Abstract Strategy

The route-building game genre can be counted as the greatest passion of English game designer and history teacher Martin Wallace. And with La Strada, he has come up with a particularly clever road-building game. Everything – from the rules to the game play – is devilishly simple. The game lets players claim successes throughout the game, and turn-by-turn one reaches one or even multiple goals. But at the end, someone else wins? How did that happen?

The game features a variable game board, built up out of hex tiles that depict easily traveled flatland, forests, or hills. Before the start of the game, nineteen different settlements (ranging from cities to tiny villages) with varying victory point values are randomly placed onto those spaces featuring a gray symbol. Each player then places his or her starting marker onto a chosen flatland tile. The object here is of course to try to put your starting marker near as many high-value cities as possible.

The object of the game is to connect together as many settlements with your roads as possible, in order to get as many victory points as possible. The catch is that settlements award fewer and fewer victory points the more players connect to them. The cities are like pies: the more people want a slice, the smaller the slices have to be.

Building streets is very simple. One a player’s turn, he receives six gold pieces. Each street segment costs two gold to build over flatland, three over forest, and four over hills. Players can build as many segments as they can afford on their turn, provided that they end at a settlement and don’t intersect any other streets on the way. Put simply: players can’t end a street in the middle of nowhere and then keep building next turn. Streets have to reach their destination at the end of each turn.

Once a settlement has been reached, and then the player gets to put one of their trade markers on it. Note that streets can intersect each other only at the settlement locations. If a player doesn’t use up all of his gold on his turn, then he can save it for the next turn (where he will also get another six gold to play with again). Players aren’t allowed to spend more than ten gold pieces on their turn, though, so you can’t save forever.

The game ends when one player can’t build any more roads or doesn’t have any trade markers left.

Scoring then occurs. A scoring example for a city: The city is worth five victory points, but only if it was connected to by a single player. A doubly connected city is worth four points for each player, while a triply connected city is only worth three each. Cities connected to by four players are only worth two points. This decreasing point system also counts for smaller settlements, worth between four and two victory points. A nicely thought out sorting system ensures that the end game scoring doesn’t turn into a math exercise. Naturally, the player with the most victory points is the winner. In the case of a tie, then the tied player with the most gold left is the winner.

La Strada is a very simple game: build roads and connect cities. But it’s not that easy to get ahead with the scores. It’s every player’s dream to claim a fat five point city all to themselves – but a player who spends too much energy trying to protect an investment will find that his other road-building options become tighter.

[Text is from a preview by Spielbox]

In the Beginning

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. It took him six days to complete his work, assisted by a host of heavenly angels doing his divine bidding. On the seventh day God rested and examined the result. Seeing that it was good, he praised the angel who had contributed the most.

Genesis - In the Beginning gives you the chance to become that angel. By gathering the essence of creation - chaos, matter and life - and turning it into seas and mountains, birds and beasts, you hope to win Gods approval - and the game! But the way to victory is wrought with hard decisions. You must gather essence when it's most advantageous, move at the right time and do your days’ work where they count the most. And beware of the dark angel who's trying to outshine you all.

Now - let there be light!

Contents

1 game board
1 God
1 dark angel
6 player angels
42 day work markers
1 starting player marker
72 essence cubes
1 rules booklet

Gameplay

Before the creation, the players’ angels are gathered in the void with God. When God starts the creation with the words "let there be light", the angels start their monumental task. There’s a lot do to and only seven days to get it done in, so every action counts. Throughout the game, God moves over each of the seven days on the game board, stopping morning, midday and evening, allowing the players 21 rounds to act. During their turn, players can choose to collect the essence of creation (chaos, matter and life), to do a day work on the current day using the different kinds of essence they have collected, or to follow in God’s path to another day.

When players move from day to day, they’re positioned along the essence track. The essence track determines both the order of play and the type of essence a player can gather. The first player to move to a certain day gets the first position, the second player the second position, and so on. As different positions yield different kinds of essence, the players must plan their movement to get the right kind and the right amount of essence. If they’re not happy with their position, they can spend essence to swap positions with a neighboring angel, thereby also thwarting other players’ plans.

