Victory Points as a Resource

Zoo Vadis

What if the animals were the ones who ran the zoo?

…Presumably, this wild government would be built upon the support of fellow creatures and fueled by the fame, attention, and prestige of wide-eyed visitors. Naturally, the most aspirational beasts would lobby for a position in the star exhibit, and the lead star would be elected Zoo Mascot.

In order to join the star exhibit, each species must campaign its way up the hierarchy of enclosures with the majority support of animal voters. And the lead star will be the species that has earned the most laurels from both raving fans and jealous rivals along the way.

How does one gain support and earn laurels? Through crafty politicking, clever negotiations, and ruthless schemes. There can only be one Zoo Mascot, after all.

Where are you going? That is the ultimate question of Zoo Vadis.

Zoo Vadis is an evolution of Reiner Knizia’s classic negotiation game, Quo Vadis? It retains the elegant, political gameplay that fans have come to love while introducing many innovations and improvements by:

Enhancing the 3-player game and tailoring the board to all player counts through neutral, bribable figures—roaming peacocks
Widening the player count with a second game board for 6-7 players
Expanding the possibilities for strategic negotiation with asymmetric animal abilities
Increasing tactical opportunities with new special laurel tokens
Broadening the appeal of the theme and presentation with vibrant zoo art by Kwanchai Moriya and Brigette Indelicato
Enlivening the production with chunky animal figures and functional player screens

Like the original design, the game ends immediately when the Star Exhibit is full. Only the animals who have reached the Star Exhibit qualify for victory, and the winner is the player with the most laurels.

–description from publisher

Dungeons and Feelings

Dungeons & Feelings is the strategy / social board game hybrid where the only way to conquer your dungeon is to open up, dig deep, and share your opinions, stories, and feelings. Dungeons & Feelings is inspired by classic adventure video games and distills their mechanics into easily accessible board game form.

In Dungeons & Feelings, you will proceed through a dungeon of your own design. Along the way, you will fight monsters, avoid traps, and discover treasure as you gain experience, level up, and acquire loot. When you are ready, you will fight the Dragon and emerge victorious!

You will have many items at your disposal to conquer your dungeon, but to craft them, you will need to ask your fellow players to answer an interesting, thought-provoking question about themselves. Laugh, cry, and start a deeper conversation with your friends in Dungeons & Feelings.

Dungeons & Feelings is a 3-4 player, non aggressive board game designed to be played in one sitting. It fuses elements of tile placing, crafting, role playing, with get-to-know-you ice breaker question mechanics quite unlike any game you've played before.

—description from the designer

Earth

Earth, the soil that supports and sustains our beautiful planet, Earth. Over thousands of years of evolution and adaptation the flora and fauna of this unique planet have grown and developed into amazing life forms, creating symbiotic ecosystems and habitats.

It’s time to jump into these rich environments and create some amazing natural synergies that replicate and extrapolate on Earth’s amazing versatility and plethora of natural resources. Create a self-supporting engine of growth, expansion and supply where even your unused plants become compost for future growth.

Earth is an open world engine builder for 1 to 5 players with simple rules but tons of strategic possibilities. With its encyclopedic nature and the enormous number of unique cards and combinations, every single game will allow you to discover new synergies and connections, just as our vast and fascinating world allows us to do!

—description from the publisher

Stack'n Stuff: A Patchwork Game

In Stack'n Stuff, a more streamlined version of Patchwork, players are on the move. However, packing all of your stuff into a moving truck is quite tricky, costly, and time consuming — and the day runs out fast!

During the game, the last player on the time track chooses one of the next three furniture items. After paying the transportation cost and spending the loading time, the player places the patch on their truck game board. Whoever manages to pack their truck best, as well as earns the most money during the game, is a moving master and wins!

—description from the designer

Modern Art

Buying and selling paintings can be a very lucrative business. Five different artists have produced a bunch of paintings, and it's the player's task to be both the buyer and the seller, hopefully making a profit in both roles. He does this by putting a painting from his hand up for auction each turn. He gets the money if some other player buys it, but must pay the bank if he buys it for himself. After each round, paintings are valued by the number of paintings of that type that were sold. The broker with the most cash after four rounds is the winner.

Part of the Knizia auction trilogy.