Family Games

Lead the most impressive flock through feeding, nest building, and hatching. Selecting the actions is simple, but when one bird flies, so do all the others! Can you time your actions to take advantage of when the flocks fly?

During the game Flock, players try to expand their flock with the goal of scoring the most victory points after three rounds of play. Victory points are scored by controlling the action cards at the end of each round. Also, be sure to have enough tasty worms to feed your birds at the end of each round, or otherwise they will fly away. Will your flock be on top of the pecking order?

In more detail, players start with three of their eleven birds in front of them. Six nest, egg and worm tokens are placed on the side for each player. On a turn, a player can either place a bird on one of the six action cards or activate an action card on which they have at least one bird. When you activate an action card, you can remove birds from the card — possibly paying worms, nests and eggs as well — to take the action shown, such as removing two birds from "Feeding" to get three worms. Spent birds are returned to your personal pool of resources, while other spent resources are placed on the side. Each player in turn order does the same with this action, then whether they used their birds or not, all birds are removed from this action card, flying away to the players' personal pools.

When the "Dominance" card is activated, the dominant player adjusts their pecking order on the initiative track, then everyone else flies their birds from that card to the other action cards. When "Competition" is activated, which is possible only when enough birds have landed on it, each player spends a nest and worm for each of their birds (removing them if this isn't possible), then flies their birds to other action cards. Players then score points for having the most or secondmost birds on a card and for the birds left in their pool.

After three rounds, the player with the most points wins!

From the publisher's website:

"The night is setting in slowly on the city, but not all of its inhabitants are asleep. Under cover of darkness, several scoundrels are on their way to perform their big heist tonight
You are playing the role of one of these scoundrels on the hunt for gold and art treasures. Careful planning will let you make the big haul, but be sure not to miss the right moment to cash in your swag at a fence!

Rules summary:

The players place their Scoundrel tokens at five locations on the central board, which are then resolved in the following order:

1 - City: Receive Tool cards required for the break-ins
2 - Villa: Receive Loot cards if you meet the tool requirements
3 - Ruin: Swap Tool cards from your hand with the draw pile.
4 - Museum: Receive Loot cards if you meet the tool requirements
5 - Harbor: Sell loot to the fence to gain gold (victory points)

The first player to earn 20+ gold wins.

The game is announced for release at Essen Spiel 2009.

Online Play

Yucata (turn-based)

From the Manufacturer:

GEIST Junior takes young players on a wild journey to meet the 13 adorable Pet Geists. It is the most fun and imaginative children's game yet! GEIST Junior is the first combination puzzle and board game, with 4 different puzzles for 4 times the fun!

Each player takes on the role of a "Geist Hunter" and the first to catch their set of Geists and get them safely to the underworld wins. To catch Geists, you need to lure them with an exact number of Zingiberi chips. These are earned by moving around the board and landing on numbered squares. The number lets you take or return a chip of that value, but also determined how far you will move next turn. A clever movement system encourages people to cheat and get away with it, or at least makes everyone watch closely. Each Geist, once captured, can also be use to "prank" other players, and this keeps things rowdy but also adds to the strategy. Chili Pepper cards also spice things up since the Geists don't usually like them.

Relive the dawn of modern New York City, the historic years that made it what it is today. Build bigger and higher skyscrapers on some of Lower Manhattan's most iconic streets. Raise one of four legendary skyscrapers — the Park Row, the Singer, the Metropolitan Life, or the majestic Woolworth — and make one of them the crown jewel of your real estate empire!

In New York 1901, the players are building skyscrapers on a map of New York's Financial District. Players take location cards from a cards' display and then use 2-3 of those location cards to place tetris-shaped building tiles on the board. They first build bronze level buildings. Later in the game those buildings can be replaced by silver level and then gold level buildings.