boardgames
Love Letter: Kanai Factory Limited Edition BGG
other title: Love Letter / Letters to Santa
genre: Card Game / Deduction platform: Boardgame publisher: Alderac Entertainment Group / Kanai Factory
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

Sushi Go! BGG
other title: Суши карты / Суші? Так!
genre: Card Game platform: Boardgame publisher: Adventureland Games / Gamewright
In the super-fast sushi card game Sushi Go!, you are eating at a sushi restaurant and trying to grab the best combination of sushi dishes as they whiz by. Score points for collecting the most sushi rolls or making a full set of sashimi. Dip your favorite nigiri in wasabi to triple its value! And once you've eaten it all, finish your meal with all the pudding you've got! But be careful which sushi you allow your friends to take; it might be just what they need to beat you!

Sushi Go! takes the card-drafting mechanism of Fairy Tale and 7 Wonders and distills it into a twenty-minute game that anyone can play. The dynamics of "draft and pass" are brought to the fore, while keeping the rules to a minimum. As you see the first few hands of cards, you must quickly assess the make-up of the round and decide which type of sushi you'll go for. Then, each turn you'll need to weigh which cards to keep and which to pass on. The different scoring combinations allow for some clever plays and nasty blocks. Round to round, you must also keep your eye on the goal of having the most pudding cards at the end of the game!

Tobago BGG
genre: Adventure / Deduction platform: Boardgame publisher: Zoch Verlag / Competo / Marektoy
Tobago is an adventure game in which the players use representations of treasure maps to locate unknown treasures. During the game, more and more information about the location of a treasure is revealed and its possible locations are gradually narrowed down. When the location of one of the treasures is finally revealed players try to reach it as quickly as possible to secure the findings. The more clues you have provided, the more of a stake you will have in the loot.
Players can carefully play their clues and use bonus-action gems to influence where and when the treasure is found in order to ensure a more favourable outcome when the loot is finally 'dug up' and shared.

The game features a 3 piece, double-sided, modular game board which can be rearranged to create 32 possible island arrangements.

Carcassonne: Hunters and Gatherers BGG
other title: Carcassonne à la Préhistoire / Carcassonne Kivikausi
genre: Prehistoric platform: Boardgame publisher: Hans im Glück / 999 Games
Carcassonne: Hunters and Gatherers is a standalone game in the Carcassonne series set in the stone age.

As in other Carcassonne games, players take turns placing tiles to create the landscape and placing meeples to score points from the map they're creating. The player with the most points at the end of the game wins.

Instead of cities, roads, and farms, Carcassonne: Hunters and Gatherers has forests, rivers, lakes, and meadows. Players' meeples can represent hunters (when placed in the meadows), gatherers (in a forest), or fishermen (on a river segment). They also have huts, which can be placed on rivers or lakes to get fish from the entire river system.

It includes many of the familiar mechanics from Carcassonne with a few new rules, including:
- A player who completes a forest with a gold nugget in it gets to immediately draw and place 1 of 12 bonus (menhir) tiles.
- A meadow is worth 2 points for every animal in it, except tigers, which negate certain other animals.
- A river segment is worth the number of tiles in the segment plus the number of fish in the lakes at each end.
- A fishing hut scores at the end of the game and is worth the number of fish in all the lakes connected by rivers.

The Devir edition includes (the relevant part of) the Carcassonne: King & Scout expansion

In the 2020 edition
- Some of The Scout special tiles are transformed into menhir tiles of which there are more now.
- A deer scores 1 point, an aurochs 2 points and a mammoth 3 points on meadows.
- Rivers score for fish in the river segments as well, not only the fish in the lakes at each end. Fishing huts likewise.
- Players each get 3 huts instead of just 2.

San Juan (Second Edition) BGG
other title: Puerto Rico: Das Kartenspiel / Puerto Rico: Gra karciana
genre: Card Game / City Building platform: Boardgame publisher: alea / Ravensburger
San Juan is a card game based on Puerto Rico. The deck of 110 cards consists of production buildings (indigo, sugar, tobacco, coffee, and silver) and "violet" buildings that grant special powers or extra victory points. Cards from the hand can be either built or used as money to build something else; cards from the deck are used to represent goods produced by the production buildings, in which case they are left face-down. A seven-card hand limit is enforced once per round.

In each round (or governorship), each player in turn selects from one of the available roles, triggering an event that usually affects all players, such as producing goods or constructing buildings. The person who picks the role gets a privilege, such as producing more goods or building more cheaply.

Though similar in concept to Puerto Rico, the game has many different mechanisms. In particular, the game includes no colonists and no shipping of goods; goods production and trading are normally limited to one card per phase; and trades cannot be blocked. Victory points are gained exclusively by building, and the game ends as soon as one player has put up twelve buildings.

