Area Control / Area Influence

Description from the publisher:

In Adventure Land, King Agamis rules from his castle. Rich cities, vast forests and rugged mountain ranges dominate the country. The large river is known to be lined with gold and the forests filled with medicinal herbs, but dangers lurk beneath the fog! Only the bravest adventurers dare to face the challenges. When you move your adventurer tactically and bravely fight the fog creatures, you'll win the favor of the king. Illustrated by Franz Vohwinkel and designed by acclaimed duo Wolfgang Kramer and Michael Kiesling who between them have won the highly coveted Spiel des Jahres award 5 times.

There are three different adventure scnerios to choose from, depending on the age/skill of the players:
-Adventure 1 (The Fellowship ) the simplest of the three adventures
-Adventure 2 (The Magnificent) a little more challenging
-Adventure 3 (Escape to the Cities) the most challenging because there are many things to pay attention to simultaneously

In the thick of the Viennese modern age, exquisite cafés are competing for customers. Inspiring artists, important politicians, and tourists from all over the world are populating Vienna and in need of a hotel room. This is your opportunity to turn your little café into a world famous hotel. Hire staff, fulfill the wishes of your guests, and gain the emperor's favor. Only then will your café become the Grand Austria Hotel.

The start player rolls the dice, sorting them by the rolled number and placing them on the corresponding action spaces. On a turn, a player chooses one of the six actions and carries it out. The number of the available dice in the corresponding action spaces determines how much the player gets from the action. They then remove one of the dice and can carry out additional actions. With the different actions, a player can get the necessary drinks and dishes, prepare the rooms, or hire staff.

But no hotel can grow without guests. To choose wisely which guests to attract and to complete their orders brings some important bonus actions. The staff cards also have different advantages, but the game ends after seven rounds and no player can do everything they want, so whoever makes the right decisions and finds the best way to create bonus actions will win.

With 116 different cards and a new set-up in each game, Grand Austria Hotel provides a huge replay value. Each game stands on its own and demands new tactics and strategies.

In a distant time – so far in the future that either global warming or technical progress is so advanced that windmills are going swimmingly in the antarctic climate – the rising sea level and increased resource consumption has driven mankind to increase investment in polar research. The Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research sees an increasingly creative interpretation of the Antarctic Treaty System.

Your objective in Antarctica is to develop research centers in Antarctica and to mine resources – for research purposes only, of course. The sun orbits Antarctica counter-clockwise, and each ship it thaws moves on for scientific progress. At the end of the game, victory points for all kinds of majorities are granted. Will your consort be the one that gained a fortune ... er, has done most to rescue mankind?

Turn order is determined by the sun. Whenever it shines on one of your ships, you may erect buildings, recruit new scientists, build more ships, or do scientific research. The game ends when all buildings have been erected, or when one player has placed his last scientist.

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.

Description from the publisher:

With a grinding of gears and some uneasy rumbling, Aperture Laboratories has resumed testing! Your team of test subjects has entered the Lab and is ready to perform all sorts of important, dignified, and dangerous testing procedures...all in the pursuit of cake! It's a fun and funny fast-paced fight to the finish — and by finish, we mean your team probably died.

The Lab is an ever-changing conveyor belt of death and dismemberment. But SCIENTIFIC PROGRESS must be at the forefront of the mind of every good test subject. In Portal: The Uncooperative Cake Acquisition Game, a game of constantly shifting area control and cardplay by the creators of the Portal and Portal 2 video games, players move and Portal their test subjects to various chambers in the lab. At the end of each player's turn, one of the chambers on the end of the lab gives way, plunging all test subjects on it into oblivion. But should your test subjects have numbered greater than all others in the falling chamber, they earn you some wonderful parting gifts, which can include cake.

Yet these moist slices of industrial-grade cake must be stored in the lab where they are at risk of falling into said oblivion. Not to mention that your jealous opponents can pick up your cake and move it closer to that precipice. He who has acquired the most cake when a team has lost its last test subject wins. Do you risk gathering cake early for a quick win? Or do you bide your time and wait until you can protect it better? Win the game and prove the cake was no lie.