Card Drafting

Scrabble game features six interchangeable board games. You can play the classic game, or try a version with "blanks" and "blockers." You can even design your own custom game with the nine mini-boards. Some of the boards have themes like "outer space" or "in the clouds."

Other than the classic game, here are the variations you can try with Scrabble Switch-Up

Blanks and Blockers: If you play a letter that covers a blank or block square you take the appropriate tile. A blank acts as a normal wild card with the added bonus that it doesn't count as one of your seven. A blocker is a tile you can play immediately to prevent someone else from using a specific square.

Bustin' Out: Make words that lead you outside the walled in junkyard. This variation also uses cards - land on a guard dog and draw a card that you can use to mess up another player.

Hyper-Race: A two player game with the object of making words crossword style that lead from the space station at the top to the earth below. Land on a comet and get a free blank tile. Land on a flying saucer and draw a card similar to the guard dogs above.

Free for All: Uses a smaller 9X9 grid with the expanded rule that words can now be made diagonally with a limit of three words made per turn.

Surprise: Allows you to completely change the traditional Scrabble board by mixing up where the premium spots are located plus adds new ones such as wild and quadruple score. You have nine double sided squares that you use to make up the entire board.

Oceanos is a game of underwater exploration with an original take on card-drafting.

Each player pilots her own submarine trying to spot the most underwater species and the longest coral reef, sending scuba-divers after forgotten treasures, collecting precious crystals to upgrade their ship and to escape the fearsome kraken's gaze...

Ticket to Ride: Rails & Sails takes the familiar gameplay of Ticket to Ride and expands it across the globe — which means that you'll be moving across water, of course, and that's where the sails come in.

As in other Ticket to Ride games, in Ticket to Ride: Rails & Sails players start with tickets in hand that show two cities, and over the course of the game they try to collect colored cards, then claim routes on the game board with their colored train and ship tokens, scoring points while doing so. When any player has six or fewer tokens in their supply, each player takes two more turns, then the game ends. At that point, if they've created a continuous path between the two cities on a ticket, then they score the points on that ticket; if not, then they lose points instead.

Ticket to Ride: Rails & Sails puts a few twists on the T2R formula, starting with split card decks of trains and ships (with all of the wild cards going in the train deck). Three cards of each type are revealed at the start of the game, and when you draw cards, you replace them with a card from whichever deck you like. (Shuffle the card types separately to form new decks when needed.)

Similarly, players choose their own mix of train and ship tokens at the start of the game. To claim a train route (rectangular spaces), you must play train cards (or wilds) and cover those spaces with train tokens, and to claim a ship route (oval spaces), you must play ship cards (or wilds) and cover those spaces with ship tokens. Ship cards depict one or two ships on them, and when you play a double-ship card, you can cover one or two ship spaces. You can take an action during play to swap train tokens for ships (or vice versa), and you lose one point for each token you swap.

Some tickets show tour routes with multiple cities instead of simply two cities. If you build a network that matches the tour exactly, you score more points than if you simply include all of those cities in your network.

Each player also starts the game with three harbors. If you have built a route to a port city, you can take an action during the game to place a harbor in that city (with a limit of one harbor per port). To place the harbor, you must discard two train cards and two ship cards of the same color, all of which must bear the harbor symbol (an anchor). At the end of the game, you lose four points for each harbor not placed, and you gain 10-40 points for each placed harbor depending on how many of your completed tickets show that port city.

Ticket to Ride: Rails & Sails includes a double-sided game board, with one side showing the world and the other side showing the Great Lakes of North America. Players start with a differing number of cards and tokens depending on which side they play, and each side has a few differences in gameplay.

Players in New England Rails each represent a particular state during the 19th century – Connecticut and New Hampshire with two players, with Vermont added for three players, and so on – and start with two or three businesses in play under their control. Your goal in NER is to have more assets than other players at game end, as determined by cash in hand, cost of businesses owned, special routes completed and state subsidies acquired.

The game lasts at most 16 rounds. Each round players forecast the upcoming economic condition – depression, normal or prosperity – for a future turn, then take care of any events that occur, such as "Improved Bridge Building Techniques" that allow players to build across estuaries or "Sheep Boom Goes Bust" which represents the decreased demand for wool from New England farmers as the century progressed. Four of the first five events are fixed and represent historical activities, while the other events – including devastating floods, snow, and an improved business climate – are randomized into a face-down deck. Players then each draft a business or action card, with the option to play it immediately (thereby gaining a free action) if they choose to pay the cost.

During the subsequent development phase, players take two actions in turn order, either building twice, playing cards twice, or doing each action once. Players want to build depots that connect their businesses to one of the major markets in the area: New York, Boston or Montreal; to do so, they need to pay the track costs as well as the cost of the depots themselves. Players can build multiple depots in the same action, but the cost is higher since they're doing more work in the same amount of time. Once a business is connected, it earns the owner more income each turn since it's now supplying a larger, richer market. The cards allow players to start new businesses, play special actions, claim a special route (which generates income), claim one of the six state mail contracts, or collect a state subsidy, which provides special benefits like a free depot.

As the game progresses, the players pass through time time periods, with different businesses being available in each. The first period focuses on crafts and farms, for example, while the second introduces more industrial businesses such as shoe and textile production. When passing from one period to another, players must choose to make some of their existing businesses obsolete. Since a player can manage only eight businesses, however, you'll likely want to make room for more profitable ventures anyway.

If all mail routes, state subsidies and special routes are claimed by the end of any round, the game ends at that point; otherwise the game ends after round 16, with the richest player winning New England Rails.

In Assyria, players represent tribes living in Mesopotamia, trying to develop on the desert and a limted fertile area located between two rivers that divide the board. In their quest for power (points), players build Ziggurats (permanent outposts), wells, make sacrifices to gods and try to get along with nobles of Assur - the capital of Assyria. The game is a light-weight eurogame, built around the short-term rapid point gains vs long-term investments dilemma. General flow of play is as follows:

Phase 1: Players get resources for expansion and decide on play order

In this phase, players pick cards with resources that enable expansion on the board. In general he/she who gets most food, plays last. First player expands with least food.

Phase 2: Players expand on the board to earn points or money.

Players begin to form strings and/or clusters of huts and pay for placing them with their food cards. Depending on where huts are placed, they either score points or earn camels (money).

Phase 3: Players spend money/camels on various investments.

A player either goes for one-time bonuses from the nobles of Assur, or makes long-term investments by offerings to gods and building Ziggurats.

The game lasts for three eras, made up of 2-3 of such cycles. After each era comes the flood: the board is partially cleaned up, but players also capitalize on their investments from phase 3. Each round, players also score points for huts (those built on fertile land between the two rivers bring more points) and ziggurat tiles.

In comparison to other games from Ystari's series - Assyria is lighter than Caylus, Olympos, Ys or Sylla (in terms of complexity, available choices - represented by numerous tiles, cards, icons, cards etc. that need to be remembered and can be combined during play), but heavier than Yspahan, Mykerinos or Metropolis.