This second edition of San Juan includes all the cards of the original game as well as the additional building cards from the alea Treasure Chest but not the event cards from that expansion. This edition also contains a new building card not previously available: "The Hut," a building that grants a card when nothing is sold in the trader phase.

Rajas of the Ganges BGG
other title: Ganges / I Ragià del Gange
genre: Dice / Economic platform: Boardgame publisher: HUCH! / 999 Games
Through tactics and karma to wealth and fame...

In 16th century India, the powerful empire of the Great Moguls rises between the Indus and the Ganges rivers. Taking on the role of rajas and ranis – the country's influential nobles – players in Rajas of the Ganges race against each other in support of the empire by developing their estates into wealthy and magnificent provinces. Players must use their dice wisely and carefully plot where to place their workers, while never underestimating the benefits of good karma. Success will bring them great riches and fame in their quest to become legendary rulers.

Lords of Xidit BGG
other title: クシディット王国記 / 席迪特戰記
genre: Fantasy platform: Boardgame publisher: Libellud / Asterion Press
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

7 Wonders BGG
other title: 7 csoda / 7 Cudów Świata
genre: Ancient / Card Game platform: Boardgame publisher: Repos Production / ADC Blackfire Entertainment
You are the leader of one of the 7 great cities of the Ancient World. Gather resources, develop commercial routes, and affirm your military supremacy. Build your city and erect an architectural wonder which will transcend future times.

7 Wonders lasts three ages. In each age, players receive seven cards from a particular deck, choose one of those cards, then pass the remainder to an adjacent player. Players reveal their cards simultaneously, paying resources if needed or collecting resources or interacting with other players in various ways. (Players have individual boards with special powers on which to organize their cards, and the boards are double-sided). Each player then chooses another card from the deck they were passed, and the process repeats until players have six cards in play from that age. After three ages, the game ends.

In essence, 7 Wonders is a card development game. Some cards have immediate effects, while others provide bonuses or upgrades later in the game. Some cards provide discounts on future purchases. Some provide military strength to overpower your neighbors and others give nothing but victory points. Each card is played immediately after being drafted, so you'll know which cards your neighbor is receiving and how her choices might affect what you've already built up. Cards are passed left-right-left over the three ages, so you need to keep an eye on the neighbors in both directions.

Though the box of earlier editions is listed as being for 3–7 players, there is an official 2-player variant included in the instructions.

Potion Explosion BGG
other title: Fergeteges elegyek / Potion Explosion ห้องเรียนนักปรุงยา
genre: Fantasy / Puzzle platform: Boardgame publisher: Horrible Guild / 999 Games
Potion Explosion is a game for 2 to 4 players by Horrible Games.
It was designed by Lorenzo Silva, Andrea Crespi and Stefano Castelli.

Dear students, it's time for the final exams of the Potions class! The rules are always the same: Take an ingredient marble from the dispenser and watch the others fall. If you connect marbles of the same color, they explode and you can take them, too! Complete your potions using the marbles you collect, and drink them to unleash their magical power. Remember, though, that to win the Student of the Year award, being quick won't be enough: you'll also need to brew the most valuable potions in Potion Explosion!

Spexxx BGG
genre: Dice platform: Boardgame publisher: Waterfall Games
Spexxx could be described as a combination of Yahtzee and Connect Four, but it's more than that. After a player rolls the 5 dice, (s)he places a cube on the board in the square that represents the rolled dice combination. The objective is to score the most points by placing cubes in squares. When players place three or more of their own cubes in a row, they score points. They can take a risk by aiming for difficult combinations and score more points accordingly. The game ends when all players' last cubes are placed on the board.

Rallyman: GT BGG
other title: 랠리맨: GT
genre: Racing / Sports platform: Boardgame publisher: Holy Grail Games / Synapses Games
Rallyman: GT is a Roll and Move racing game that will have you rolling dice and pushing your luck to be the first over the finish line!

Will you risk it all to win?

THE GAME

The base mechanics of Rallyman GT are simple. You have 6 Gear dice, representing the gears of your car. You'll be rolling these dice to move, and each one allows you to move 1 space along the track.

The dice must be rolled in ascending and/or descending order, and each die can only be rolled once per turn.

You also have a Coast dice that allow you to maintain your current speed, which can help you wring a few extra spaces of movement out of your turn.

If there's a sharp corner coming up, you can use Brake dice to drastically reduce your speed, but beware, they also make maneuvers more dangerous.

Each die has a certain number of Warning symbols. If you get 3 in one roll, you'll spin out! Losing control of your car will lose you time and distance, and even causing damage to your vehicle.

