Pick-up and Deliver

Oracle of Delphi

Description from the publisher:

"For once, Zeus, Greek god of thunder and sky, is in high spirits. Hence, he decides to offer a generous gift to a worthy mortal and invite him, or her, to his realm, to Olympus. To determine a sufficient candidate, Zeus hosts a competition for his entertainment. Twelve legendary tasks are imposed upon the fearless participants: to erect graceful statues, to raise awe-inspiring sanctuaries, to offer capacious offerings, and to slay the most fearsome monsters. The first participant to master all the posed assignments wins the favor of the father of the gods himself.

Indubitably, you will not pass up this golden opportunity, so you clear your ship and rally your crew to follow on the trails of legendary Odysseus through the dangerous waters of the Aegean. But how could you find the righteous path onward? There is but one who can help you. Visit the mysterious oracle of Delphi and let her answers guide your ways.

In Stefan Feld's new game The Oracle of Delphi, the player's ships travel across a large variable game board of hexagonal tiles showing islands and the surrounding waters. Each player aims to reach certain islands to perform the twelve tasks given by Zeus: e.g., to collect offerings of different colors and to deliver them to corresponding temples, or to slay monsters of a specific type (and color), all of which can be discovered on the islands.

In order to execute these color-dependent actions, you are given three colored dice each turn, the so-called "oracle dice". Rolling the dice (at the start of the turn) is equivalent to consulting the oracle, whereas the results represent her answers. The answers determine which actions you will be able to take, but you will always have three actions per turn. However, a slight divergence from your fate is often possible.

In addition to the oracle, you can request support from the gods and you can acquire favor tokens, companions, and other special abilities that will help you win the race against other competitors.

Differently equipped ships and the variable set-up of the game board will offer new challenging and interesting strategic and tactical decisions with every new game of The Oracle of Delphi that you play.

Burano

Burano, also known as the lace island, is an island in the northern Venetian lagoon. Burano is extremely famous for its brightly colored houses, those square-shaped houses of a riot of colors along the water channels make it like a fairy tale land.

Fishing has been the main activity in Burano since its foundation. A story goes that while fishermen went a long-term fishing outside the lagoon, their wife who stayed and missed their husband took out needles and made lace like they mended their husband's fishing nets.

In the Middle Ages, Burano lace was highly admired and widely requested by royal families all over Europe. Players represent a family leader on this little island. They can send men to fish for the main source of income, or send women to lacemaking to sale abroad. Making a good living and making Burano become world famous, you have to figure out how to organize family members to their suitable work. It depends on you to earn the glory for your family and lead them to be outstanding from other families.

Burano is played over four seasons, 14 rounds altogether. Through the novel "cube pyramid-driven" mechanism, players take turns paying coins to operate their cube pyramid during each round. The operation of the color-coded cubes would trigger certain actions, such as fishing, lace making, and house roofing, which will earn players victory points (VP). At the end of the game, whoever has earned the most VP wins.

Via Nebula

Crafters, builders and carriers — your help is needed to dispel the mists of Nebula! The people of the valley will reward you handsomely if you harvest and exploit our many resources, open paths through the mists, and help our settlers build new structures. Cooperate temporarily with other builders in order to create paths and share goods, but do not forget your own objectives. Will you have a statue erected in your honor on the Nebula City plaza?

A game of Via Nebula starts with a board showing a hexagonal grid, some production sites with a few available resources on them (wood, stone, wheat, and pigs), building sites in various areas scattered over the whole board, and a lot of mist.

Turn after turn, players have two actions at their disposal from these options: They may clear the mist of a hex to create new paths of transportation, open new production sites, open a building site in a city, carry resources from any production site to their own building sites, and, of course, achieve a construction. Resources and paths through the mist may be used by all the players. This initially induces a kind of cooperation, but eventually other players will take advantage of your actions!

To achieve a construction, you fulfill a contract on one of your cards. You start the game with two contracts, and four more contracts are available for all players to see and use on a first come, first served basis — and that's where the cooperation abruptly stops. Additionally, most contracts have special powers that are triggered on completion.

