Space Exploration

In a peaceful galaxy, a new technology has been invented: wormholes. They allow ships to warp from one point to another, which opens up countless possibilities for commerce and travel. As the captain of a passenger spaceship newly equipped with a wormhole fabricator, you can make some serious space bucks by building a robust network of wormholes. Link the farthest reaches of space while delivering passengers to become the most successful captain in this golden age of spacefaring. It’s time to bend space and go fast.

In Wormholes, players collect passengers from planets, each of whom have specific destinations they aim to reach. However, this pick-up-and-deliver process can be quite different once you establish wormholes between different points of the galaxy — and like any good business, your service can be used by other players...at the cost of a few points.

—description from the publisher

The conquest of space was one of the greatest achievements of the 20th century.
In 1957, the first satellite - named Sputnik 1- was launched into orbit. Just four years later, Yuri Gagarin was the first human in space, aboard the spaceship Vostok 1.

This game is dedicated to the early space explorers: all the outstanding people who worked to make space travel possible. As Yuri Gagarin said at the moment of his launch: “Let's go!”

You are the head of a Research & Development Hub in a Space Research Center, competing with other such Hubs in the spirit of the Golden Age of Astronautics. Your goal is to complete large- scale space projects by gathering the best and brightest minds humanity has to offer.

Thanks to your efforts, satellites, manned spaceships, and orbital stations will be launched into space!

You score Progress points by recruiting Specialists and completing Projects. The game ends when all available Projects are completed, or you have recruited 12 Specialists to your Hub. The player who made the most Progress is the winner!

Key game features:

Closed loop resource system: when recruiting a Specialist to your team, you pass Research tokens to a player to your left.
Specialists are assigned to the Divisions according to their skills. The more Specialists you have in a Division, the easier it is to recruit new ones to that Division.
All Specialists have unique abilities. Only the ability of the top card in each stack is active. Therefore, by adding a new Specialist, you often get a new ability but lose the other one. Think carefully what is more important for you at that moment in the game!

For generations, the rats in the old junkyard have been telling each other the great legend about a moon made out of cheese and they want nothing more than to reach this inexhaustible treasure. One day, the little rat children discovered a comic in the junkyard that described the first landing on the moon, and thus the plan was born: Build a rocket and take over the cheese moon!

Fortunately, the junkyard has everything the rats need to build their rocket, and the other animals are willing to support this daring venture — at least if they're well paid. Of course, all the rats work together to achieve this mighty goal. However, each rat family competes to build the most rocket parts and to train the most rattronauts so they can feast on as much of the lunar cheese as possible.

In First Rat, each player starts with two rats and may raise two more. On your turn, you either move one of your rats 1-5 spaces on the path or move 2-4 of your rats 1-3 spaces each as long as they end up on spaces of the same color. Your rats can never share the same space, and if you land in a space with another player's rat, you must pay them one cheese, borrowing cheese from the back as needed. After movement, you collect resources (cheese, tin cans, apple cores, baking soda, etc.) matching the color of the space you occupy or move your lightbulb along the light string, which will boost your income in future turns. (More lights in the junkyard makes it easier for you to find things!)

If you end movement near a store, you can spend resources to buy a backpack or bottle top — or you can steal an item instead, with the rat then returning to the start of the movement track. You can also spend resources to build rocket sections (and score points) or spend cheese in bulk as a donation (and score points).

When you pick up apple cores, you move around the rat burrow to pick up comics or stored food or raise one of your rats from the nursery. Alternatively, you automatically get a new rat when one of your rats reaches the launch pad and boards the spaceship. When a player places their fourth rat on the spaceship — or places their eighth scoring marker on the board — the game ends, and the player with the most points wins. In the event of a tie, the tied player with the most rattronauts in the rocket wins.

First Rat includes a solo mode as well as variable game set-ups described in the rulebook.

1950/1960: The race into space is in full swing! We're making great progress on the techniques for supplying astronauts and space-ready machines, for optimizing launch conditions, and of course for designing the much-needed rockets. All this to explore the sheer vastness of space.

But in Lift Off, not only are two superpowers competing for the most glorious milestones of space travel, no, we players are also very involved. In this game, we each play a private space agency that wants to develop in their own areas. We must hire specialists, improve our rockets, and expand our capabilities because soon we have to decide which missions we want to carry out and what we want to bring into space. Only those who plan ahead and properly manage the resources available will win this race to the stars...

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1950/1960: Das Rennen ins All ist im vollen Gange! Die Techniken zur Versorgung der Raumfahrer und Maschinen, optimierte Startbedingungen, sowie die Konstruktionen der Flugkörper machen große Fortschritte. Dies alles um die schier unendliche Weite des Alls zu erkunden.

Doch in Lift Off konkurrieren nicht nur 2 Supermächte um die glorreichsten Meilensteine der Raumfahrt, nein auch wir Spieler mischen kräftig mit. Hier spielen wir jeder eine private Raumfahrtagentur die sich in ganz eigenen Bereichen entwickeln will. Dazu heuern wir Spezialisten an, verbessern unsere Raketen und erweitern unsere Fähigkeiten. Denn bald müssen wir uns entscheiden welche Missionen wir durchführen wollen und was wir ins All bringen wollen… Nur wer hier voraus plant und richtig mit den verfügbaren Mitteln wirtschaftet, wird am Ende Sieger des Rennens zu den Sternen…

In a game of Cosmogenesis, each player creates their own planet system, starting from a star and an asteroid belt. To do this, they use the elements available on the different sections of the central board. In each round, players obtain one element from each of the four sections over four turns and with these elements players form planets and moons. These then collide with each other, causing them to increase in size, develop rings, form atmospheres, and of course create life. Players do all of this in order to fulfill their own objectives, which like the rest of the elements of the game, are obtained from the central board; at the end of the game, these provide the victory points that determine the overall winner.

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En una partida de Cosmogénesis, cada jugador creará su propio sistema planetario partiendo de una estrella y un cinturón de asteroides. Para ello se valdrá de los elementos que ofrecen los diferentes sectores de la nebulosa representada en el tablero central. En cada ronda, cada jugador obtendrá un elemento de cada uno de los 4 sectores a lo largo de 4 turnos. Con estos elementos, formarán planetas y lunas, colisionarán unos con otros para aumentarlos de tamaño, formarán sistemas de anillos, crearán atmósferas y por supuesto vida. Todo ello con el fin de cumplir sus propios objetivos, que también se obtendrán del tablero central, y que al final de la partida, proporcionarán los puntos de victoria que determinarán el vencedor.