exploration

In Africana, players travel through Africa, taking part in expeditions and trying to be the first to reach various destinations. With the money they earn, they can buy adventure cards that earn them precious antiques. Africana features the "Book of Adventures" game system from Schacht's Valdora in which players can acquire cards that are laid out like books, with players "turning the pages" to find the adventure cards they most want.

The game board in Africana shows the continent divided in half at the equator, with the cities in the north half colored brown and the cities in the south white. Adventure cards with a brown border can be acquired only in the south and must be delivered to the north, while white-bordered adventure cards take the opposite route. Five expedition cards – each showing the starting and ending location and a reward for completing the expedition – are laid face-up on the game board.

Each player has one researcher token that will travel around the board, and on a turn a player takes one of three possible actions:

Draw two travel cards. (A player can have no more than five travel cards in hand at turn's end.)
Buy one or more adventure cards, for five coins each. A player can flip one page in the book for free, with each additional flip costing one coin. (A player can have no more than three adventure cards to be fulfilled at turn's end.)
Move the researcher by paying travel cards that match the color of the space being traveled to. Each player has a joker in hand, which will be retained at the end of each turn. If a player moves onto the start space of an expedition, he can mark that expedition card with a marker; if he reaches the destination for an expedition he's on, he receives the reward depicted and claims the card, while anyone else on the expedition receives nothing. A new expedition card is then revealed.

When a player reaches the destination shown on an adventure card, that player scores that card by placing it under his player mat. Some cards show helpers, which are represented by helper cards in a player's hand. These cards allow travel on the color shown on the card and return to the player's hand after use, but a player who employs many helps will lose points at the end of the game.

Once the expedition cards run out, the game ends and players score for the expeditions they completed, sets of identical and different adventure cards, money in hand, and a few other things. The player with the most points wins!

This game is inspired by the Portuguese Age of Discoveries in the 15th-16th century. Players take actions such as contracting men, acquiring ships and buildings, sailing the seas, establishing colonies in discovered lands, trading goods on the market, and getting privileges.

Each player starts with only two ships and three workers and tries to expand his wealth.

There are several undiscovered lands that allow players, once discovered, to found some colonies there. Colonies exist in different places where sugar, gold and spices are available and can be sold to the market to make some money. Money is used to build ships, erect buildings such as factories, shipyards and churches, and to get workers. Workers are necessary to found colonies or to acquire buildings and privileges, which exist in five categories and therefore encourage players to follow different strategies competing with each other.

At the end of the game the player who is most successful in combining his privileges with his achievements (colonies, factories, discoveries, shipyards, and churches) is the winner.

In many ways Dungeon! is similar to Dungeons & Dragons, although much simplified and transformed into a board game. Players explore a dungeon that is divided into levels of increasing difficulty, fighting monsters for valuable treasure. As players venture deeper into the dungeon, the monsters become more difficult and the treasure more valuable. Several character classes each have slightly different fighting abilities – most notably the wizard, who can cast spells. Combat is simulated using dice; players roll the dice to attack a monster, and if unsuccessful, the dice are rolled to determine the effect of the monster's counter-attack.

The winner is the first player to bring a certain amount of treasure back to the Dungeon's entrance.

Reimplemented by:

The Classic Dungeon
The New Dungeon

Game description from the publisher:

Descent: Journeys in the Dark (Second Edition) - Lair of the Wyrm introduces five new quests that can be played individually or used to supplement a larger campaign. With inventive objectives like rescuing survivors from a burning inn and protecting valuable ore from a greedy ettin, the Quest Guide in Lair of the Wyrm delivers fresh new challenges to your adventures.

What's more, Lair of the Wyrm brings two new heroes to the fight against the forces of evil. Reynhart the Worthy is a fearless warrior whose prowess in combat means he rarely makes mistakes. He can reroll misses once per attack, helping to ensure that every strike is righteous and true. Meanwhile, High Mage Quellen is a master of body and mind, and is able to quickly recover from exertions that would devastate lesser men. Quellen has developed the ability to feed off the fatigue of those around him, gaining strength where his fellows fail.

But even as the heroes of Terrinoth gain new allies and tactics, their great enemy silently grows in sinister power. In addition to the Wyrm Queen herself, a fearsome Dragon Lord lieutenant seemingly formed from solidified flame, the Overlord gains two new monsters: mischievous and destructive Fire Imps, and flying Hybrid Sentinels...half-dragon monstrosities with a cruel penchant for preying on the weak. The Overlord's new advantages are not limited to his minions, however. His new available class, Punisher, specializes in making heroes pay for every inch they advance. With abilities like Trading Pains and Exploit Weakness, the Punisher class will make the hero players flinch with fear every time something seems to go their way.

Game description from the publisher:

In Mice and Mystics players take on the roles of those still loyal to the king – but to escape the clutches of Vanestra, they have been turned into mice! Play as cunning field mice who must race through a castle now twenty times larger than before. The castle would be a dangerous place with Vanestra's minions in control, but now countless other terrors also await heroes who are but the size of figs. Play as nimble Prince Collin and fence your way past your foes, or try Nez Bellows, the burly smith. Confound your foes as the wizened old mouse Maginos, or protect your companions as Tilda, the castle's former healer. Every player will have a vital role in the quest to warn the king, and it will take careful planning to find Vanestra's weakness and defeat her.

Mice and Mystics is a cooperative adventure game in which the players work together to save an imperiled kingdom. They will face countless adversaries such as rats, cockroaches, and spiders, and of course the greatest of all horrors: the castle's housecat, Brodie. Mice and Mystics is a boldly innovative game that thrusts players into an ever-changing, interactive environment, and features a rich storyline that the players help create as they play the game. The Cheese System allows players to hoard the crumbs of precious cheese they find on their journey, and use it to bolster their mice with grandiose new abilities and overcome seemingly insurmountable odds.

Mice and Mystics will provide any group of friends with an unforgettable adventure they will be talking about for years to come – assuming they can all squeak by...

Expansion advice:

For those who have expansions for this game the recommended order by the game designer for playing them is as follows (see original post HERE):

Sorrow and Remembrance (Base game)
Cat's Cradle (Lost Chapter 1)
Heart of Glorm
The Ghost of Castle Andon (Lost Chapter 2)