's scores.

After 7 rounds, players add the scores their best 5 words, plus their bonuses. The player with the most points wins!

October 1888: During the construction of the Metropolitan Police headquarters near Whitehall, which would later be known as Scotland Yard, the remains of a body were found. In September, a severed arm had already been discovered in the muddy shore of the River Thames.

There is another murderer roaming the streets of London in Whitehall, amusing himself by spreading the pieces of a poor woman around Whitehall, like some kind of macabre treasure hunt. The identity of this monster and his unfortunate victim are a mystery, the Whitehall Mystery.

The heron flies over the Himeji sky while the Daimyo, from the top of the castle, watches his servants move. Gardeners tend the pond, where the koi carp live, warriors stand guard on the walls, and courtiers crowd the gates, pining for an audience that brings them closer to the innermost circles of the court. When night falls, the lanterns are lit and the workers return to their clan.

In The White Castle, players will control one of these clans in order to score more victory points than the rest. To do so, they must amass influence in the court, manage resources boldly, and place their workers in the right place at the right time. The authors are Sheila Santos and Israel Cendrero, the duo known as Llama Dice who also designed the successful The Red Cathedral with Devir. In this case, we leave the Moscow of Ivan the Terrible behind to explore the most imposing fortress in modern Japan, Himeji Castle, where the banner of the Sakai clan flies under the orders of Daimyo Sakai Tadakiyo.

The White Castle is a Euro type game with mechanics of resource management, worker placement and dice placement to carry out actions. During the game, over three rounds, players will send members of their clan to tend the gardens, defend the castle or progress up the social ladder of the nobility. At the end of the match, these will award players victory points in a variety of ways.

The central panel shows Himeji Castle in all its splendor, divided into several zones. The largest is inside the castle, with the Room of the Thousand Carpets, where the courtiers must ascend socially until they reach the circle closest to the Daimyo to enjoy his favor. There is also the pond and the gardens, patiently tended by the gardeners where everyone can relax and contemplate its beauty without restriction. Another important area is the wall and the outside of the castle, where the warriors patrol and stand guard. Finally, we find the area of the three bridges, where the three types of dice that can be used to carry out actions are accumulated, and the personal domain of each player, where they will keep track of their resources and where they will have the reserve of workers.

With accessible rules and a very careful setting, The White Castle is a very versatile title that will fit in with different gaming groups. As is tradition with Llama Dice titles, its sleek and simple design belies a great deal of strategic depth within the grasp of players.

—description from the publisher

You've built housing for humanity in neighborhoods and New Las Vegas. Now you need to save humanity through space colonization...

Welcome to the Moon uses the same flip-and-write game mechanisms as the earlier title Welcome To..., but now you can play in a campaign across eight adventure sheets. On a turn, you flip cards from three stacks to create three different combinations of a starship number and a corresponding action, then all players choose one of these three combinations. You use the number to fill a space in a zone on your adventure sheet in numerical order, and everyone is racing to be the first to complete common missions.

The eight adventure sheets feature very different mechanisms from the classic Welcome To... concept, and when you play in campaign mode, you'll make choices that change the next adventure, which means that each campaign will differ from the previous one.

Battle the elements in Waypoints as you hike through a landscape of mountains, valleys, lakes, and woodlands. Climb vast summits or take to the rivers, marking your route and recording your experiences as you go.

Each turn, a die is rolled which determines the weather for that hike and how much time is left of the day. Clear skies mean good hiking, while snow or rain will slow you down. With the weather set, all players simultaneously mark a route on their player sheet, moving from waypoint to waypoint. Mountains and valleys are harder to traverse, but the rewards may be worth it.

After four days, each player will have a unique map of their hike, scoring points for animals and features they have encountered.

-description from publisher

Grow the vegetables, raise the sale price, and make a fortune!

Vegetable Stock, which debuted as Small Farmer, is a simple card game about vegetable economics. Each round, reveal one more card than the number of players on the table. Each card has three vegetable icons on it, with vegetables coming in five types. Players take turns choosing one of the cards and placing it in their harvest pile face down. The price of the vegetable(s) on the card not chosen goes up — but if the price goes too high, it crashes, although it can rise again next round.

After six rounds, determine your score by multiplying the number of each vegetable you have harvested by the final price of that vegetable. The player with the highest score wins!

Players take turns forming words on either an 8x8 (original and Winning Moves "new classic" versions) or a 10x10 (most later versions) grid. Words may be formed horizontally or vertically, as in Scrabble, but, as the title suggests, the letters may also be stacked. This allows already played words to change into different words by stacking new letters (up to a limit of 5 high). For example, LATE could be changed to CATER and then to BELATED. Instead of having different values for each letter, when a new word is formed, the number of tiles used in that word is counted. If the whole word is one tile high (no stacking), then the word scores 2 points per tile. However, if there are any stacked tiles, you score one point per tile in the word, including those underneath. This results in scoring that increases as the game continues, even for simpler words.