New to Games? 19 - Shut Up & Sit Down

Lords of Vegas

You and your opponents represent powerful developers in a burgeoning Nevada city. You will earn money and prestige by building the biggest and most profitable casinos on “The Strip,” the town’s backbone of dust and sin. You start with nothing but parking lots and dreams, but from there you build, sprawl, reorganize and gamble your way to victory. Score the most points investing in the most profitable development companies and putting the best bosses in control of the richest casinos. Put your dollars on the line . . . it’s time to roll!

The game board is broken into 8 different areas, each consisting of a number of empty ‘lots’. Players build lots by paying money and placing a die of the value matching the one shown on the lot’s space onto the lot, along with a casino tile of one of 7 colors. Adjoining lots of the same color are considered a single casino. The casino’s boss is the player whose die value is higher than any other in the casino. On each players turn, players turn over a new card representing a new lot they get. The card also is one of the casino colors. Any built casinos of the matching color will score both money and VP. Money is earned for each lot in the casino, where each lot may be owned by a different player. VP goes only to the casino’s owner. Players can expand their casinos; try to take over casinos owned by other players; make deals to trade lots, casinos and money; or gamble in opponents’ casinos to make more money. Ultimately, though, only victory points matter, and that means making yourself boss of the biggest casinos.

After being pulled through a black hole, four spaceships find themselves in a dimension with physics never before encountered and without fuel. By mining and collecting basic elements from the space dust and asteroids in the area, you can muster just enough thrust to move your ship. But in this bizarre dimension, gravity is not working like how you’ve been taught. Your ship will typically travel towards the nearest object… which is usually another ship… and those ships are moving. Sometimes forwards, and sometimes backwards. It’s a real mind-bender!

Time is running out to save your crew and your ship! As a grim reminder of the cost of failing to escape, the frozen hulks of dead spacecraft litter the escape route. But with careful cardplay, you can slingshot past these derelict craft and be the first to escape from the Gravwell!

Jaipur, capital of Rajasthan. You are one of the two most powerful traders in the city. But that’s not enough for you, because only the merchant with two Seals of Excellence will have the privilege of being invited to the Maharaja’s court. You are therefore going to have to do better than your direct competitor by buying, exchanging and selling at better prices, all while keeping an eye on both your camel herds.

A card game full of surprises for seasoned traders!

The players take the role of courtesans of the Nippon emperor and take on the role of caring for his Giant Panda by growing a bamboo plantation.

Their mission: to farm parcels of land, irrigate them, and grow green, yellow or pink bamboo. In turn, they see what the weather brings and perform two actions from among those offered to them: get a new plot of land or irrigation channel, grow bamboo, feed the panda or draw an objective card.

The game ends when a player has completed 7 to 9 objectives (depending on the number of players). The player who gets the best score by adding the total value of their completed objective wins the game.

“Ugungu!” howled the caveman, a genius of his day. Club in hand, he stomped his feet meaningfully until his tribemates lifted the giant stone block. Thus, the first monument was born.

Club your tribemates to architectural domination! Ugg-Tect is a hilarious game of prehistoric architecture in which two teams, made of up to four player each, race to complete stone-aged structures. Leading each team is the charismatic ugg-tect, who must guide his workers to victory using nothing but a simple vocabulary of primitive grunts, a series of exaggerated gestures, and his trusty club.

Monikers is available exclusively through http://www.monikersgame.com/.

Monikers is a dumb party game for smart people. A game about naming the most inappropriate people and things you can imagine.

We’ve taken the basic formula from the classic guessing game Celebrity and tried to perfect it. The result: 400 of the weirdest, most interesting names we could think up over years of playtesting with friends.

Pairs is a “New Classic Pub Game” designed by James Ernest and Paul Peterson. You can play with 2 to 8 players, the rules are very simple, and each game takes about 5 minutes.

Pairs is a press-your-luck game. Each round, players take turns deciding whether to take a card or fold. Folding gets you some points, but catching a pair could get you a lot more points (and points are bad.) The first player to reach a target score loses the game.

In the Old West, sly snake oil salesmen had the special talent of getting even the most skeptical customer to buy the most dubious product. In Snake Oil, that’s exactly what the players get to do! One player draws a card and becomes the Customer while the other players each select two Word Cards from their hands to create a product to pitch to the Customer. Laughter erupts as each player attempts to persuade the Customer that their item is the best! The Customer picks their favorite item and that player is awarded the Customer Card. The player with the most Customer Cards wins!

Dobble (called Spot It! in North America) is truly amazing. There is always one, and only one, matching symbol between any two cards! A sharp eye and quick reflexes is all it takes to play the 5 quick party games in this grab-n-go tin. The fast action and brilliant game mechanics will have you hooked. Quick to learn, fun for all ages, and including up to 8 players, Dobble is the best matching card game to use as an ice breaker.

Normally, calm reigns supreme amongst the animals of the jungle. But when the time comes to eat, the animals gather round the forest of totems and their wild instincts take over. The hungriest animals race to catch their prey first. Others become angry and shout, whilst the chameleon hides. When the hunter appears, there is panic! The animals must protect themselves.

In turns, players flip the first card from their draw pile onto their score pile. Every card that is drawn eventually triggers an action. For example, if a player turns a hungry animal card, all players must race to grab the appropriate totem to satisfy the animal, the player that grabs the totem will add the hungry animal card to their score pile.

Lords of Vegas

Gravwell: Escape from the 9th Dimension

Jaipur

Takenoko

Ugg-Tect

Monikers

Pairs

Snake Oil

Dobble

Jungle Speed Safari

Feeds