Country: France

Paris: Eiffel

The tower built by architect Gustave Eiffel rises high above Paris, announcing the inauguration of the Universal Exposition. There are those who define it as a monstrous iron cyclops and others as the first step into modern architecture. There is no doubt it will leave very few indifferent.

Paris Eiffel is an expansion of Paris: La cité de la lumière. There are eight new action postcards that provide far more variability in the game. The postcards are accompanied by a series of die-cut figures that will add a spectacular third dimension to your Paris.

In this expansion you will visit Parisian marvels such as the Arc de Triomphe, the obelisk of Luxor, Louvre Museum, and naturally, the Eiffel Tower.

—description from the publisher

Paris: La Cité de la Lumière

Paris is a two-player board game by José Antonio Abascal infused with Parisian aesthetics by the boardgame’s artist Oriol Hernández. The game is set in late 19th century Paris during the 1889 “Exposition Universelle,” or world’s fair, when public electricity was a hot topic. Electricity spread throughout the city, creating today’s beautiful nocturnal Parisian streets and coining Paris’s nickname “La Cité de la Lumiére”, the city of lights.

The most well-lit buildings are admired more highly by passers-by. In the first phase, players can either place tiles or grow their reserve of buildings. The cobblestone tiles are divided into 4 random spaces (their color, their opponents’ color, a streetlight or a mixed-color space where either player can build).

Then, in the second phase, players build on top of their color or the mixed spaces, in effort to position their buildings as close to as many streetlights as possible. More streetlights solicit more adoration and points. The player with the best lit buildings steals the hearts of Parisian pedestrians and wins the game.

—description from the publisher

Troyes

In Troyes, recreate four centuries of history of this famous city of the Champagne region of France. Each player manages their segment of the population (represented by a horde of dice) and their hand of cards, which represent the three primary domains of the city: religious, military, and civil. Players can also offer cash to their opponents' populace in order to get a little moonlighting out of them—anything for more fame!

Make your underlings:

work on the cathedral
combat misfortune
bustle about the city
and other such tasks that are below your family's stature!

Carcassonne

Carcassonne is a tile-placement game in which the players draw and place a tile with a piece of southern French landscape on it. The tile might feature a city, a road, a cloister, grassland or some combination thereof, and it must be placed adjacent to tiles that have already been played, in such a way that cities are connected to cities, roads to roads, etcetera. Having placed a tile, the player can then decide to place one of his meeples on one of the areas on it: on the city as a knight, on the road as a robber, on a cloister as a monk, or on the grass as a farmer. When that area is complete, that meeple scores points for its owner.

During a game of Carcassonne, players are faced with decisions like: "Is it really worth putting my last meeple there?" or "Should I use this tile to expand my city, or should I place it near my opponent instead, giving him a hard time to complete his project and score points?" Since players place only one tile and have the option to place one meeple on it, turns proceed quickly even if it is a game full of options and possibilities.

D-Day Dice

Normandy, June 6th, 1944 – as you land on the well-defended beaches, a German machine gun nest is killing your comrades like flies. You must do something!

In D-Day Dice, players are Allied soldiers trying to organize improvised units for an attack against the machine gun nest. Each player starts the game with a unit of a few soldiers and nothing else. As the game progresses, he will collect resources and advance on the beach, sector by sector, as his unit grows stronger and deadlier. He will succeed...or die trying.

D-Day Dice is a multiplayer co-op game, where all players play their turn simultaneously and must help each other in order to stay alive. It also includes solitaire optional rules. Although built around dice rolling, this game is about resource management (soldiers, specialists, items and courage) and knowing when to move your unit. Resources are kept from turn to turn, so the players can plan ahead.

Note: This listing is for the commercial version of D-Day Dice. To download and play the game now, go to D-Day Dice: Free Trial Version.