When God creates a new day with new tasks for the angels, players can move to that day. The first player to do a day work on a certain day is awarded the highest points, the second player the second highest, and so on. As the week progresses, the points earned for doing a day work increase, which affects players’ long-term strategy.

As the seventh day is a day of rest, God looks favorably on angels that retire from their hard work. The first player to retire their angel on the seventh day earns the highest points, the second player the second highest, and so on. When God reaches the evening of the seventh day, the game is over. All points will be tallied and the player with the highest score is declared the winner.

To make things even more challenging, a dark angel is mixed in with the players’ angels, doing his best to snatch as many points as possible. The dark angel follows a pre-determined pattern of actions that the players can predict and delay but never stop. If the players aren’t careful, or if they’re too caught up in their own plans, the dark angel will surely outshine them, making all of them lose the game.

The mechanics of the game are quite simple: the sooner you do a day work on a day, the higher the points you score, making it a good idea to keep close in God’s wake. Unfortunately, simply following God throughout the creation might not give you the exact essence you need to do your day work. Eventually you must stop to collect essence, preferably in the right position, making you lose momentum. In the end it’s always about choices: when and what to collect, when to move and when to do a day work. The winner, God willing, is the player who makes the right choices at the right time, a task easier said than done.

Doom and Bloom SURVIVAL! is a board game for 2-4 players. It takes place in a post-pandemic world where there are few survivors. Your mission is to have your character accumulate supplies like food, fuel, weapons, and medical kits, as well as scout locations that may serve as a haven in which to start over.

You start off in once-peaceful center city, now controlled by raiders out to get what you have. There are plenty of resources out there, but you have to get to them and survive various encounters and attacks to reach towns that have potential as safe havens. You’ll have to plan your route to include spots that have the assets you’ll need to stockpile. Some of these spots are controlled by raiders, and you’ll have to survive attacks to gain the items you need.

Once you’ve scouted locations, you’ll have to return to center city for your family and more supplies. You then pick a location as your final destination. If you can get there with the required supplies and survivors before anyone else, you win the game.

The game dynamic revolves around the management of assets while you are traveling to your destinations. You'll be tempted to use them to gain an edge in an encounter, but you have to stockpile them to be able to win the game. Different gameplay styles and a unique route traveled in each game, coupled with game-changing Bonus cards, make Doom and Bloom SURVIVAL! a fun and challenging game. It is easy to learn but has multiple levels of complexity. Originally tailored to survival enthusiasts that wanted a real survival scenario (no zombies), gametesting has shown us that the game has appeal to all gamers.

Website: http://survivalboardgame.com/

Space Checkers adapts traditional checkers to the 3rd dimension. Instead of 12 men on an 8x8 square, each side has 8 men on a 4x4x4 cube. The adaptation is straight-forward: Black sets up near the south lower edge and can only move north and up; Red sets up near the north upper edge and can only move south and down. Captures and crowning are 3D analogs to the 2D case.

Rather than having 4 large levels, the board is split into 4 towers of 2x2 portions. This allows one to more easily reach the pieces at the interiors of each level, without interfering with the visualization of the complete cube.

Coin Age is a microgame for two players that's played with a single card and pocket change. Players take turns placing coins on a map to control spaces, outmaneuver their opponent, and score victory points.

Coin Age uses an innovative "coin slap" mechanism to determine available actions. On a player's turn, he takes one of each of his remaining types of coins in hand (one quarter, one nickel, one penny, and one dime), shakes them up, then slaps them on the table. Based on the number of coins that match his "side", he can then either place coins on the map, move previously placed coins to an adjacent space, or remove them altogether. When placing coins, players may also place their coins on top of the opponent's coins if their size/rank is smaller, so while a quarter will give you the most victory points at the end of the game, it has the highest probability of being covered by your opponent.

Coin Age is a quick-playing area control game with lots of player interaction and a bit of push-your-luck gameplay.