Publisher Description:
It should be easy to name 3 breeds of dogs - but can you do it under the pressure of 5 seconds twisting down, and with the other players staring at you, waiting for you to get flustered? Time's not on your side, so just say what comes to mind and risk ridiculous answers slipping out as time twirls down on the unique twisted timer! It's all in good fun with this fast-paced game where you have to "Just Spit It Out!"
The Hare and the Tortoise, originally published as Royal Turtle, is a card-driven betting game about animal racing loosely based on one of Aesop's Fables.
At the start of a race, each player secretly bets on one of five animals: turtle, rabbit, lamb, wolf and fox. One animal is chosen at random for each player, then after receiving a hand of seven cards, each player places one of his cards face-down (possibly the same animal) as an additional bet. Players then take turns laying down 1-4 cards, with all cards needing to show the same animal, then refilling the hand to five cards. As soon as eight total cards have been played or four cards of any one animal, the animals move (maybe).
Each animal has a distinct characteristic that players can use to their advantage. The turtle always moves one space, but it moves two if four of its cards were played. The rabbit always moves two spaces as long as cards are played. — unless four cards are played and it's at the head of the pack, in which case it sleeps and doesn't move. The fox moves as many spaces as the number of cards played. The lamb moves one more space than the number of cards played — but if it reaches water, it stops moving to take a drink. The wolf moves 1 space if one to two cards are played, and one less space than the number of cards if more are played. The wolf also has 3 cards with a howl, if one of these is played no one but the wolf moves.(The track consists of eleven road cards, two covered with water.)
After the animals move, players start a new round of card-playing. A round ends when three of the four animals reach the goal, after which each player scores points based on the ranking of the animals and how he bet. After three rounds, the player with the most points wins.
The original title of Royal Turtle is a homage to Reiner Knizia's Royal Turf, another betting game about animals racing (albeit horses in that game).
Imagine that you're a supercomputer. Now imagine that you're bored. So you dream up a little contest for you and a couple of your supercomputing buddies. Your task is to move one of the stupid little robots out on the factory floor through a series of checkpoints scattered throughout the factory. The wrinkle, however, is that the factory floor is filled with all kinds of inconvenient (if not down-right deadly) obstacles located in various locations: conveyor belts, crushers, flame-throwers, pushers, teleporters, oil slicks, pits, et cetera. But the real fun comes when the robots cross each other's path, and suddenly your perfect route is something less than that...
In RoboRally players each control a different robot in a race through a dangerous factory floor. Several goals will be placed on the board and you must navigate your robot to them in a specific order. The boards can be combined in several different ways to accommodate different player counts and races can be as long or as short as player's desire.
In general, players will first fill all of their robot's "registers" with facedown movement cards. This happens simultaneously and there is a time element involved. If you don't act fast enough you are forced to place cards randomly to fill the rest. Then, starting with the first register, everyone reveals their card. The card with the highest number moves first. After everyone resolves their movement they reveal the next card and so on. Examples of movement cards may be to turn 90 degrees left or right, move forward 2 spaces, or move backward 1 space though there are a bigger variety than that. You can plan a perfect route, but if another robot runs into you it can push you off course. This can be disastrous since you can't reprogram any cards to fix it!
Robots fire lasers and factory elements resolve after each movement and robots may become damaged. If they take enough damage certain movement cards become fixed and can no longer be changed. If they take more they may be destroyed entirely. The first robot to claim all the goals in the correct order wins, though some may award points and play tournament style.
The game was reprinted by Avalon Hill (Hasbro/WotC) in 2005.
One Thousand Milestones. On French roads there are small marker stones giving the distance in kilometres to the next town. In this famous old French card game, players compete to drive 1000 km, dealing with hazards along the way. Draw a card to your hand, play or discard. You must lay a green traffic light to start, play cards showing mileage, dump hazards (flat tire, speed limit) on the other players, remedy hazards (spare tire, end of limit) from yourself, play safety cards (puncture proof), and try to be the first to clock up the distance.
From the back of the Box:
The Junkyard has been turned into a racing track, by ‘The Race-Kart Crew’, a team of 8 speedster enthusiasts. They have built their own racing karts and invented some crazy gadgets and traps made from junk found in the Junkyard. You take on the role of one of the crew to create the fastest, meanest racing kart in the Junkyard. Use all your cunning to outwit your opponents, roll bombs, release missiles, lay down dastardly traps whilst speeding through mud and grass and jumping over collapsed bridges. Be the first to complete 5 laps of this mad and hazardous Junkyard to win the race. Sounds dangerous? Sounds crazy? Sounds like a challenge!