Tile Placement

The castle at the center of the Oniverse is under attack. The dream denizens of the oniverse rush to build their castle defense against three monster attacks. Towers allow you to see what is coming. Keeps can help minimize damage. Ranks can reduce the effects of the traitors found inside your walls. Of course, the denizens have special powers of their own to aid in the defense. Will you be able to survive these attacks?

Castellion is a tile-laying game in which you form parts of the castle for defense against monsters. Each turn you flip over a tile and either use its special ability or place it as part of your castle. The more towers and keeps you form, the better your defense against attacks. Ranks prevent traitorous tiles from affecting you fully. When all three monsters have attacked and you still have a base of six tiles, you win.

Lots of animals live on the African plains. Elephants, lions, zebras, hippos, giraffes — we aren't sure exactly how they live, so animal researchers are constantly studying them in order to find out more.

In String Safari (a.k.a. String Savanna), the players are zoologists, trying to get as much information as possible about the animals scattered across the savanna to complete research goals. Before you can study the animals, though, you need to have them under control, so you'll need to enclose them in your study range — that is, your string — which earns you a point at the same time. The animals all have different attributes, and the topography also influences your ability to study the animals. In the end, whoever completes the most research on the correct animals wins.

Special rules are included so that even young children can play.

The year is 1822. After years of decay, it is time to rebuild the medina, located at the foot of the Atlas mountains. The architects and engineers of the city work to erect large and beautiful palaces and to renovate the damaged city wall. As the reconstruction of the old city progresses, the city's inhabitants flock through the alleys, and the contours of the new city gradually reappear!

Each turn, players must place two pieces on the board (except when allowed to skip this with a tea tile), either augmenting an existing building (or starting a new building if the current building of that color is finished), or expanding one of the other features of the city, like the market or the walls. Each player will claim one building of each of the four colors by the end of the game, giving one point per wooden piece attached to the building.

Also, if you own the largest building of a particular color you get a bonus for that color. Finally, there are bonuses for palaces around the well, as well as for the player who most recently connected one of their buildings to the walls, which grow from the four corners of the city.

Medina is a tense game by the great designer Stefan Dorra. This latest edition of the game features a double-sided game board (enabling a two-player game), almost 200 detailed wooden pieces, and updated gameplay, as well as rules and components never before published for this game!

See Medina for the original edition of this game.

Arboretum is a strategy card game for 2-4 players, aged 10 and up, that combines set collection, tile-laying and hand management while playing in about 25 minutes. Players try to have the most points at the end of the game by creating beautiful garden paths for their visitors.

The deck has 80 cards in ten different colors, with each color featuring a different species of tree; each color has cards numbered 1 through 8, and the number of colors used depends on the number of players. Players start with a hand of seven cards. On each turn, a player draws two cards (from the deck or one or more of the discard piles), lays a card on the table as part of her arboretum, then discards a card to her personal discard pile.

When the deck is exhausted, players compare the cards that remain in their hands to determine who can score each color. For each color, the player with the highest value of cards in hand of that color scores for a path of trees in her arboretum that begins and ends with that color; a path is a orthogonally adjacent chain of cards with increasing values. For each card in a path that scores, the player earns one point; if the path consists solely of trees of the color being scored, the player scores two points per card. If a player doesn't have the most value for a color, she score zero points for a path that begins and ends with that color. Whoever has the most points wins.

Santiago is about cultivating and watering fields. To accomplish this, a number of tiles denoting various plantation types come into the game each round. The tiles are auctioned off such that each player gets one, and the tiles are then placed onto the game board along with an ownership marker that also indicates how plentiful the tile's yield will be. Whoever bid the lowest in each round gets to be the canal overseer and decides where a canal will be built that round. The other players may make suggestions to help the canal overseer decide, and back up their suggestions with money. The final decision is always wholly up to the overseer, though.

At the end of each round, players determine what the water supply situation looks like. Should a plantation not be sufficiently watered, its production drops dramatically; should it happen more than once, then that plantation may revert to fallow ground. At game's end, naturally only the cultivated land counts. Each plantation is counted according to type – the bigger the better. But since the ownership markers play a role as well, the same plantation can give drastically different points for different players.