Auction / Bidding

Designer Eric Lang, known for his "dudes on a map" games, describes The Godfather: Corleone's Empire — a standalone big box board game with high-quality miniatures — as "thugs on a map".

In short, the game is a streamlined, confrontational worker placement game filled with murder and intrigue. You play as competing mafia families who are vying for economic control of the organized crime networks of New York City, deploying your thugs, your don, your wife, and your heir on the board to shake down businesses and engage in area-control turf wars.

Money, rackets, contracts, and special advantages (such as the union boss) are represented by cards in your hand, and your hand size is limited, with you choosing which extra cards to pay tribute to the don at the end of each of the five rounds. At the end of the game, though, cash is all that matters, and whoever has the most money wins.

The game also features drive-by shootings in which enemy tokens are removed from the board and placed face-down in the river.

A Battle of Wits (a Princess Bride game) is an exciting game of bluff and double bluff for between two and ten players. A row of goblets sit in the middle of the table, ready to be filled with either wine or poison. Players each take the role of one character but it is only at the very end of a game that they will drink, one from each goblet. During the game, they must play their cards, one each turn, either into the top of a goblet (adding poison or wine to a goblet) or to the bottom of a goblet (bidding on the goblet). Who will fall prey to their enemies and who will eliminate themselves? Only the most intelligent will survive!

Klondike Rush is a bidding/stock game in a gold rush setting in which players build mines along different routes. Players also get a chance to score a big reward if they hunt down a wild monster that's been scaring the miners...

After years of taking advantage of hotel guests and tenants, Wealthy Uncle Moneybag's financial empire has crumbled into foreclosure. The millionaire's lavish property must be sold off to satisfy his debts, and you are one of the creditors! You may not need a diamond-encrusted watch or a rare fossil collection, but with 2-6 creditors sniffing around, maybe you should just take all that you can grab?!

Playing a round of Foreclosed! is simple, but the strategies are endless. Each turn, you'll be awarded a single item from Wealthy Uncle Moneybag's outrageous collection. If you receive some expensive silverware which you're not interested in collecting, and another player has received the fancy automobile you had your eye on, just make that player an offer.

If the other player wants to keep their item, they'll be forced to "protect" it by paying more money than you offered them. If a player does not have enough money, or does not want to spend the money they have, they must accept your offer. Once all players have had a chance to make offers, the round ends and all acquired items are added to their new owner's collection. Sometimes you will find it is just as rewarding to force other players to spend their money protecting items you didn't really want in the first place!

Foreclosed! lasts thirty minutes and can be played by 2-6 players.

For added depth and challenge to the game, Foreclosed! includes action cards for experienced players.

Who does not know the colloquial expression "Buying the cat in the sack" ("Buying a pig in a poke")? In this game you can experience the meaning of this expression yourself. A group of cats wants new owners, but these lucky people do not know if they get some sweet pussycats or one or more mean old cats. Sometimes only a dog is helpful, who chases the unwanted cats away. But then too many dogs are worse, too, because they only think about chasing themselves away. A clever auction game with many interesting decisions.

Idea of the game: With their mice, the players attempt to grab the famous cat in the sack. In the sack, there are both good and bad cats. Each player can also put a dog or rabbit into the sack instead of a cat, allowing players to bluff one another. At game end, all positive cats and mice count plus points, but negative cats count minus points.