The game ends when a player finishes a fifth building. Opponents each take two final actions, then players score based on the number of cleared hexes and opened production sites and the point value of their contracts, with a bonus for the player who ended the game.

Broom Service

Score the most victory points by delivering potions via Broom Service throughout the magical realm.

Broom Service is a card-based game that combines luck, skill and balances timely bluffing with clever hand management.

Remake of award-winning Witch's Brew:

New theme! Now with 3 types of roles: witches, druids, and gatherers.
Drizzelda, the weather fairy, helps chase away the bad weather.
New illustrations and game pieces.
Same style of play, and by the same game designer as Witch’s Brew.
New version also includes a 2-player version.

The game is played over 7 rounds, with 4 turns per round. Each round, players simultaneously select 4 of their 10 role cards, and then take turns playing one role at a time. Each role has a brave action and a cowardly action; the brave action is stronger, but riskier, as another player could steal the action from you later; the cowardly action is safer, but not as robust. How well can you bluff your opponents?

Use the gatherer roles to collect ingredients to make potions, the witch roles to zoom around on your broom to different areas, and the witch or druid roles to deliver the potions - collecting victory points as you go. Chase away lightning clouds with the help of the weather fairy, and keep an eye on the event cards that change game play, one event per round.

The winner is the player with the most victory points after all 7 rounds are complete and end-of-game bonus points have been awarded.

Thunderbirds

Celebrating the 50th anniversary of the cult TV show, the co-operative game Thunderbirds features the iconic Thunderbirds machines and a high octane world full of disasters for players to come to the rescue.

Set in the year 2065, Thunderbirds follows the exploits of International Rescue: a secret organization committed to saving human life, secretly founded and funded by the millionaire Tracy family, with the motto: ‘Never give in, at any cost!’. International Rescue has a host of technologically advanced land-, sea-, air-, and space-rescue vehicles and equipment ready to launch at a moment’s notice.

Racing to the rescue from a secret island base beneath the luxurious home of the Tracy family somewhere in the South Pacific Ocean, International Rescue defies government spies and criminals who want the secrets of their incredible machines for their own. To combat this threat, Lady Penelope, the Thunderbirds’ aristocratic English secret agent, and her chauffeur Parker lead a network of agents to uncover those behind the disasters caused by deliberate sabotage.

A criminal mastermind known as “the Hood”, operating from a temple deep in the Malaysian jungle and in possession of strange powers, often engineers events to allow him to spy on the Thunderbird machines with the goal of selling their secrets to the highest bidder.

The iconic Thunderbirds are designed by the Tracy family’s close friend “Brains” and are assigned to each of the five Tracy brothers:
- Thunderbird 1, piloted by Scott Tracy – a hypersonic rocket plane used for fast response and rescue-zone reconnaissance, and as a mobile control base.
- Thunderbird 2, piloted by Virgil Tracy – a supersonic, VTOL carrier which transports their major rescue equipment in detachable pods.
- Thunderbird 3, piloted by Alan Tracy – a single-stage, vertically launched spacecraft
- Thunderbird 4, piloted by Gordon Tracy – a utility submersible for underwater rescue, launched from Thunderbird 2
- Thunderbird 5, manned by John Tracy – a space station in geostationary orbit that monitors calls for help from across Earth.

Finally, Lady Penelope has the iconic FAB 1, driven by Parker – a pink, amphibious car

Thunderbirds is a cult 1960s British science-fiction television series, created by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson. It was produced using a combination of marionette puppetry and scale-model special effects, which was dubbed “Supermarionation”. Two series, totaling thirty-two 50-minute episodes, were produced, along with two films using the same techniques.

Players will work together using Thunderbirds characters and vehicles to complete rescue missions and save the day. For instance, to help complete the ‘Attack of the Alligators’ mission card, players will try to assemble Thunderbird 4 and Virgil in North America. All the time, being mindful of the influence of The Hood.