Hand Management

Will the Merchants get their goods past the Sheriff?

The bustling market in Nottingham is filled with goods from all over the kingdom. Most of it is entirely legal, however, Prince John is looking to make sure no contraband gets sold. He’s tasked the Sheriff to inspect Merchant’s wares, looking for any illicit goods. The Sheriff’s shrewd, but not above taking a bribe to look the other way. Which Merchant will end up getting the best goods through and make the largest profits in the market stalls?

In Sheriff of Nottingham 2nd Edition, players take turns playing the Sheriff, looking for contraband goods, and the Merchants trying to stock their Stall with the best goods. The Sheriff can inspect any bag they want, but they must be careful, as they’ll have to pay a penalty if they find the Merchants were telling the truth. This new edition includes updated rules, as well as expansions such as the 6th Merchant, Black Market, and Sheriff’s Deputies.

The game box contains 110 Gold Coins, 216 Goods cards, 6 Deputy cards, 6 Black Market cards, 2 Deputy standees, 6 Merchant stands, 6 Merchant bags, a Sheriff standee, a Booty tile, and a rulebook

In a peaceful galaxy, a new technology has been invented: wormholes. They allow ships to warp from one point to another, which opens up countless possibilities for commerce and travel. As the captain of a passenger spaceship newly equipped with a wormhole fabricator, you can make some serious space bucks by building a robust network of wormholes. Link the farthest reaches of space while delivering passengers to become the most successful captain in this golden age of spacefaring. It’s time to bend space and go fast.

In Wormholes, players collect passengers from planets, each of whom have specific destinations they aim to reach. However, this pick-up-and-deliver process can be quite different once you establish wormholes between different points of the galaxy — and like any good business, your service can be used by other players...at the cost of a few points.

—description from the publisher

Ticket to Ride: Ghost Train takes the gameplay of the Ticket to Ride series and scales it down for a younger audience.

In general, players collect parade float cards, claim routes on the map, and try to connect locations such as the Mad Scientist's Lab, the Gingerbread House, and the Lonely Barn that are shown on their tickets. In more detail, the game board shows a map of a city with certain locations being connected by colored paths. Each player starts with four colored parade float cards in hand and two tickets; each ticket shows two locations, and you're trying to connect those two locations with a contiguous path of your trains in order to complete the ticket.

On a turn, you either draw two parade float cards from the deck or discard parade float cards to claim a route between two locations by placing your ghost trains on it; for this latter option, you must discard cards matching the color and number of spaces on that route (e.g., two yellow cards for a yellow route that's two spaces long). If you connect the two locations shown on a ticket with a path of your trains, reveal the ticket, place it face up in front of you, then draw a new ticket. (If you can't connect locations on either ticket because the paths are blocked, you can take your entire turn to discard those tickets and draw two new ones.)

If you create a route all the way from the Dark Forest region to the Seashore region, you collect the "trick or treat" bonus.

In Cartagena, Colombia, the doors speak. Not with words, but with the grandiose knockers that adorn them. In Spanish colonial times, the knockers announced your job and your social status with the design and detail. Lions, lizards, sea creatures, and hands proclaimed the homes' occupants as soldiers, nobles, fishermen, and clergy.

Aldabas is a puzzley tableau-builder in which you you seek to fill your neighborhood with the most influential citizens. On each turn, players will take actions to build their neighborhood or increase their wealth. Clever placement will unlock bonuses, but only if you build in the right way.

Those who keep the best company (and the fullest coffers) will surely be held in highest regard.

—description from the publisher

Fluxx is a card game in which the cards themselves determine the current rules of the game. By playing cards, you change numerous aspects of the game: how to draw cards, how to play cards, and even how to win.

At the start of the game, each player holds three cards and on a turn a player draws one card, then plays one card. By playing cards, you can put new rules into play that change numerous aspects of the game: how many cards to draw or play, how many cards you can hold in hand or keep on the table in front of you, and (most importantly) how to win the game.

Marvel Fluxx features the gameplay of Fluxx and characters and events from the Marvel Universe.

Note that the Looney Labs edition of the game includes seven additional cards and a collector's coin used in gameplay; these cards won't be included in the edition from Cardinal Games, but will be sold separately by Looney Labs.