You can choose to play it safe by rolling your dice one by one. If the warning symbols start stacking up, you can end your turn whenever you choose without suffering any consequences.

Rallyman GT is a fast, exciting racing game with simple mechanics and rules. The Hexagonal tiles allow players to create their own tracks in a flash.

—description from the publisher

Downforce BGG
other title: Bolidy / Rivalové
genre: Racing / Sports platform: Boardgame publisher: Restoration Games / 2 Pionki
High-stakes bidding on million-dollar race cars. Frantic bets placed in secret even as the cars race around the track. And to the victor, the biggest purse of all. But in the world of motor racing, the margin between victory and defeat can be a single moment: a steep banked turn, tires screaming and spitting out smoke, and the downforce, pressing you down in your seat and keeping you on the track as you make your move inside to pull ahead.

Downforce is a card-driven bidding, racing, and betting game for 2-6 players based on Top Race, the award-winning design by the legendary Wolfgang Kramer. Players first bid to own the six cars in the race, then they play cards from their hand to speed them around the track. However, most cards will also move their opponents' cars. So figuring out just the right time to play a card is the key to victory. Along the way, players make secret bets on who they think will win the race. Whoever has the most money from their prize money, winning bets, and remaining bank wins.

This is a game whose design needed no attention. Years of play and multiple versions have honed it to near perfection. On the contrary, one of the design challenges was figuring which of the many rules modules to incorporate to create the most fun version. Downforce also adds variable player powers to improve replayability. But mostly, it improves the look of the game to make it gorgeous and easy to play. Special attention was paid to the colors, the layout of the cards, the design of the cars, the details on the board, and more.

Stone Age BGG
other title: 100000 лет до нашей эры / L'Âge de Pierre
genre: Dice / Economic platform: Boardgame publisher: Hans im Glück / 999 Games
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 their staffed areas in whatever sequence they choose, 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.

Celestia BGG
other title: Селестия / Селестія
genre: Adventure / Aviation / Flight platform: Boardgame publisher: BLAM ! / ABBA Games
In Celestia, a revamped version of Cloud 9, you board an aircraft with a team of adventurers to perform many trips through the cities of Celestia and recover their wonderful treasures. Your journey will not be safe, but you will attempt to be the richest adventurer by collecting the most precious treasures!

At the beginning of a journey, all players place their pawns within the aircraft; the players start the game with six cards in hand (or eight depending on the number of players). At the beginning of each round, one player is chosen to be the captain of the trip and he rolls 2-4 dice to discover the challenges that they will face: fog, lightning bolts, killer birds, or pirates. He must then play the appropriate cards — a compass, a lightning arrester, a foghorn, or even cannons — to continue on the journey and reach the next city. But before the captain plays the appropriate cards, each player must decide whether to stay within the aircraft:


If you exit, you're guaranteed the victory points that come from exploring the current city.
If you stay on board, you hope to make it to the next city in order to catch more precious treasures. If the captain can't overcome the challenge, though, everyone comes crashing down empty-handed and you'll need to begin a new trip with all passengers on board.


During the journey, each adventurer can try to pull out of the game with fabulous objects (a jetpack, astronomy glasses, etc.) or by changing the trip (modifying the travel or abandoning an explorer in the city). As soon as a player earns treasure worth at least fifty points, the game ends and this player wins.

Coloretto BGG
other title: Coloretto edizione anniversario 10 anni / Coloretto: 10 years edition
genre: Animals / Card Game platform: Boardgame publisher: ABACUSSPIELE / 999 Games
Game play in Coloretto is simple: Either draw a card to play to a row, or take a row of cards to add them to your collection. A row can have at most three cards, so at some point everyone is forced to take a row. Once all the rows have been claimed, players start a new round, drawing or taking once again.

What are you trying to do with these cards? Collect huge sets - but only in three colors as every color beyond the third will cost you points. Jokers are highly-prized as they always match what you want, and +2 cards provide sure points, giving you a back-up plan if everything goes south in terms of the colors you're collecting.

Once only a few cards remain in the deck, the round ends and everyone tallies their score, choosing three colors of cards to score positively while any other colors count against you. Each color is scored using a triangular number system: the first card in a color is ±1 point, the second card is ±2 points, and so on. The player with the high score wins!

A two-player variant is included with some versions of Coloretto, with the only change being that rows can have only 1-3 cards placed in them, depending on the icons on the row cards.

Nordic version include extensions: 'Coloretto: The Extra Cards', 'Coloretto: The Limit Cards' and 'Coloretto for two players'.

