Hand Management

Time to film the latest western being produced at Deadwood Studios, makers of terrible western movies. All the special roles are up for grabs: "Man falling off roof", "Crying woman", "Stagecoach driver", "Dead man", and more. Yes, they're all available, and if you're good enough – that is, if you progress up through the "hack" levels represented by the number on your character's die – you may even get to play that complicated character part "Rear-end of Horse"!

In Deadwood Studios USA (originally published as Deadwood), players wander across the backlot each day, looking for acting jobs. Your actor is a six-sided die, and the number on top represents your status. (These dice are never rolled; they just show your status.) After you take a role in the movie, you can roll a die and try to "act", or you can "rehearse" to improve your odds. As you work, you'll earn money and fame, and you can trade those things at the casting office for higher status, which brings you the ability to take better-paying roles.

At the end of the game, you add up your money, fame, and status points, and the player with the highest score is the best actor at Deadwood Studios!

The greatest sorcerers of the kingdom have gathered at the heart of the Argos forest, where the legendary tournament of the 12 seasons is taking place. At the end of the three year competition, the new archmage of the kingdom of Xidit will be chosen from among the competitors. Take your place, wizard! Equip your ancestral magical items, summon your most faithful familiars to your side and be ready to face the challenge!

Seasons is a tactical game of cards and dice which takes place in two phases:

The first phase "Prelude" consists of a card draft: the goal during this phase will be to establish own 9-card deck for the main part of the game and with it the strategy.

Once the Prelude is complete, each player must separate his 9 cards into 3 packs of 3 cards. He will begin the second phase of the game with his first pack of three cards, then gradually as the game progresses, he will receive the other two packets of three cards.

Next comes the Tournament: at the beginning of each round a player will roll the seasons dice (dice = number of players +1).

These cubes offer a variety of actions to the players:
- Increase your gauge (maximum number of cards you may have placed on the table and in play)
- Harvesting energy (water, earth, fire, air) to pay the cost of power cards
- Crystallizing the energy (during the current season) to collect crystals. Crystals serve both as a resource to pay for some cards, but also as victory points in the end.
- Draw new cards

Each player can choose only one die per turn. The die not chosen by anyone determines how many fields the "time track" would move forward.
In addition, all the dice are different depending on the season. For example, there are not the same energies to a particular season. Throughout the game, players will therefore have to adapt to these changes - also the "exchange rates" of energy to crystals vary during seasons - the energy not present on the dice in any given season is also the best paid during the season.

At the end of the game, the crystals are summed with victory points granted by the cards (minus some penalties, where applicable). The highest score wins.

Akrotiri places you in the role of an explorer in Classical Greek times, combing the then-uncharted Aegean sea for lost Minoan temples that have long ago fallen into ruin. You've not only heard of these temples hidden around the island of Thera, but you actually have access to the secret maps that tell you of their hidden locations! Two mountains to the north? A volcano to the west? This *must* be the spot...

But running an expedition can be costly. In order to fund your voyages into the unknown and excavate the ancient temples, you will have to first ship resources found on surrounding islands back to the resource-poor island of Thera.

In Akrotiri — which combines tile placement, hand management, and pick-up and delivery — players place land tiles in order to make the board match the maps that they have in hand. Players excavate temples; the ones that are harder to find and the ones further away from Thera are worth more towards victory, but the secret goal cards keep everyone guessing who the victor is until the end! May the gods forever bless you with favorable winds!

From Queen Games website:

The whole of Egypt is in uproar – Akhnaton, who has just acceded to the throne, wants to ban the old deity Amon from the temples of the land. Aton is to be worshiped as the new God.

But the priests of the land are not willing to give up their temples without resistance so the 4 largest temples are fiercely disputed.

The players are adversaries and fight out this battle of the Gods between them. Both have the same starting position, but who will be able to make better use of his abilities and help his God to victory?

Online Play

pbemgames.com

WILL YOU BE THE FINEST PIRATE?

As captain of a pirate crew, your ultimate goal is to find the most incredible treasure of all times: the Golden Pineapple. The map leading to it has been cut in parts long time ago, and hidden in different places of the Caribbean Sea. In order to win the game, you will have to face and overcome all the other pirates also searching the Golden Pineapple map. Play your cards wisely to find the treasure and become a pirate of legends!

RULE OVERVIEW

Piña Pirata is played in rounds. At each round, every player receives 8 cards. The goal is to be the first to get rid of all your cards.

At your turn, you must play one card, or draw one if you can’t. A card can be played if at least one of the pirates depicted on it is also on the top card of the play area. As soon as a player has no more card in her hand, she wins the round and gets a part of the treasure map. If a player has all 4 map parts, he wins the game!

The tricky part come from the Adventure tiles: At the beginning of the game, 2 tiles are revealed. Each of those Adventures is a new rule that will change the gameplay. There are 40 different tiles with a lot of different rules. Use them as their best to play more cards than you should or prevent the other players to play theirs!

At the end of each round, the winner chooses a new Adventure and adds it to the previous ones. The more the game is going, the more special effects are triggered for more and more fun!