travel

In Africana, players travel through Africa, taking part in expeditions and trying to be the first to reach various destinations. With the money they earn, they can buy adventure cards that earn them precious antiques. Africana features the "Book of Adventures" game system from Schacht's Valdora in which players can acquire cards that are laid out like books, with players "turning the pages" to find the adventure cards they most want.

The game board in Africana shows the continent divided in half at the equator, with the cities in the north half colored brown and the cities in the south white. Adventure cards with a brown border can be acquired only in the south and must be delivered to the north, while white-bordered adventure cards take the opposite route. Five expedition cards – each showing the starting and ending location and a reward for completing the expedition – are laid face-up on the game board.

Each player has one researcher token that will travel around the board, and on a turn a player takes one of three possible actions:

Draw two travel cards. (A player can have no more than five travel cards in hand at turn's end.)
Buy one or more adventure cards, for five coins each. A player can flip one page in the book for free, with each additional flip costing one coin. (A player can have no more than three adventure cards to be fulfilled at turn's end.)
Move the researcher by paying travel cards that match the color of the space being traveled to. Each player has a joker in hand, which will be retained at the end of each turn. If a player moves onto the start space of an expedition, he can mark that expedition card with a marker; if he reaches the destination for an expedition he's on, he receives the reward depicted and claims the card, while anyone else on the expedition receives nothing. A new expedition card is then revealed.

When a player reaches the destination shown on an adventure card, that player scores that card by placing it under his player mat. Some cards show helpers, which are represented by helper cards in a player's hand. These cards allow travel on the color shown on the card and return to the player's hand after use, but a player who employs many helps will lose points at the end of the game.

Once the expedition cards run out, the game ends and players score for the expeditions they completed, sets of identical and different adventure cards, money in hand, and a few other things. The player with the most points wins!

In Tokaido, each player is a traveler crossing the "East sea road", one of the most magnificent roads of Japan. While traveling, you will meet people, taste fine meals, collect beautiful items, discover great panoramas, and visit temples and wild places but at the end of the day, when everyone has arrived at the end of the road you'll have to be the most initiated traveler – which means that you'll have to be the one who discovered the most interesting and varied things.

The potential action spaces in Tokaido are laid out on a linear track, with players advancing down this track to take actions. The player who is currently last on the track takes a turn by advancing forward on the track to their desired action and taking that action. So, players must choose whether to advance slowly in order to get more turns, or to travel more rapidly to beat other players to their desired action spaces.

The action spaces allow a variety of actions which will score in different, but roughly equal, ways. Some action spaces allow players to collect money, while others offer players a way to spend that money to acquire points. Other action spaces allow players to engage in various set collections which score points for assembling those sets. Some action spaces simply award players points for stopping on them, or give the player a randomly determined action from all of the other types.

All of the actions in Tokaido are very simple, and combined with a unique graphic design, Tokaido offers players a peaceful zen mood in its play.

From the box:
The players as part of a tourist group, travel through this fascinating country and discover different cultures, traditions and sights. They visit temples and animal parks and experience the bright and colorful diversity of the land. Tile by tile they collect various symbols to build a pattern called Kolam and the player who creates the longest sequences of these symbols recieve the most victory points.