Income

Emperor Qin Shi Huang has passed away. To protect him in the afterlife, a great army in the form of statues of faithful warriors must be assembled to stand guard in the Emperor's tomb. You will be among those tasked with building this magnificent army.

In Terracotta Army, you represent talented craftsmen and artists laboring to build the wondrous assembly of statues. During the game, you collect resources, upgrade your workers, and seek favor with the Emperor's advisors. Your goal is to play a crucial role in the process of creating the terracotta army, and your success is measured in victory points (VPs). During the game, you and your fellow players build the army together, but after the fifth round of the game is over, only one of you — the one with the most points — will stand as the winner.

During the game, you place warrior miniatures within the mausoleum, forming groups. A group's miniatures may belong to multiple players as denoted by the player bases on those miniatures. Multiple separate groups consisting of the same type of miniature may exist within the mausoleum.

You will have many opportunities to score points based on domination and presence. To achieve domination, you must be the only player with the most of the specific resource or type of statue currently being scored. (If you are the only player, you have domination.) To have presence, you must have at least one of the specific resource or type of statue currently being scored.

At the end of the fifth round, the player with the most VPs wins.

Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition is an engine-building game in which players control interplanetary corporations with the goal of making Mars habitable (and profitable). You will do this by investing mega credits (MC) into project cards that will directly or indirectly contribute to the terraforming process. In order to win, you will want to accumulate a high terraform rating (TR) and as many victory points (VP) as you can. Players raise their TR by increasing global parameters: oceans, oxygen, and temperature. TR also determines each corporation's basic income, and, at the end of the game TR counts as VP. Additional VP and production capabilities are awarded for building project cards and other actions taken during the game.

The game is played in rounds, and each round the players will choose one of five phases, which determines which activities will take place during that round. This means every round is different, but can consist of building new project cards, taking general and project-specific actions, producing income and resources (plants and heat), or researching to draw more project cards. Every player will take all the phases selected for the round, and will receive a special bonus during the phase that they selected. To speed up the game, within each phase, players can act simultaneously without waiting for each other!

The game board has tracks for oxygen, temperature, and terraform rating, as well as a place for all of the ocean tiles that will be flipped over the course of the game. The game ends when there is enough oxygen to breath (14%), oceans enough to allow Earth-like weather (9), and the temperature is well above freezing (+8°C). It will then be possible, if not comfortable, to live on the surface of Mars!

The winner is the player with the most VP at the end of the game.

Deal with the Devil is a deeply thematic competitive Eurogame set in a fantasy medieval era. Each of the four players takes on a secret role of a mortal, a cultist, or even the Devil. Due to the asymmetrical roles, players experience the same game but with different game goals every play.

During the blind trading phase, players can offer their resources in exchange for money from another player. The Devil will tempt mortals with goods for a piece of their soul, while the cultist's nature is to sell their soul easily. Only the accompanying app knows who is trading with whom.

But beware! Showing off how well you are doing can attract unwelcome attention and the suspicion of other players. It also may pique the interest of the Inquisition, which is eager to punish those who cannot prove their souls remain intact.

There are many dynamic strategies to experiment with across each playing. Will you sell pieces of your soul early on to boost your city-building prowess at the risk of future punishment from the Inquisition? Or will you carefully manage loan and debt repayment while waiting for others to inadvertently reveal their nefarious nature? Every choice has a consequence, and each role has its own unique strategic approach to explore.

—description from the publisher

With a group of pioneers, you have left civilization behind to settle along the shores of Boonlake, a long-forgotten region inhabited by humans long ago. This unexplored area beckons you! Become part of a new community and commit yourself to the common good. Explore the landscapes, build houses and settlements, raise cattle, produce raw materials, and develop an infrastructure. Do your best to automate these processes. Seize the opportunity to make the best of your new life in Boonlake.

Boonlake is an expert game in which you are finding yourself improving your life — and your group's life — in this new territory...but how you accomplish this is completely up to you! Due to a novel action mechanism, each game progresses differently. Each action needs to be considered carefully since the other players also benefit from the action you choose. Besides this, the action determines how far you may move your ship — the further and faster, the better!

—description from the publisher

In Woodcraft, you play as forest people running competing workshops in the woods, with you gathering wood and crafting goods for your customers. Along the way, you hire helpers, improve your workshop, and buy different types of wood and other tools to create the best workshop you can.

During the game, players complete their projects with wood (dice) that can be cut down to size, glued back together, and adjusted using dice manipulation to be as efficient as possible with their resources.

Whoever builds the best, most successful workshop wins.

—description from the publisher