educational

My Very First Games: Rhino Hero Junior

Rhino Hero Junior is a superhero in training who aims high. In three different games, the children practice their fine motor skills, work on a basic understanding of numbers and quantities, and also train their memories. Floor by floor, the fun and learning curve just gets steeper and steeper, until the heroic rhino reaches the top and the children win together.

Players will work on their fine motor skills while stacking a sturdy cardboard tower in three mini games. They'll also be able to work on counting from 1 to 5, and working on the concept of bigger to smaller sizes. The rulebook includes suggestions on ways to help your little stackers better learn the rules and understand the key concepts taught and practiced in the game.

—description from the publisher

Genotype: A Mendelian Genetics Game

Gregor Mendel is the 19th Century Augustinian Friar credited with the discovery of modern genetics. In Genotype, you play as his assistants, competing to collect experimental data on pea plants by trying to control how the plants inherit key Traits from their parents: seed shape, flower color, stem color, and plant height. The observable Traits of a Pea Plant (its Phenotype) are determined by its genetic makeup (its Genotype). The relationship between Genotype and Phenotype and the nature of genetic inheritance are at the heart of Genotype: A Mendelian Genetics Game.

During the game, players get Pea Plant Cards which show a set of Phenotype Traits they hope to produce and collect (such as pink flowers and tall height) in order to score points. Each round, Dice are rolled to represent Plant breeding, which may result in the Traits players are looking for. After the Dice Roll, players take turns drafting Dice towards completing their Pea Plant Cards or advancing their Research. The Traits produced during the Dice Roll come through the science of Punnett Squares, which show how the parent genes combine, one from each parent plant. By changing the genes of these parent plants, players can influence the likelihood of rolling the Traits they need. The completion of Pea Plant Cards via the Dice Draft is the main way players score points.

Each round consists of 3 phases: Worker Placement, Dice Drafting, and Upgrades.
1) During Worker Placement, players take actions to get more Plant Cards, change the genes of a parent plant, Garden, Research, stake Phenotype claims, gather new Tools, or even position themselves ahead of other players for the Dice Drafting Phase in a couple of ways.
2) Dice Drafting features a couple of interest steps, including the possibility to get first pick of dice, but only for one type of Trait (like plant height), or the possibility to get a pick of any dice, but only after those first picks have happened. De Novo Mutation Dice allow players to change the Trait of other Dice or gain additional Research.
3) The Upgrades phase lets players spend their Research to gain upgrades that let them work on more Plant Cards, draft more Dice each round, or gain additional Workers to be used during the Worker Placement Phase of each round.

Players work to match their Pea Plant Cards to the outcome of the Dice Draft and complete the cards for points. If they've placed a Phenotype marker, they will earn bonus points for every completed card that matches their claim. At the end of 5 rounds, the player with the most points wins.

-description from designer

Pax Pamir (Second Edition)

In Pax Pamir, players assume the role of nineteenth century Afghan leaders attempting to forge a new state after the collapse of the Durrani Empire. Western histories often call this period "The Great Game" because of the role played by the Europeans who attempted to use central Asia as a theater for their own rivalries. In this game, those empires are viewed strictly from the perspective of the Afghans who sought to manipulate the interloping ferengi (foreigners) for their own purposes.

In terms of game play, Pax Pamir is a pretty straightforward tableau builder. Players spend most of their turns purchasing cards from a central market, then playing those cards in front of them in a single row called a court. Playing cards adds units to the game's map and grants access to additional actions that can be taken to disrupt other players and influence the course of the game. That last point is worth emphasizing. Though everyone is building their own row of cards, the game offers many ways for players to interfere with each other directly and indirectly.

To survive, players will organize into coalitions. Throughout the game, the dominance of the different coalitions will be evaluated by the players when a special card, called a "Dominance Check", is resolved. If a single coalition has a commanding lead during one of these checks, those players loyal to that coalition will receive victory points based on their influence in their coalition. However, if Afghanistan remains fragmented during one of these checks, players instead will receive victory points based on their personal power base.

After each Dominance Check, victory is checked and the game will be partially reset, offering players a fresh attempt to realize their ambitions. The game ends when a single player is able to achieve a lead of four or more victory points or after the fourth and final Dominance Check is resolved.

Entanglion

The World’s First Open Source Quantum Board Game. Master New Galaxies in Your Quest to Construct a Quantum Computer!

Welcome to the Quantum Universe, Captain!

Congratulations, your captain has retired and left you in charge of his galactic shipping business! Now it’s time to make some upgrades as you embark on a journey to reconstruct a quantum computer developed by an ancient race.

Entanglion is a cooperative board game designed for two players. Learn about quantum computing as you work together with your teammate to navigate the three galaxies of the quantum universe, avoid detection by the defense mechanisms left behind by the ancients, and rebuild the quantum computer.

Think you’re up for the challenge?

Goal
Entanglion is a cooperative board game designed for two players. The goal is to reconstruct a quantum computer developed by an ancient race. Work together with your teammate to navigate the three galaxies of the quantum universe – Centarious, Superious, and Entanglion – in a quest to collect eight quantum computer components. Be careful to avoid detection by the planetary defense mechanisms guarding the components!

Game concepts
Entanglion was designed to expose players to several fundamental concepts in quantum computing:

Qubits are the building blocks of quantum computation.
Superposition is when a quantum system may exist in a probabilistic combination of multiple states at once.
Entanglement happens when the state of one qubit correlates with the state of another qubit.
Measurement is the process of observing the classical value of a qubit.
Error happens when random noise in the quantum system perturbs the measured value of a qubit.

Entanglion also exposes players to the different kinds of hardware and software components involved in building a real quantum computer.

Turn overview
Perform one of the following actions on your turn.

Navigate. Play one engine card in engine control to navigate around the galaxy, and draw a replacement. You may only play engine cards for your own ship.
Exchange. Discard one engine card from your hand and draw a replacement..
Retrieve. Roll the Entanglion die to attempt to retrieve a quantum component if one is present.
Event. Play an event card from your hand (if you possess one).

Players may not pass their turns, they must perform one of the actions above.

Detection rate
The detection rate determines the difficulty of successfully evading planetary defenses. The detection rate token is used to keep track of the current detection rate. When a player’s spaceship has been detected by orbital defenses, or a player’s away team has been detected by ground defenses, the detection rate is increased, making it easier for each planet’s defenses to detect the player in the future. The game ends when the detection rate reaches the final level (designated with an X).

Orbital defenses
Planets in Entanglion are protected by orbital defenses that scan for ships looking to plunder the quantum components hidden there. It is possible to evade these defenses using your quantum engines. If you are detected, however, your navigation system will automatically take evasive maneuvers and jump to a random planet in the Centarious system. This jump triggers a quantum event.

Game end
Players immediately win the game when they have collected all eight components of the quantum computer. Players immediately lose the game when the detection rate reaches the end (X).