Family Games

Setting: In 1675, after a long career in piracy, Captain Henry Morgan skillfully gets appointed to be Governor of Jamaica, with the explicit order to cleanse the Caribbean of pirates and buccaneers! Instead, he invites all of his former "colleagues" to join him in his retirement, to enjoy the fruits of their looting with impunity. Each year, in remembrance of the "good old days," Morgan organizes the Great Challenge, a race around the island, and at its end, the Captain with the most gold is declared Grand Winner.

Goal: The game ends on the turn when at least one player's ship reaches the finish line, completing one circuit around the island of Jamaica. At that point, players are awarded different amounts of gold in accordance with how far away from the finish line they were when the race concluded. This gold is added to any gold a player gathered along the way by detouring from the race to search for valuable treasure, by stealing gold or treasure from other players, or just by loading gold as directed by the cards the player played during the race. The player with the most total gold acquired through all these means is then declared the winner.

Gameplay: The game is played in rounds. Each player always has a hand of three cards, and a personal board depicting the five "holds" of their ship, into which goods can be loaded during the game. Each round, one player is designated as "captain," with the next clockwise player being captain in the following round, and so on. The captain rolls two standard D6 dice, examines her cards, then announces which die will correspond to the "day" and which to the "night." Each player then simultaneously selects a card from their hand and places it face down in front of them. Each card has two symbols on it, one on the left - corresponding to "day" - and one on the right ("night"). The symbols indicate either ship movement (forward or backward) or the loading of a type of good. After every player has selected a card, all cards are revealed simultaneously and then resolved clockwise one by one, starting with the captain's. When it is a player's turn to resolve her card, for first the left symbol on her card and then for the right symbol, the player will load a number of goods or move a number of spaces equal to the number of pips showing on the corresponding day or night die for that round. Thus the main decision each player makes during the game is which of their current three cards would best serve them on a particular turn, given the values of the day and night dice. Finally, during the race, when a player lands on a spot already occupied by another player, there is a battle. Battles are mainly resolved by rolling a "combat" die, but players may improve their chances by using "gunpowder" tokens from their holds, if they loaded any on previous turns. The winner of a battle may steal some goods or treasure from the loser.

In Sum: This is a pirate-themed tactical race game with player interaction and side goals (e.g. detouring for treasure), so that the winner is the player who best balances their position in the race with their success at the side goals.

The harvest is in, and the artisans are hard at work preparing for the upcoming festival. Decorate the palace lake with floating lanterns and compete to become the most honored artisan when the festival begins.

In Lanterns: The Harvest Festival, players have a hand of tiles depicting various color arrangements of floating lanterns, as well as an inventory of individual lantern cards of specific colors. When you place a tile, all players (you and your opponents) receive a lantern card corresponding to the color on the side of the tile facing them. Place carefully to earn cards and other bonuses for yourself, while also looking to deny your opponents. Players gain honor by dedicating sets of lantern cards — three pairs, for example, or all seven colors — and the player with the most honor at the end of the game wins.

Pachisi, the national game of India, dates back to 4 AD and remains popular today. Each player has a set of pawns that start in his or her corner of the board. The goal is to move the pawns around the board to the "home" section. Movement is controlled by dice. All players move around the same board, so they may capture each others pawns. Captured pawns are returned to their player's corner and must start their journey over. The winner is the first player to move all pawns "home".

Parcheesi is the westernized version.

The usual game is for 2-4 players. Jumbo's version handles up to 6.
There is also a Schmidt-Spiele edition with a double-sided board. One side for 4 players, the other for 6.
Juegos de la Antigüedad Parchis boards are up to 8 players.

'Wa-hoo' (or 'Wahoo') is a homegrown variant of the game, popular in Texas and surrounding states since the early 1900s, which features different rules and team play.

Another homegrown variant is to prohibit players to capture each others pawns. But this overprotective variant is not recommended!

Settlers of Catan Travel Edition is, as the name says, a Travel Edition of The Settlers of Catan.
The rules of the game are the same, but there are some changes between the two editions:

No Expansions: In the Travel Edition it is not possible to add any expansions to the regular game, so it is a 3 or 4 players game only.
Pre-determined Desert location: The hex containing the Desert is always in the middle of the board.
Pre-determined numbers: The numbers for production are in fixed locations on the board. That is a natural follow up to the previous item.
Pre-determined port location: Although the type of port at a given location may vary, the port sites themselves are in fixed locations. So the numbers for production, where a port exists, are always the same, and there is never a port near the Desert.
Snap in bits: The roads, villages and cities are all snapped into the board during game play, so it is difficult to mess with the board. The Robber, however, sits freely on the board, and, as you need somewhere to throw the dice, you may prefer a table upon which to play the Travel Edition (although the box top or box insert could be used as a dice tray).

Belongs to the Catan Series.

After many years of trying to defeat the diseases that threaten mankind’s existence, the tables have been turned. You are now the disease and guess what? There is no cure.

In Pandemic: Contagion, you are competing against other diseases (fellow players) to see who can eliminate humanity. With no cure to be had, the one of you that wipes out all human civilization will come out on top as the most deadly disease ever known to man, may he rest in peace.

Pandemic: Contagion includes a deck of contagion cards with differing colored borders, city cards with similar colored borders, event/WHO cards, player disease card and disease cubes. On a turn you take two of three possible actions, and you can take the same action twice. Those actions are:

Draw contagion cards equal to your current incubation rate.
Advance one of three mutations to the next level.
Spread disease equal to your current transmission rate.

When the number of diseases equals the city’s population number, the city is wiped out. The player who placed the final disease earns a special action. The player with the most diseases scores the population number. The two smaller numbers are awarded to those with the second- and third-most diseases.

Your disease card has three mutations: Incubation (number of cards you can draw), Transmission (number of disease cubes you can spread), and Resistance (number of cubes/cards you can protect). As an action, you can advance a mutation one level by discarding the required number of cards.

Event cards are drawn at the start of each round and affect everyone during their turn. You might benefit from the card or it could have a negative impact. WHO cards are always bad, but your resistance will lessen whatever the penalty would be based on its level, if you planned ahead.

Mid-game scoring occurs when the second, fourth and sixth skull comes out. When a city icon appears, a new city is introduced.

Once the event/WHO deck runs out or only two city cards remain in play, the game ends, with players conducting a final scoring round to see which virus is victorious.