Card Game

The forest is growing fast! As caretakers for Kodama, the tree spirits, you must keep the forest a healthy and lush home for your little friends. Over three growing seasons, you must cultivate trees with the right mix of flowers, insects, and branch arrangements to make your Kodama as happy as possible. Whoever cares for their Kodama best will be remembered for generations!

From the designer of the hit game Kigi, Kodama: The Tree Spirits branches out into a fun new way to play! Grow your tree by placing cards in clever arrangements, being careful to leave room for future growth. At the end of each season, one Kodama will award you points for how well your tree suits its needs. With beautiful art and innovative mechanics, Kodama is an inTREEguing game for the whole family.

Apollo XIII tells the whole story of that mission through a card-driven game system. Follow the story and face all of the disasters that plagued that mission!

To ensure the survival of the crew and get them back to Earth, you need to work together in this cooperative game to manage each setback that the mission faces. Your team must coordinate their actions, or you will not finish the mission! Of course, if you want an even bigger challenge, you can try the optional "competitive mode" to see who is the best mission coordinator!

Grimoire is the French word for "spellbook", and smart use of your spellbook – more specifically, the spells within said book – will determine whether you succeed in this game.

Each turn in Grimoire starts by revealing several cards on the game board; each card has either a victory point (VP) value or is a character with a particular way to earn VPs at the end of the game. Once these cards are revealed, each player secretly chooses which spell to cast in his spellbook by placing a bookmark on the appropriate page. Everyone then reveals which spell they chose, with the spells going off in order from weakest (those with the lowest numbers) to strongest. Some weak spells nerf stronger ones, and the order in which players choose cards from the display can be flipped topsy-turvy depending on who plays which spells.

In the One Draw and Z-Man versions, the game ends as soon as one player has collected either ten character cards or ten treasure cards; in the Schmidt Spiele version, the game ends after a fixed number of rounds. All players then tally their points, and the player with the highest score wins.

Differences between the versions:

As noted above, the game ending conditions differ in the 2012 Schmidt Spiele version.
The Z-Man Games and Schmidt Spiele versions of Grimoire accommodate five players, while the original One Draw release allows only 2-4 players.
The Schmidt Spiele version contains four new character cards and two new treasure cards, includes hardcover books instead of softcover, changes two spells, and uses a more elaborate game board that depicts the spells and allows players to mark the spells chosen with small figures to track who has played what.

In the crazy cat-collecting game Here, Kitty, Kitty!, your neighborhood has a cat problem. The problem is that the cats don't all belong to YOU! Everyone in the neighborhood wants to claim those adorable kitties for themselves.

Outwit your fellow feline fiends as you lure cats onto your property, move cats into your house, and steal cats from your neighbors. All's fair in love and cat-collecting!

There are no blenders or explosions in this game, but if you use your "Catlike Reflexes" and avoid "Stray Dogs" and "Hairballs", you might just "Land on Your Feet"!

GAME PLAY DESCRIPTION FROM THE DESIGNER:
Your neighborhood has been overrun by a colony of adorable cats! Your objective is to lure as many cats as possible onto your property and into your house.

Each player chooses a Property board, which contains three zones: the Yard, the Porch, and the House. At the end of the game, cats in the House are worth 5 points each, cats on the Porch are worth 3 points each, and cats in your Yard are worth 0 points. However, having cats in your Yard does have advantages for special scoring conditions, such having the most cats of a single color or the most cats overall. All 40 Cat minis are placed in the center of the table, and represent the Neighborhood. Each player is dealt 2 or 3 cards, depending on the number of players in the game.

On each player's turn, he or she performs two Actions: moving a cat, playing a card, or discarding cards. Cats can be moved 1 space for 1 Action, by picking up the cat and putting it in the next zone of the property. For example, a Cat can be moved from the Neighborhood to the Yard for 1 Action, or from the Yard to the Porch or from the Porch to the Yard (and vice versa). Playing cards may allow a player to move multiple cats at once, to move cats multiple spaces, to steal cats from opponents, or to make opponents give up cats. A player may also choose to discard 1, 2, or 3 cards as an Action. Once both Actions have been taken, the player draws back up to a full hand, and play passes to the person to the left. If an Instant card (red border) is drawn, it is played immediately and affects the entire group. The player then draws a replacement card for the Instant card until a full hand is achieved.

The final round is triggered when a player draws the last card from the draw pile. From that point every player, including the player who drew the last card, has one final turn to maximize his/her score. Then, the cats are counted and a winner is lauded for his or her purr-procurement proficiency.

In Monarch you play as an heir to the throne. Your mother, the Queen, has lived out her years and will soon pass on the crown. The time has come for you and your siblings to demonstrate your intelligence, compassion, bravery, and strength as leaders. Out perform your siblings to demonstrate your ingenuity and strength. Choose strategies that will bring prosperity to the land and glory to your court. Defend the realm from threats and famine. Only the player with the most majestic court will be named heir.

There are many paths to choose from, but only one will become the next monarch. Who will reign?

Monarch is a light strategy game for 3-4 players that lasts 45 minutes. The primary mechanic is set collection; each of the sisters aims to assemble a court of Court Cards in order to prove her worth: wise advisors, exotic animals, and symbolic regalia. Each of these Court Cards provides crowns, and the sister whose court contains the most crowns at the end of the game becomes the Queen.

There are tricks to assembling a majestic court. Some cards don't work together well: the Astronomer is worth nothing if in a court with the Fireworks because he will be unable to see anything! Other cards work very well together: the Beastkeeper is worth more crowns for each animal she shares a court with.