Taluva BGG
other title: 拉瓦岛
genre: Abstract Strategy / Territory Building platform: Boardgame publisher: Hans im Glück / Cranio Creations
In Taluva, players attempt to successfully settle a South Sea island slowly emerging from the ocean waters as volcano after volcano erupts.

Each turn, players decide to either have a new volcano erupt along the shore, increasing the size of the island, or to have an existing volcano erupt again, increasing the height of the land around it (and possibly destroying parts of existing settlements). They do this by placing a new tile, consisting of one volcano and two other types of landscape. A tile must always touch at least one other tile, when placed at sea level, or be placed on top of at least two other tiles (without any gaps under the land being created), with the volcano being placed on top of an existing volcano.
Next, the player will place one or more wooden buildings; huts, temples or towers. Settlements must always start at the lowest level, by placing a single hut. From there on, existing settlements may expand by placing huts on all hexes of a single type of terrain around the settlement, with temples once the settlement takes up at least three hexes, or with towers, placed at level three or above.

The game ends when all tiles have been placed. At that point, the player who's placed most temples wins. Ties are broken by towers, then huts. Ultimate victory - and an immediate end to the game - waits for the player who manages to place all their buildings of two types. Immediate defeat is also possible, when no buildings can legally be played during a player's turn.

A lot of strategy results from the various placement rules. Volcanoes may never fully destroy a settlement, so single huts can block volcano placement, protecting other settlements. Alternatively, a well placed volcano can split a large settlement in two, creating the opportunity for both to expand more rapidly than a new settlement would. Limiting your opponent's growth potential is at least as important as preparing the terrain for you to expand upon...

Hey, That's My Fish! BGG
other title: ¡Pingüinos! / Ei! Čia mano žuvis!
genre: Abstract Strategy / Animals platform: Boardgame publisher: Bambus Spieleverlag / 999 Games
In Hey, That's My Fish!, players want to catch as many fish as possible with their waddle of penguins. Each turn, a player moves one penguin in a straight line over hex-shaped ice tiles with 1, 2 or 3 fish on them. The player then collects the hex from where the penguin started its movement from the table, thereby creating a gap which penguins can't cross on future turns. When a penguin can't move, it's removed from play with its owner claiming the tile on which it stands. The player who collects the most fish wins.

Carpe Diem BGG
other title: 活在當下 / 카르페 디엠
genre: Ancient platform: Boardgame publisher: alea / Broadway Toys LTD
The players slip into the role of rich patricians in ancient Rome. Everyone is trying to build a lucrative city district to score as many prestige points as possible. The novel way to get to the individual buildings of a district combined with a large variety of score cards make for an unusual game with a large number of strategies. From the successful designer, Stefan Feld.

Vende-se BGG
other title: For Sale / EladLak!
genre: Card Game / Economic platform: Boardgame publisher: Eagle-Gryphon Games / IELLO
For Sale is a quick, fun game nominally about buying and selling real estate. During the game's two distinct phases, players first bid for several buildings then, after all buildings have been bought, sell the buildings for the greatest profit possible.

The original Ravensburger/FX Schmid edition (1997/98) has slightly different rules than later English editions, and only 20 buildings instead of 30.
The Überplay 2005 Edition has new art, rules and card distribution changes, and it accommodates 3-6 players.

The Gryphon 2009 Edition uses the Überplay art for the faces of the property cards, while replacing most other art. The rules are the same as the Überplay edition, with the exception of the rounding rule (which was stated in different ways in different printings of the Überplay edition).

Rounding rule

The rounding rule preferred by the designer Stefan Dorra is that players get back half of their bid rounded DOWN (not UP), as confirmed in correspondence with him here and here. A history of how the rounding rule has changed in different editions is documented here.

Solo BGG
other title: Kinder Solo / The Simpsons Solo
genre: Card Game platform: Boardgame publisher: 999 Games / AMIGO
From the back of the box:

"Each player gets eight cards. The player who is the first one to put all his cards on the table is the winner. But Beware! There are peculiar action cards which can turn everything upside down. SOLO is a new variant of Mau-Mau with special action cards, that will guarantee a lot of fun."

Each turn, a player can put a card with the same colour or number or action symbol as the card played previously. The special action cards allow players to:

* Miss a turn - next player misses their turn

* Change direction - the order of play is reversed
* Take 2 - next player draws two cards

* Choose a colour - can be named as any colour, changing the colour in play

* Take 4 + choose a colour - you choose a colour, next player picks up four

* Swap cards - choose another player and swap cards with them

* Change all cards - all hands move round one space in play direction

The Miss a Turn, Change direction, Take 2 and Swap cards are colour coded and must be played following a card of the same colour, the Choose a colour, Take 4 + choose a colour and Change all cards actions are colour independent.

Similar to:

UNO