Drafting

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

Dragons are back into our world, and they are in vogue! As the proud owner of group of islands where dragons nest, you’ll have to manage both the tourists’ expectations and the dragons’ appetite…

Dragon Parks is a drafting game which makes use of transparent cards. Select a new card each turn to put on one of your three islands, adding or covering dragons in this park as you do. Some dragons hate to be covered by others and will snap back at you, and if you manage to hatch an egg by covering it, it will attract new visitors!

After 3 turns, the season ends. You will then score visitors depending of the number of different dragons visible on each island, with a bonus for the dragon type in vogue this season, and extra visitors if you attract the Legendary Dragon to your parks… But beware, if you have fewer sheep available than you have dragons, you will lose visitors equal to the difference!

The game ends after 3 seasons, and the player with the most visitors at the end wins!

-description from publisher

Gregor Mendel is the 19th Century Augustinian Friar credited with the discovery of modern genetics. In Genotype, you play as his assistants, competing to collect experimental data on pea plants by trying to control how the plants inherit key Traits from their parents: seed shape, flower color, stem color, and plant height. The observable Traits of a Pea Plant (its Phenotype) are determined by its genetic makeup (its Genotype). The relationship between Genotype and Phenotype and the nature of genetic inheritance are at the heart of Genotype: A Mendelian Genetics Game.

During the game, players get Pea Plant Cards which show a set of Phenotype Traits they hope to produce and collect (such as pink flowers and tall height) in order to score points. Each round, Dice are rolled to represent Plant breeding, which may result in the Traits players are looking for. After the Dice Roll, players take turns drafting Dice towards completing their Pea Plant Cards or advancing their Research. The Traits produced during the Dice Roll come through the science of Punnett Squares, which show how the parent genes combine, one from each parent plant. By changing the genes of these parent plants, players can influence the likelihood of rolling the Traits they need. The completion of Pea Plant Cards via the Dice Draft is the main way players score points.

Each round consists of 3 phases: Worker Placement, Dice Drafting, and Upgrades.
1) During Worker Placement, players take actions to get more Plant Cards, change the genes of a parent plant, Garden, Research, stake Phenotype claims, gather new Tools, or even position themselves ahead of other players for the Dice Drafting Phase in a couple of ways.
2) Dice Drafting features a couple of interest steps, including the possibility to get first pick of dice, but only for one type of Trait (like plant height), or the possibility to get a pick of any dice, but only after those first picks have happened. De Novo Mutation Dice allow players to change the Trait of other Dice or gain additional Research.
3) The Upgrades phase lets players spend their Research to gain upgrades that let them work on more Plant Cards, draft more Dice each round, or gain additional Workers to be used during the Worker Placement Phase of each round.

Players work to match their Pea Plant Cards to the outcome of the Dice Draft and complete the cards for points. If they've placed a Phenotype marker, they will earn bonus points for every completed card that matches their claim. At the end of 5 rounds, the player with the most points wins.

-description from designer

Dragons are back into our world, and they are in vogue! As the proud owner of group of islands where dragons nest, you’ll have to manage both the tourists’ expectations and the dragons’ appetite…

Dragon Parks is a drafting game which makes use of transparent cards. Select a new card each turn to put on one of your three islands, adding or covering dragons in this park as you do. Some dragons hate to be covered by others and will snap back at you, and if you manage to hatch an egg by covering it, it will attract new visitors!

After 3 turns, the season ends. You will then score visitors depending of the number of different dragons visible on each island, with a bonus for the dragon type in vogue this season, and extra visitors if you attract the Legendary Dragon to your parks… But beware, if you have fewer sheep available than you have dragons, you will lose visitors equal to the difference!

The game ends after 3 seasons, and the player with the most visitors at the end wins!

-description from publisher

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.