Simultaneous Action Selection

Scurry Up!

Take on the role of squirrels racing up a tree in Scurry Up!. Simultaneously compete for valuable spaces on branches. If too many squirrels jump into a space, they knock each other off, and nobody gets the nuts, berries, or flowers!

This fast paced family strategy game is for 3-6 players and plays in about 20 minutes.

Flip Pick Towers

Flip Pick Towers is a drawing game in which players illustrate charming, playful castles to meet demands set out by the fussy nobles who wish to move in. Thanks to a huge number of scoring objectives, victory lies in constructing soaring creations full of fantastic features and characters, all the while guarding against mischievous dragons seeking to halt your progress!

Create and customize your own castle towers, adorned with banners, beanstalks, bridges, and more. Can you out-design your competition to claim the title of the most magnificent magical architect?

Click A Tree

In the tile-laying game Click A Tree, players embody Ghanaian farmers. They have adapted to climatic conditions and learned to make use of their surroundings, planting their crops in the shade of trees. In this game, you want to plant trees in a strategic arrangement, deploy your harvest workers skillfully, and reap the most harvest.

To set up, randomly draw nine of fifteen tasks; each player places the matching task strips in the empty spaces at the top of their player board, then places seven fruit markers on level 1 of their board. Each player shuffles their fourteen harvest tiles and reveals two of them. Place the seven fruit markers in a circle, then place a random landscape tile between each pair of markers to form the market. Each tile shows one of six trees, one or two fruit types, and either A, B, or AB. Each player starts with a random landscape tile in front of them.

On a turn, choose a fruit marker on your player board, lower it by one space, then collect the two landscape tiles surrounding this marker in the market. Add these tiles to your board, then choose one of your face-up harvest tiles and add it to your forest. Each sickle on the harvest tile adjacent to a landscape tile earns you one fruit of that type for each tile in that fruit group, e.g., placing a sickle next to avocados in a connected group of four tiles will raise your avocado marker four spaces on your player board.

Except sometimes it won't. A fruit marker can't rise to level 2 until you complete a task and remove that strip from your board. To complete a task, you need to arrange trees of the same type in specific configurations, or create a long line of trees, or connect trees with the same letter, or use harvest tiles in defined ways. Whenever you complete a task, you remove that strip, then push all remaining tasks up, giving your fruit markers room to move up.

You also harvest fruit when you place a landscape tile next to a sickle already in play. When all sickles on a harvest have been used, that tile is fulfilled, which lets you lower a number marker on your player board. When enough of your fruit markers move past a number marker — e.g., two past the 2 near the top of the player board, five past the 5, or all seven past the 7 — the game ends at the end of that round. If only one player has triggered the end of the game, they win; if multiple players have, they sum the value of their fruit to determine a winner.

Lifeboats: Plank of Carneades

Is it possible to escape by boat when a shipwreck occurs? The difference between sinking, swimming, and safely making it to an island may be just a vote away!

Gameplay in Lifeboats: Plank of Carneades is all about voting, which takes the form of both co-operation and betrayal over the course of play as circumstances change and you find your sailors on the brink of death. During a vote, each player chooses a card from their hand, then everyone reveals their choices at the same time. You have one card of each boat color — which also correspond to the player colors — as well as three captain cards. If you're the only person to play a captain card during a vote, you get to decide the result, but if more than one captain card is played, they're ignored. In either case, each captain card can be played only once.

First, players vote on which ship springs a leak. Second, players vote on which ship moves forward one space toward its island. If the ship reaches the island, all of its occupants are safe and will score their player points based on which island was reached. Third, players scramble to find better chances for survival.

Lifeboats: Plank of Carneades differs from Lifeboats in that it allows for up to seven players to fight for seats on ships. In addition, in some circumstances the ships will move faster and more ships will spring a leak, making gameplay move faster. Finally, the captain card is more powerful as players can use it to keep any ship from springing a leak in a round.

Pacific

We journey now to the Pacific Ocean. From California to Japan, the peaceful sea is ringed by rumbling mountains. Animals, some of them tourists, fill every conceivable niche; boats dot the waves; and businesses and industries thrive on the coasts. It is this world that you will exploit, or make friends with, or perhaps just pass through.

Your goal in Pacific is to earn more money than anyone else, whether through fishing, hotels, factory work, or business. The game lasts ten rounds, and at the start of each round, each player reveals one card from their hand at the same time. Next, all players reveal which one of the revealed cards they want to use, then they simultaneously use their chosen card.

Each player has their own playing board with five areas on it in a circle: Japan, California, Peru, Polynesia, and Coral Sea. To use a card, you carry out the text in the box, then "run" the 1-2 areas listed on it.

Most cards have text like "[area]:[symbols]", such as "California: (hotel)" or "Each area: (fish)" or "An empty area: (boat)(boat)", so you'll place the appropriate token(s) in the named area(s). The card might have other text as well instructing you to move tokens, swap one token for another, "run" an area, etc.

To "run" an area, you take an action with each token in it: hotels earn you money, boats earn you money based on fish in the area, fish move clockwise to the next area, and factories let you remove tokens for money. Special tokens have unique abilities, and you can carry out these actions in whatever order you wish.

After ten turns, whoever has the most money wins.