Environmental

Modern Society is a game about our time, the world we live in. It covers aspects from Equality to Organic Food, from War in Iraq to Torture Scandal, to Youth Culture, Women's Priesthood and beyond. Those are but few aspects the players wrestle with as they try to convince the deep rows of the people behind their own agenda.

The players all live in the same society and seek influential power to leave their mark on the surrounding world. The people's opinions, what they feel and think, is determined by four societal values – militarism, economy, human values & green values.

The players have game cards which become ”hot topics” in the society once they are played. They will become the issues the imaginary townsfolk talk in coffee tables, what they read from the news and what shapes their view on the world. These issues then shape the four values, but also bring points through them. This means that the more militaristic the society is the more militaristic influence points you get from cards like 'Raise in Defence Budget' or 'War on Terrorism'. With these points you then push through laws that focus on that value. Only these law cards that the players have pushed through with their political influence they get victory points. And as each value has limited amount of laws there is a race who stands as the best advocate for each value.

Most cards have special abilities that makes them stronger with certain other cards (i.e. Feminism with Equality) or for example prevent certain points to be scored (i.e. Torture Scandal on militarism points or UN in Crisis on Human value points).

As the game proceeds the players try to sell their world view to the masses. But whether the well-being of the people is trampled as the players thirst for power and whether that society is still worth defending for? That is what the players decide all over again during each game they play the Modern Society.

Global Warming is a tactical, card-driven game in which players score "happiness points" by providing goods to the public. Cards played can be either national industries, consumer goods, green technologies, or events; played industries require the roll of dice to determine pollution output. Collect enough happiness points and you win.

But by producing these goods, you influence the earth's ecology. The player's individual influence, as well as the overall influence, is shown by a marker on a second track, and if these markers reach certain (moveable) points on the warming track, bad things happen to the ecology and the players. If the third warming point is reached, the game ends and the player with the lowest contribution to the overall warming wins.

Thus, the players are embedded in a quite true setting in which they have to balance production and sustainable actions. Who will manage to control his industrial production in a way that minimizes the environmental impact while nevertheless allowing him to meet consumer demand?

Global Warming is the fourth game in Mücke Spiele's "Edition Bohrtürme" series that uses the game pieces from Kosmos' Giganten in the context of a new game.

The floodwaters are rising and the animals need to board the ark!

In this deceptively simple game, players move their boats around a steadily deteriorating landscape, matching pairs in order to rescue stranded animals.

Animals that are rare at the end of the game are worth more points than those that are common.

Two by Two is #6 in the Valley Games Modern Line.

Awards

Games 100 - Runner-up for Best Family Game (2012)

Online Play

Yucata (turn-based)

Arctic Survival is about using your instincts to prevail in the coldest and most remote place on earth. The object is to make it safely to your igloo before your opponent can make it safely to theirs. In the way are treacherous moving ice floes, with icebergs and thin ice blocking your path. Lurking within are friendly and unfriendly Orca whales and smart penguins that can guide the way across the ice floes. Once across, unfriendly polar bears, wolves and many other types of arctic wildlife confront you as you try to reach the safety and comfort of the igloo waiting across this vast ever changing environment.

You're the leader of a great nation which is currently expanding. Over the course of the seven decades covered by the game, you will have to invest in infrastructures and industries, provide your country with energy and finance the mercurial forces of research in order to remain competitive.

But prosperity has a price. You owe it to future generations to leave them a healthy world. Pollution lurks, but will you be able to limit it?

Prosperity has players building up their countries on a grand but abstract scale, with them needing to balance concerns over energy and ecology with the constant need for capital and the long-term goal of prosperity points.

The game starts with 24 tiles available, half on the energy side of the shared game board and half on the ecology side. Two tiles on each side are placed on levels 1-6, with the players each having two research markers – energy and ecology – that start at level 1. Each player has an individual game board with color-coded spaces for tiles, a pollution track, and tracks for energy and ecology. A stack of 36 tiles – with tiles arranged by decades: the six from 2030 on the bottom, then the five from 2020, and so on to the five from 1970 – is set up during the playing area.

On a turn, a player draws the top tile from the stack, then everyone resolves the symbol highlighted on the tile:

Energy – for a positive value, earn money; for a negative value, lose money or increase your pollution
Ecology – remove or add discs to your pollution track
Capital – earn money for each capital symbol on the tiles you own
Research – advance one research marker one space for each research symbol on tiles you own
Prosperity – score points for each prosperity symbol on tiles you own, but only if your pollution isn't maxed out

Once everyone has done this, the active player takes two actions, repeating an action if desired. The possible actions are:

Take money.
Remove one pollution marker.
Move forward one space on one research track.
Buy a tile, with the amount owed being based on whether the tile is energy or ecology and the level of your corresponding research marker. If you buy a tile of the same level, the cost is €100; if the tile is of a higher level, you pay €100, plus €100 for each level; and if the tile is lower, you pay a flat €50.

Players have limited space for tiles on their individual boards, especially since the tiles and spaces are color-coded, but players can cover existing tiles, if desired, losing any benefits (or penalties) in the process. Some parts of the individual board are off-limits to new infrastructure until you first provide transport; toll roads, highways and even train systems have drawbacks of their own, but ideally you'll be able to build your way past those trouble spots without causing too much pollution.

When the final tile is drawn, that player finishes his turn, then everyone scores: twice for their energy and ecology levels, one for capital (with money being converted into prosperity points), once for research on both tracks (with points for those researching the most), and once for prosperity. Whoever tallies the most prosperity points wins!