New to Games? 17 - Shut Up & Sit Down

Kingdom Builder

Players create their own kingdoms by skillfully building their settlements, aiming to earn the most gold at the end of the game.

Nine different kinds of terrain are on the variable game board, including locations and castles. During their turn, a player plays their terrain card and builds three settlements on three hexes of this kind. If possible, a new settlement must be built next to one of that player’s existing settlements. When building next to a location, the player may seize an extra action tile that they may use from their next turn on. These extra actions allow extraordinary actions such as moving your settlements.

By building next to a castle, the player will earn gold at the end of the game, but the most gold will be earned by meeting the conditions of the three Kingdom Builder cards; these three cards (from a total of ten in the game) specify the conditions that must be met in order to earn the much-desired gold, such as earning gold for your settlements built next to water hexes or having the majority of settlements in a sector of the board.

In Bring Your Own Book, players take turns drawing prompts from the deck, then race to find the best phrase in their own book that satisfies the prompt.

Everyone has a book and sits in a circle. The cards are placed face-down in the middle. The starting player should also have a 1-minute timer. Each player gets four cards (with 5-7 players) or five cards (with 3-4). The starting player takes the top card off the deck, picks a prompt, and reads it aloud. Everyone except the Picker searches their book for text to match the prompt. They’re seeking for sequential text of any length: a single word, half of a sentence, a whole sentence, multiple sentences.

The first Seeker to find matching text announces “I’ve got it” and starts the timer. When the timer runs out (or every Seeker announces “I’ve got it”), each Seeker reads what they’ve found. Seekers who didn’t find text in time open to a random page and read a random sentence from it.

The Picker chooses their favorite submission and awards that Reader the card. After each round, the person to the left of the last Picker starts the next round. Once any player reaches three cards, everyone passes their book to the player on their left. This happens any time a player reaches three cards during the game. As such, it can happen as many times as there are players. It is quite possible for players to pass until they have their original book back.

The game proceeds until one player reaches the set number of cards. With 5-7 players, four cards wins it; with 3-4 players, it’s better to play to five.

In Dragon’s Gold, each player controls a team of dragon hunters (two knights, a thief, and a wizard). Like all dragon hunters, they have only one goal: gold, silver, jewels and magic objects. As for actually killing a dragon? It’s a piece of cake. But the most difficult part comes after the dragon is dead: the adventuring party has to figure out how to share the spoils.

As soon as a dragon is overpowered, then some additional gems are revealed, and the players who had participated in that hunting party start a negotiation over how to divvy up the gems. If the sixty-second sand timer runs out, then no one gets treasure. When all of the dragons have been slain and the treasure claimed or discarded, the game ends and players score for their holdings, with silver and magic objects worth 1 point each, gold worth 3, the Black Diamond worth 7, and the colored gems scoring 10-15 points for those players who hold more than everyone else. (In the Advanced game, the colored gems score 8-12 points in addition to a variety bonus of 5 points for each set of different colored gems a player holds. The Black Diamond is worth 19 points [in the 2011 edition], but negates a player’s score for all colored gems.)

Mysterium is a purely co-operative game for 2-7 players. One player takes the role of a helpful ghost who lives in a mysterious ancient manor. Other players are a group of psychics invited by the manor owner to solve the mystery of the place and bring peace to its residents, as any person who stays in the castle sees strange dreams.

The ancient legend says the ghost is the soul of the manor’s previous resident, who was unjustly executed for a crime he didn’t commit, more than 100 years ago. Now he tries to use the mysterious signs to tell people the truth about what really happened then, so that justice would be established and he might rest in peace for ever. The specialists in the supernatural were invited to try to understand what the ghost wants to tell and in case of success be honoured by one more victory and receive a generous reward. They have 7 days and 7 nights to reach their goal. If they succeed in time, everyone wins the game (including the ghost).

Players take on the role of dwarves. As miners, they are in a mine, hunting for gold. Suddenly, a pick axe swings down and shatters the mine lamp. The saboteur has struck. But which of the players are saboteurs? Will you find the gold, or will the fiendish actions of the saboteurs lead them to it first? After three rounds, the player with the most gold is the winner.

With the help of Dwarf Cards, the players are assigned their role: either miner or saboteur. The roles are kept secret- they are only revealed at the end of the round.

Spyfall is a party game unlike any other, one in which you get to be a spy and try to understand what’s going on around you. It’s really simple!

Spyfall is played over several rounds, and at the start of each round all players receive cards showing the same location — a casino, a traveling circus, a pirate ship, or even a space station — except that one player receives a card that says “Spy” instead of the location. Players then start asking each other questions — “Why are you dressed so strangely?” or “When was the last time we got a payday?” or anything else you can come up with — trying to guess who among them is the spy. The spy doesn’t know where he is, so he has to listen carefully. When it’s his time to answer, he’d better create a good story!

At any time during a round, one player may accuse another of being a spy. If all other players agree with the accusation, the round ends and the accused player has to reveal his identity. If the spy is uncovered, all other players score points. However, the spy can himself end a round by announcing that he understands what the secret location is; if his guess is correct, only the spy scores points.

After a few rounds of guessing, suspicion and bluffing, the game ends and whoever has scored the most points is victorious!

It is now upon you – the best architects – to honor him by building the most extravagant pagodas in this game of tactics. Show your opponent who truly is the best architect of all!Pagoda_tower

Pagoda combines simple rules with tricky decisions and brings with its short playtime the best entertainment for two players. Featuring stunning components, players build up six pagodas represented by three dimensional towers. The player who uses the available resources and tactics to score the most points wins the game!

Each player uses small, large, wild, and exotic animals and their young to try to attract as many visitors as possible to their zoo, but must be careful. The zoo needs to be carefully planned as, before you know it, you might have too many animals and no more room for them. That brings minus points. Luckily, your zoo can expand. This is a zoo of a family game in which less is sometimes more.

In Paradise Fallen, 2-4 players take on the role of tribes that are attempting to explore and navigate a fallen paradise through hand management to gather valuable powers that will enable them to survive and continue their journey. By drawing cards from the Exploration Deck on their turn, players gather the necessary rations and powers needed to explore. Throughout their journey, tribes will have to navigate islands with obstacles placed in their paths by others. The first tribe to successfully explore a certain number of islands for their powers wins.

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 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.

Kingdom Builder

Bring Your Own Book

Dragon’s Gold

Mysterium

Saboteur

Spyfall

Pagoda

Zooloretto

Paradise Fallen

Colt Express

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