Family Game

Hop your bot to the spot!

In this game of strategy and logic, the goal is to hop your red robot over obstacles to reach the red spot on one corner of the game board. Jump over blue and green robots to reach your goal. It is an award-winning travel game, the colorful board functions as a self-contained traveling case. This game will keep minds of all ages limber and alert.

-Four levels of play, beginner to expert
-Forty mind challenge cards with solutions
-One red hero robot, nine green robots, four blue robots
-One game grid and game-go storage bag
-For ages 8 years and above

Mermaid Rain is a Japanese game from the makers of Train Raider.

Over five rounds, players try to collect five different types of goods by moving around the sea. The game uses two phases: first is the "surf predicting" phase where players play melds of cards in a Taj Mahal-type mechanic. The melds determine player order, selection of "wave tile", and give other benefits. In the second phase, "surf riding", players place their wave tiles on the board and then use cards to move through the sea on the waves to collect goods.

The game is playable with English rules as the components are either language-independent or easily decipherable.

Game Summary
Setup: specific locations for subset of tiles, some face down; rest are to side, also face down. Deal out 7 cards (3 suits).

Each round, players simultaneously select a card to play (max 5 cards total) -- choose the pass card to pass for rest of round. The resulting poker-style combinations give bonuses (VP, or special powers); the ranking gives you player order for the round.

In order, select a face up sea tile (4 shapes, 2-3 hexes each, with one of 3 suits or wild). Then, in order, place the tile on the board and use some/all cards left in hand to move your mermaid around the board (playing card allows you to move mermaid to matching tile/space). Whenever on an island with token(s), look at face down tokens then add one of the tokens to your collection.

At end of round, sea tiles with the darker color are removed from the board. Any mermaids on them are displaced to one of the unoccupied starting locations (player's choice). Then, deal 7 cards per player (max hand size 9) and repeat.

Game ends after 5 rounds. Each player must discard 5 tokens (1 per symbol), or lose 5 VP per missing symbol. Then rank players' collections of sets of each type, awarding VP accordingly (rarer tiles, larger sets earn more VP). Most VP wins.

Carcassonne: the Castle takes place in the city of Carcassone itself. The theme is development of the city within the "castle walls", which might be more appropriately called the city walls, but Carcassonne: The City was apparently already in development.

It is not an expansion, but a stand-alone tile-placement game with the Carcassonne mechanics adapted specially for two players. The goal is to lead the race around the castle wall, which is also the scoring track for the game. There are bonus items on the wall for the first player to reach that point.

Play is very similar to Carcassonne but all the tiles must be played within the walls, which often constrains the choices. The followers used for scoring are heralds (on paths), knights (on towers), squires (on houses) and merchants (on courtyards which are more valuable if they have a market). And, the player with the largest "keep" (largest house completed during the game) scores points for the largest contiguous undeveloped area (unplayed tile spaces) at the end of the game. The bonus tiles collected from the walls add twists to the scoring, such as doubling one of a particular scoring structure or scoring one uncompleted structure.

From the publisher:

The knights set off from their castles to conquer the surrounding land. For the wealth of the big towns and the villages belonging to them is just too tempting.

Of course, once in possession, no knight wants to lose his newly acquired properties, so this means: caution. For the other players´knights are awake to any opportunity and the newly gained land may be lost again just as quickly to a new lord.

Bring your landscape tiles and above all your knights skilfully into play, secure your properties on all sides and watch out for enemy knights at all time.

Game Summary
Each player has an identical set of tiles, arranged with B's on top and E's on bottom. Of the 4 A tiles, choose a castle and another tile for your hand; the others (from all players) form a random starting play area.

On your turn, you place 1, 2 or 3 tiles, immediately drawing a replacement after each placement. These are played one at a time, and must be orthogonally adjacent to what's already on the board. They may not extend beyond the play area (7x7, 9x9, or 10x10 for 2er, 3er, or 4er). If a placed tile has a castle, you bring 0-5 knights (discs) into play onto that castle. Then, you may move those knights in a straight line, placing a number of knights on each tile entered (including the castle) based on terrain: plains=1, forest=2, mountains=3 (lakes impassable). Max total of 4 knights/tile at end of movement; if you can't enter a hex (e.g., forest with 3 knights present), you may not move beyond it. May not skip any tiles. If other player knights are present, place yours in a stack on top.

The game ends when everyone has played all their tiles. Earn VP based on tiles controlled (knight on top of stack controls tile): castle=1VP, village=2VP, town=3VP. Most VP wins! Tie-breaker = most unused knights.

In Evolution, players adapt their species in a dynamic ecosystem where food is scarce and predators lurk. Traits like Hard Shell and Horns will protect your species from Carnivores, while a Long Neck will help them get food that others cannot reach. With over 4,000 ways to evolve your species, every game becomes a different adventure.

Evolution packs a surprising amount of variety for a game with simple rules. The variety comes from the synergies between the trait cards and from the different personalities at the table. Some players thrive on creating Carnivores to wreak havoc on their fellow players. Others prefer to stay protected and mind their own business. Evolution encourages both play styles by giving each of them multiple paths to victory. And it is the mix of play styles at the table that ultimately determines the eco-system in which the player are adapting. So gather your friends and see who can best adapt to the changing world around them.

Set-up
1) Give every player a food bag.
2) Randomly choose the start player.
3) Shuffle the cards and start playing! (easy peasy)

Turn Sequence for Each Round
1) Drawing cards: 3 cards + 1 card per species

2) Playing cards:
• Play one face-down card to determine the amount of plant food available this round.
• Play cards to create new species and modify existing species.

3) Feeding phase:
• Reveal the food cards and put that number of food on the Watering Hole.
• Feed your species plant food - or -
• Attack another species if you have a carnivore

4) Clean up phase:
• Species that received no food go extinct.
• Reduce the population of species that were not fully fed
• Place the food in your score bag.

End of Game
When the deck runs out, play one final round and then score points.

End of Game Scoring:
• 1 point for each food in your bag
• 1 point for each population of your existing species
• 1 point for each trait on your existing species