City Building

"I am very anxious to see the Galapagos Islands, -- I think both the Geology & Zoology cannot fail to be very interesting." -- Charles Darwin, Letter to his sister, Catherine in August 1835.

Assist Charles Darwin during the Beagle journey across the Galapagos Islands, discovering new species and researching them in order to improve your knowledge.

During their turn, the active player must choose between two actions:

Research: Put 2 research pieces on 2 different species tiles on the board, gaining the knowledge of air, land or water habitat.
Discover: use the acquired habitat knowledge to place new species tiles on the board, obtaining victory points and evolution, characters and objects cards. Additionally advance the Beagle on its track.

The game finishes when the Beagle reaches the last space of its trip, leaving the archipelago through New Zealand. The players score the evolution points according to the final goal card, adding them to the points obtained during the game. The player with more points in the scoring track wins.

—description from the publisher

In Santa Monica, you are trying to create the most appealing neighborhood in southern California. Will you choose to create a calm, quiet beach focused on nature, a bustling beach full of tourists, or something in-between to appeal to the locals?

Each turn, you draft a feature card from the display to build up either your beach or your street. These features work together to score you victory points. The player with the most points wins!

—description from the publisher

Description from the publisher:

The bloody War of the Seven Kingdoms has been over for more than thirty years, and the kingdom of Anderis is experiencing a period of great expansion, thanks in part to its central position which has quickly transformed it into an important commercial crossroads. New roads have been built in the kingdom, with a new city founded at their meeting point which has grown so much that the King has decided to move the capital there and build a new castle.

Numerous corporations of craftsmen were already present in the city, but now guilds are forming, which are larger and more wide-ranging, powerful and in competition with one another. With the goal of obtaining favor with the King, the guilds will gather together the most prestigious personages within them, not to mention those who can bring the largest influx of money or useful talent.

What better place than the central square to find new members? For this reason, each guild places its tents in the central square every week, inviting the persons it considers most interesting to sign up by incentivizing them with precious gifts. This is certainly not a low-cost operation considering that it can cost many pieces of silver to put together the most convincing gift.

At the same time, each guild must build its headquarters, spending large amounts of gold to enlarge it with a range of luxurious rooms suitable for its members; if this were not enough, the guilds must also take into account the King's current tastes on what is most important for a guild worthy of his approval.

Will you manage to make your guild stand out so that it becomes the most important in the city? Which means will you be willing to use in Guilds to win the King's favor?

Blue Moon City - the board game - picks up where the two-player game, (Blue Moon), ended: the reconstruction of the destroyed city of Blue Moon. The board, illustrated by Franz Vohwinkel as well as many well-known American fantasy artists, consists of 21 large building tiles, which show building plans on one side and the buildings in their reconstructed glory on the other. As in the 2-player game, the game includes 3 large molded plastic dragons.

At the start of the game, the board tiles all show their building plan sides. The object of the game is to use cards featuring the races of Blue Moon to help rebuild the city and, at the end, put the large Crystal of the Obelisk in the middle of the city back together. Whenever a building is completely rebuilt, its tile is turned back over to its rebuilt side. The players who helped with a building get crystals and dragon favors, which can be traded in for crystals at certain times.

The player who first manages to add the required number of markers by paying crystals to the Obelisk wins the game. (four markers in a 4-player game, five markers in a 3-player game, and six markers in a 2-player game)

There are two mini-expansions for this game (Blue Moon City: Expansion Tile Sets 1 & 2), each consisting of two tiles that can be added to the main game either separately or combined. The first mini-expansion was included with the Der Knizia Almanach. The second mini-expansion was included in the 6/06 issue of Spielbox.

Original Knizia design--after dragon scales score, ALL players discard scales. This rule was modified by the publisher. [citation needed]

Game description from the publisher:

Built by the Romans during the first century in Belgian Gaul, Tournay experienced most of its growth along the Scheldt river. Unfortunately, the river also contributed to its troubles, because in 881, the Normans traversed its watery path, and thereby easily captured the city. That act of aggression stunted Tournay's prosperity. This game invites you to participate in the reconstruction of the city, in order to establish a glorious era that will last for more than seven centuries. Help your district flourish by cleverly coordinating the work of the city's three domains: military, religious, and civil. Certainly the prestige of your buildings will brighten the entire city!

Tournay is a card game from the same designing team as the 2010 release Troyes with artwork once again by Alexandre Roche. In this game, players manage a district of the city and its three classes of citizens. The cards are classified by level (I to III) and color to form nine distinct decks. Players initially have two citizens in each class that they will use each turn to carry out one of five available actions, such as drawing cards, or using the powers of their buildings.

In each player's district, the building cards save them money, make more efficient use of the decks of cards, or recruit new citizens. The character cards optimize the use of buildings if properly positioned. It's up to you to create the most effective card combinations. Finally, constructed prestige buildings will give you valuable prestige points, depending on how your district has developed. But beware: Your opponents will also benefit from every prestige building you build!

Note that an expansion is included in the base game's box, so advanced players can add still more replay value to this dynamic game!

Game Summary
There are 3 sets of cards (yellow, red, white) in 3 groups (I, II, III); also, a set of black event cards. There are always 3 face-up event cards, most of which are bad. Players start with 2 meeples in 3 colors (yellow, red, white), placed on their Plaza card.

On your turn:

First, you may play a card from hand to your display (3x3 grid) by paying the appropriate cost (some combination of coins, meeples, cards, etc). You may play a card on top of another of the same color; if played on top of a different color, discard the older card.
Then take one action:
Draw a card; move 1-3 meeples off the Plaza to draw a level I-III card; you may pay others 2 coins to use their worker(s). If you draw the event card of that deck, place a coin on each event card, then trigger all event cards once per coin.
Activate a building card by moving a meeple from your Plaza to the building card (max 1 Meeple/building); cards do a variety of things like give you coins, recruit an additional meeple, use someone else's card, etc.
Combat an event by paying the cost (usually 1 Meeple, 1 coin, +1/coin on the card; or, 2 meeples) shown; take the card as a reward. Later, when events trigger, you may play this from hand to prevent an event from affecting you.
Reactivate all workers: return all meeples to your Plaza, and remove all markers from building cards.

The game ends at the start of the Start Player's turn if 2+ players have all 9 cards in their display; OR if only 1 player has, but at least n-1 Town Crier cards have been revealed. Everyone then gets to play one final card (paying normal costs). Earn VPs for all cards in display, and for all Event cards you've combated. Most VP wins!