Renaissance

Golem is an engine-building game by Simone Luciani, Virginio Gigli and Flaminia Brasini, the same team that brought you Grand Austria Hotel and Lorenzo il Magnifico.

The game is based on the 16th-century legend of the Golem of Prague, an anthropomorphic creature that Rabbi Loew animated from a clay statue to protect his people. In the game, players take on the role of rabbis who create and grow these powerful creatures that will be moved around the neighborhoods of Prague under the control of students. Be careful, because if a golem becomes too powerful, it will destroy everything it encounters on its way. Players can also kill their Golems in order to get bonuses.

Players also create powerful artifacts and acquire knowledge by collecting ancient books.

The game is divided into four rounds, and each round is composed of 7 phases:

1) Refresh
2) Golem Movement
3) Actions (2 marble actions and 1 rabbi action)
4) Turn Order
5) Influence Character
6) Income and Development
7) Golem Control

At the beginning of each round, the players will shuffle the colored marbles into the 3D synagogue that will split them into five lines corresponding to the five main actions available in the game:

Work: By paying Knowledge, you can activate the Golem placed in the city of Prague and get bonuses.
Golem: Obtain clay to create new golems and upgrade the developments on your personal board.
Artifact: Obtain coins and buy gold to build artifacts that offer permanent bonuses in the game and upgrade developments on your personal board.
Spells: Obtain Knowledge and perform spells (with a scoring for book collection) and upgrade developments on your personal board.
Mirror: Perform one action of your choice by paying 1 coin.

The number of marbles available in the corresponding action line determines how much the player gets from the action. When you choose an action, you collect one marble of your choice in the corresponding line and depending on the color of the marble you chose, you also move your student forward on one of the districts of Prague.

It's important to advance your students on those tracks to be able to keep your golems under control. At the end of the round, knowledge can also be used to control a golem that surpassed its students, but if one of these creatures is uncontrolled, it may become dangerous and destroy the neighborhood, after which you will have to destroy and bury it!

The marble color also matters, because at the end of the round, if you get the correct combination of two colors, you receive the favor of one of the powerful Prague characters, which will differ each round.

At the end of the fourth round, players score points for active or buried golems, artifacts, books, development on their personal board, and collected goal cards.

Welcome back to the palace of Sintra! King Manuel I has commissioned the best garden designers of Portugal to construct the most extraordinary garden for his wife, Queen Maria of Aragon.

In Azul: Queen's Garden, players are tasked with arranging a magnificent garden for the King's lovely wife by arranging beautiful plants, trees, and ornamental features.

Using an innovative drafting mechanism, the signature of the Azul series, players must carefully select colorful tiles to decorate their garden. Only the most incredible garden designers will flourish and win the Queen's blessing.

—description from the publisher

Welcome to the Renaissance!

In Renaissance Man, each player is an example of the title character – skilled as a scholar, a merchant, a knight, and a baker – and throughout the game will hire, recruit and train others with the goal of producing a Master of one of these four areas of study. Each round consists of players creating actions by combining a worker in play with a card from hand:

Merchants hire new workers.
Knights compete to recruit workers from the common pool.
Bakers offer their goods in exchange for workers' actions.
Scholars train others in the ways of the Renaissance Man.

Instead of providing these actions for a player, a worker in play can be assigned to support higher-level workers. Two workers are required for support, and they are laid out as such in a pyramid-fashion. Five workers create a player's foundation, and the first player to complete a pyramid structure of fifteen workers creates a single Master of study, thus winning the game. A little luck will help along the way, but the day will surely go to the player who finds the most clever ways out of the trickiest situations in Renaissance Man!

The beautiful Tuscany region, in the 15th century, is the home of the Italian Renaissance. As influential princes, the players make creative decisions to build their region into a flourishing domain.

By supporting towns, villages, and monasteries, or by extracting marble and delivering goods, players see their lands grow, earning them victory points. Each round, players use cards to place useful tiles to expand their regions and gain new opportunities.

The winner is the person who has the most victory points after three rounds of play.

NOTE: The English edition of the rules for the Castles of Tuscany have some translation and design issues, making it slightly harder than typical to learn how to play this introductory Feld game. Some smaller issues have been observed in other languages complicating a simple resolution of questions. A community FAQ is available here to provide some clarity and is highly recommended for first time players.

Alma Mater has players serving as a headmaster of one of the independent universities in the 15th century. Players seek to strengthen their school's reputation and standing. To achieve these goals, players need to recruit the best staff and students, exchange knowledge with other schools, and become experts in the school's four disciplines!

—description from the publisher