From the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 to the beginning of WWI in 1914, there was an amazing development of bigger, faster, and more modern steamships. Whereas in 1870 there are still many clippers around and the good old paddle steamer "Scotia" sails the North Atlantic, sea trade is dominated by the end of this era by huge vessels like "Mauretania"(Cunard), "Olympic"(White Star), or "Imperator"(Hapag).

In Transatlantic, 2 to 4 players lead their own shipping companies, which transport freight, mail, and passengers around the globe. They purchase new steamships from the market, each of them historical with their individual technical data (tons, knots etc.). Competition is tough, especially in the North Atlantic where winning the "Blue Riband" is not only a matter of prestige, but may also be a profitable investment. In order to let a shipping company flourish, purchasing the best steamships is not enough, if one fails to acquire enough coal bunkers and trade posts as well.

The game is driven by cards; on each turn, play one card and execute the related action. As new cards enter the game, build your individual deck of cards with new or improved possibilities. The task is to manage your merchant fleet most efficiently. It's a maritime strategy game with low luck, lots of interactive choices, and tough decisions.

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 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.

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.

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.

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

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 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!

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

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.

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.

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.

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'.

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...

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.

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 Ãœberplay 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.

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

City building has never been so easy: Just roll the dice, then build a building. However, each die must be selected carefully to fit the building requirements. Push your luck too far – or select carelessly – and a player may find himself demolishing his city instead of building it up. Choose each die wisely and build efficiently in order to erect magnificent skyscrapers and create the best skyline!

Skyline is a quick push-your-luck dice game involving set collection. Unlike other dice games that provide no relationship from turn to turn and no player interaction, this game allows players to literally build upon their decisions each turn and react to their opponents' actions.

Each turn, players choose to roll dice from either the Construction Yard or the Abandoned District, with the goal of erecting urban buildings. Buildings are made up of three types of dice: Ground Floor dice, Mid-Floor dice and Penthouse dice. Some buildings are safer to build but provide little reward, while other buildings have poor probabilities but can have substantial impact on the success of a player's skyline.

After rolling their selected dice, the player must use at least one of these dice to take one of three possible actions: Abandon, Build, or Cancel Construction. The Build action is the desired outcome, of course, but can be carried out only if the die result matches what they need to build. For instance, all Ground Floor dice can be built without restriction, but a High-Rise Mid-Floor die result can be built only on top of a High-Rise Ground Floor die. Likewise, a Mid-Rise Penthouse die can be built only on a Mid-Rise Mid-Floor die. If the rolled results do not allow them to Build, then the player must Cancel Construction on one of their existing buildings. If a player does not want to Cancel Construction, then they must Abandon by placing that die in the Abandoned District, which gives their opponents the opportunity to capitalize on this failure.

At the end of the game, points are rewarded for completed buildings according to their height. A Level 3 building – that is, a building comprised of three dice – is worth 9 points, while a Level 4 building is worth 16, and so on.

Remember, the dice control the results...but the players control the dice.

On the 11th of July, 1899 at 10 a.m., the Union Pacific Express has left Folsom, New Mexico, with 47 passengers on board. After a few minutes, gunfire and hurrying footsteps on the roof can be heard. Heavily armed bandits have come to rob honest citizens of their wallets and jewels. Will they succeed in stealing the suitcase holding the Nice Valley Coal Company's weekly pay, despite it having been placed under the supervision of Marshal Samuel Ford? Will these bandits hinder one another more than the Marshal since only the richest one of them can come out on top?

In Colt Express, you play a bandit robbing a train at the same time as other bandits, and your goal is to become the richest outlaw of the Old West. The game consists of five rounds, and each round has two phases:


Phase 1: Schemin' Each player plays 2-5 action cards on a common pile, with the cards being face up or face down depending on the type of the round. Instead of playing a card, a player can draw three cards from her deck.
Phase 2: Stealin' The action cards are carried out in the order they were played, with a player's best laid plans possibly not panning out due to mistakes and oversights!


The game takes place in a 3D train in which the bandits can move from one car to another, run on the roof, punch the other bandits, shoot them, rob the passengers, or draw the Marshal out of position. The train has as many cars as the number of players, and each car is seeded with gems, bags of loot or suitcases at the start of play.

Each player starts a round with six cards in hand, with each card showing one of these actions. At the start of a round, a round card is revealed, showing how many cards will be played; whether they'll be played face up or face down, or individually or in pairs; and what action will occur at the end of the round (e.g., all bandits on top of the train move to the engine). You can pick up loot, gems or suitcases only by playing a "steal" card when you're in a train car that holds one of these items — but since everyone is planning to get these goods, you'll need to move, punch and shoot to get others out of your way. You can punch someone only in the same car as you, and when you do, the other bandit drops one of the goods he's collected and is knocked into an adjacent car.

Each player's character has a special power, such as starting the round with an extra card, playing your first card face down, or pocketing a bag of loot when you punch someone instead of letting it hit the ground.

You can shoot someone in an adjacent car or (if you're running on top of the train) anyone in sight, and when you do, you give that player one of your six bullet cards; that card gets shuffled in the opponent's deck, possibly giving her a dead card in hand on a future turn and forcing her to draw instead of playing something. If the Marshal ends up in the same car as you, likely due to other bandits luring him through the train, he'll be happy to give you a bullet, too.

At the end of the game, whoever fired the most bullets receives a $1,000 braggart bonus, and whoever bagged the richest haul wins!

In Tokaido, each player is a traveler crossing the "East sea road", one of the most magnificent roads of Japan. While traveling, you will meet people, taste fine meals, collect beautiful items, discover great panoramas, and visit temples and wild places but at the end of the day, when everyone has arrived at the end of the road you'll have to be the most initiated traveler – which means that you'll have to be the one who discovered the most interesting and varied things.

The potential action spaces in Tokaido are laid out on a linear track, with players advancing down this track to take actions. The player who is currently last on the track takes a turn by advancing forward on the track to their desired action and taking that action, so players must choose whether to advance slowly in order to get more turns, or to travel more rapidly to beat other players to their desired action spaces.

The action spaces allow a variety of actions that will score in different, but roughly equal, ways. Some action spaces allow players to collect money, while others offer players a way to spend that money to acquire points. Other action spaces allow players to engage in various set collections that score points for assembling those sets. Some action spaces simply award players points for stopping on them, or give the player a randomly determined action from all of the other types.

All of the actions in Tokaido are very simple, and combined with a unique graphic design, Tokaido offers players a peaceful zen mood in its play.