Contracts

The city of Amul was one of the largest centers of international trade in ancient times and an important transit point on the Great Silk Road. The prosperity of this splendid city of merchants peaked after Arabian conquest in the 10th century and it was destroyed by the Mongols in 1220.

Amul, originally announced as Silk Road, is a card game of bustling bazaars for up to eight aspiring merchants. In Amul, each player is a striving merchant, competing for wealth and success. The creative card drafting mechanism caters to swift and simultaneous gameplay, keeping all players constantly engaged.

Draft cards from the market to collect goods and valuables, hire guards, assemble caravans, and make contracts with traders. Manage your hand effectively as only certain cards can be played to the table for scoring, while others must be in your hand for optimal end game scoring.

Amul features fast and engaging gameplay, as well as beautiful artwork.

—description from the publisher

AWARDS & HONORS
Adult Games of the Year Guldbrikken 2019 Nominee
https://www.guldbrikken.dk/nyheder/nominerede-til-arets-voksenspil

Breaking news! A lost world has been discovered, and clues leading to its secret entrance have been disseminated all around the world. Your goal? Find them! Driven only by your courage, you decide to follow in the footsteps of those first explorers and launch a worldwide expedition, but you're not the only one on this quest...

In Lost Explorers, each player starts with five figures on their research team: two leaders to track your discoveries, and three members to gain equipment and go on expeditions. On your turn, you can place members on one or both equipment areas to gain tokens; placing one figure means you retrieve the first token from the pile, two figures the second token, etc. The visible side of a token represents a vehicle — a train (red), a car (yellow), a boat (blue), or an airship (green) — while the hidden side depicts two or three locations on the world map. For each token you take, choose whether to keep the vehicle side face up or flip it over to reveal the mission side of the token. Once you choose, the token is locked, and you place it in front of you with your other vehicle and mission tokens.

Alternatively, instead of collecting equipment you can place members on map locations. Each location shows 2-3 vehicle tiles, and you must have all depicted tiles in front of you to place a member on a location. Each time you place a member, choose one of the vehicle tokens used, then place it in the discard pile next to the box. (If you travel to the location of another player's member, you instead give them the discarded token.)

After you either collect vehicle/mission tokens or send members on expeditions, you can complete one or more missions if you have a member on each of the 2-3 locations depicted on that mission. For each mission, remove one of your members just used from the board, then advance the appropriate leader on the discovery track for the color of the mission and the number of members used. (Each game, 2-4 locations are marked as "validated", and a validated location is always completed automatically for missions, but you score no points for it.) If you advanced your leader who was behind on the discovery track, take a vehicle token from the discard pile and add it to your collection.

When one of your leaders reaches a "clue" spot on a discovery track, you collect a clue token. If you collect four clue tokens first, you win! Alternatively, the game ends once all the vehicle tokens have been claimed, at which point the player who has advanced the farthest on the discovery track with their slower leader wins.

Following the success of unmanned rover missions, the United Nations established the Department of Operations and Mars Exploration (D.O.M.E.). The first settlers arrived on Mars in the year 2037 and in the decades after establishment Mars Base Camp, private exploration companies began work on the creation of a self-sustaining colony. As chief astronaut for one of these enterprises, you want to be a pioneer in the development of the biggest, most advanced colony on Mars by achieving both D.O.M.E. mission goals as well as your company’s private agenda.

In the beginning, you will be dependent on supplies from Earth and will have to travel often between the Mars Space Station and the planet's surface. As the colony expands over time, you will shift your activities to construct mines, power generators, water extractors, greenhouses, oxygen factories, and shelters. Your goal is to develop a self-sustaining colony independent of any terrestrial organization. This will require understanding the importance of water, air, power, and food — the necessities for survival.

Do you dare take part in humankind’s biggest challenge?

On Mars is played over several rounds, each consisting of two phases - the Colonization Phase ​and the Shuttle Phase​.

During the Colonization Phase, each player takes a turn during which they take actions. The available actions depend on the side of the board they are on. If you are in orbit, you can take blueprints, buy and develop technologies, and take supplies from the Warehouse. If you are on the surface of the planet, you can construct buildings with your bots, upgrade these buildings using blueprints, take scientists and new contracts, welcome new ships, and explore the planet’s surface with your rover. In the Shuttle Phase, players may travel between the colony and the Space Station in orbit.

All buildings on Mars have a dependency on each other and some are required for the colony to grow. Building shelters for Colonists to live in requires oxygen; generating oxygen requires plants; growing plants requires water; extracting water from ice requires power; generating power requires mining minerals; and mining minerals requires Colonists. Upgrading the colony’s ability to provide each of these resources is vital. As the colony grows, more shelters are needed so that the Colonists can survive the inhospitable conditions on Mars.

During the game, players are also trying to complete missions. Once a total of three missions have been completed, the game ends. To win the game, players must contribute to the development of the first colony on Mars. This is represented during the game by players gaining Opportunity Points (OP). The player with the most OP at the end of the game is declared the winner.

The Magnificent is a tightly designed Eurogame from the creators of Santa Maria set in a mystical world beautifully illustrated by French artist Martin Mottet.

In the game, players are competing to attract the largest audiences to their shows, featuring magnificent performers. In the process, you must expand your camp by placing Tetris-style tiles on your player board, gather elements needed for the shows, and set up performances in your tents.

On your turn, you take one die from the supply. The value of the chosen die is your strength. Add to this the value of all dice of the same color that you have already collected, then use this strength to carry out one of three main actions: build, travel or perform. The more strength you have, the better the action will be, but at the end of the round, you must pay — in coins — the total of your highest-valued dice color. Thus, taking dice of the same color makes for better actions, but will cost more coins.

After each player has taken four turns, the round ends. Each player must discard one of their ringmaster cards and score points according to its requirements. After three rounds, the game ends, and the player who has collected the most points wins.

In more detail, players start the game with four ringmaster cards and a unique trainer tile. Each ringmaster card provides a special ability (which is triggered when you place a die on it) and a unique end-of-round scoring opportunity. When you choose a ringmaster card to discard and score at the end of the round, you must therefore also take into consideration which special abilities you want to keep.

In addition to your main action, you may use trainers on your personal unique trainer tiles or on common trainer spaces on the game board for various benefits.

At the end of each round, in order of the players' highest-ranked performances, players choose a new ringmaster card and a trainer tile, providing new abilities and scoring opportunities for the next round.

Bring together a team of super heroes and prevent Thanos from ending the world!
The Infinity Stones are scattered throughout the Multiverse. Use their essence to recruit heroes and villains and gain Infinity Points.

Assemble the Avengers, acquire locations and when ready, claim the Infinity Gauntlet!

Pick your tokens carefully, recruit characters to gain Infinity Points and bonuses. These bonuses help you recruit more powerful heroes and acquire locations… until you gather enough characters, power, and Infinity Points to trigger the endgame!

Even though Splendor Marvel uses Splendor’s core rules and high-quality materials, it has a different color structure, a new endgame trigger, and new victory conditions. You can also gain Infinity Points with the Avengers Assemble tile that can be passed from one player to another several times during the game!

If you are keen on Splendor, learning the rules will be easy, but mastering the game may take you a while.

And if you don’t know Splendor, soon you will enjoy its quick and simple rules and become addicted to this game without even realizing it!