exploration

Unlock! The House on the Hill

At the beginning of The House on the Hill, strange, paranormal activities have surrounded an abandoned house for the past three days. When an investigation uncovers that these occult occurrences center on an excerpt read from The Book of the Dead, you and your companions are tasked to enter the house, find the book, and stop the curse…

Unlock! is a series of escape adventures for up to six players. With one hour on the clock, players work through a deck of sixty cards as a team, searching for clues, combining objects, and solving puzzles. The free Unlock! companion app runs the timer while also providing clues, offering hints, and confirming successes. Once the team has reached a solution and entered the correct code into the app, they will escape and win the game.

River

In The River, you and the other mayoral players each struggle to create the best pioneer settlement by developing land along a river bed in your town, collecting resources from the area, and constructing buildings. As you explore and build up the untouched frontier, your workers will settle down along the way, meaning that your other workers will shoulder more of the burden to do what you want to do, which includes making nicely organized landscapes to please the aestheticians in town.

Every decision counts in this fast and streamlined tile-placement game, and in the end the player with the most impressive settlement will win!

Endeavor: Age of Sail

In Endeavor: Age of Sail, players strive to earn glory for their empires. Sailing out from Europe and the Mediterranean, players will establish shipping routes and occupy cities the world over. As they do so, players will leverage their growing industry, culture, finance, and Influence, building their engine and extending their reach into the far-flung regions of the world.

In this second edition, players will experience:

Double-sided board to accommodate different player counts
Variable starting set ups with new buildings
Exploits to enhance the mechanisms and story of the different regions
Updated visuals by the original artist and graphic designer, Josh Cappel

—description from the publisher

Vanuatu (2nd Edition)

In Vanuatu, you are a Vanuatuan who wants to prosper during the eight turns of the game. In order to prosper, you have to manage with natural resources, rare items, vatus (local currency) and tourists. To earn money or prosperity points, you may also draw on the sand*, carry tourists all over Vanuatu islands, or trade cargo with foreign countries.

On each turn, the archipelago expands and you have to program your actions with five tokens. You put one or more of them on the chosen action spaces, and on your turn, you will only be able to play an action if you have the majority on its space. Thus, sometimes have to wait for other players to remove their tokens by playing their actions. If you are not in majority anywhere, you have to remove all of your tokens from an action and give up hope of playing this action. A good strategy lets you block other players; for example, they won't be able to sell fishes if they haven't caught them first – order matters! Islands and sea resources are rare, so be quick and take them first!

There is no such thing as a rich Vanuatuan. When you reach ten Vatus, they automatically transform into 5 prosperity points and again, you are poor. Life is hard, but you may encounter ten men to help you; on each turn you choose one of them to increase your benefits from an action. As always, being the first player lets you choose before the others.

In short, Vanuatu is a strategy game of programming and majorities that features development, blocking, and a lot of interaction between players.

This Quined Master Print edition brings you the wonderful original game, as well as the Rising Waters expansion and the extra character of the Governor, with completely new artwork by Konstantin Vohwinkel. The Rising Waters expansion adds a whole new level of tension to the game: Global warming threatens Vanuatu. Many islands are in danger of disappearing under the sea due to rising waters. Players will therefore have to unite to protect the islands by building dikes. However, the interests of one are not necessarily the interests of others.

(*) Sand Drawing in Vanuatu belongs to the Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity of the UNESCO.

Mansions of Madness (2nd Edition)

Mansions of Madness: Second Edition is a fully cooperative, app-driven board game of horror and mystery for one to five players that takes place in the same universe as Eldritch Horror and Elder Sign. Let the immersive app guide you through the veiled streets of Innsmouth and the haunted corridors of Arkham's cursed mansions as you search for answers and respite. Eight brave investigators stand ready to confront four scenarios of fear and mystery, collecting weapons, tools, and information, solving complex puzzles, and fighting monsters, insanity, and death. Open the door and step inside these hair-raising Mansions of Madness: Second Edition. It will take more than just survival to conquer the evils terrorizing this town.