Grid Movement

The old dragon Drakon has captured a brave band of adventurers who have sneaked into her lair to steal her gold. But rather than eat them immediately, Drakon has decided to make it a game: Greed shall set one of the adventurers free. She sends the frightened adventurers into her magical, mad vaulted chambers, and the first one to collect ten gold from Drakon’s maze gets to go free. The rest get to be lunch.

Each turn, players must choose one of two options: (1) place a tile from their hand onto the board, expanding the dungeon; or (2) move their Hero to an adjacent tile. Many of the dungeon tiles have an icon that allows players entering that space to take a special action (for example, taking a piece of gold from the dragon's hoard, stealing gold from another player, or destroying a tile that is already in play).

This is the third edition of Drakon, and includes the following updates:

plastic miniatures are used for the heroes and the Drakon
new tiles are larger (measuring 2.5 by 2.5 inches) and have all new artwork
tiles include a combination of rooms from Drakon (second edition) and Drakon Expansion 1
new rules, variants, and player aids are provided
each gold piece now has a value between 1 and 3

In the basic game, the first player to earn 10 gold wins the game. Some variants provide different winning conditions.

Game last between 20 and 60 minutes.

Darjeeling has two main board areas. The first is an array of squares representing one, two or three half-crates of tea in four different varieties (colors). Each player has a marker which moves about in the array, picking up tea at the rate of one square per turn. There are simple rules governing movement in this array and the players compete for the desirable squares.

Eventually, several times per game, each player has enough squares of a single color to fit them together so that the half-crates all make whole crates. Now he can make a tea shipment. This pays off in victory points in three different ways. First, there is a "demand" award of up to 6 VP depending on how long it has been since anyone shipped this variety. Second, if the shipment was of at least four crates, there is a flat bonus of 1 VP per crate.

Third and most pivotally, there are VP that will be awarded at the beginning of the player's next and subsequent turns. Each tea shipment is represented with cubes of the player's color (not the tea variety color) on a sort of barge. The new shipment of tea is always placed, in the other of the two main board areas, at the top of a column of all the recent shipments (the number of total shipments varying with the number of players in the game), so that as more shipments are made, the old shipments drift farther down the column and eventually out of play. At the beginning of your turn, you look to see where your shipments are in this column, and they pay out VP with better multipliers the higher they still are in the column. This constitutes the driving force of the game, as nobody else wants to see your shipment at the top of the column for several turns in a row. Players thus have an incentive to make a shipment even if they haven't yet assembled a large number of crates.

It's a race to 100 points. A runaway leader can easily take over if the rest of the table is not vigilant, so the best games of Darjeeling are those among vigilant players.

The galaxy has been a peaceful place for many years. After the ruthless Terran–Hegemony War (30.027–33.364), much effort has been employed by all major spacefaring species to prevent the terrifying events from repeating themselves. The Galactic Council was formed to enforce precious peace, and it has taken many courageous efforts to prevent the escalation of malicious acts. Nevertheless, tension and discord are growing among the seven major species and in the Council itself. Old alliances are shattering, and hasty diplomatic treaties are made in secrecy. A confrontation of the superpowers seems inevitable – only the outcome of the galactic conflict remains to be seen. Which faction will emerge victorious and lead the galaxy under its rule?

A game of Eclipse places you in control of a vast interstellar civilization, competing for success with its rivals. You will explore new star systems, research technologies, and build spaceships to wage war with. There are many potential paths to victory, so you need to plan your strategy according to the strengths and weaknesses of your species, while paying attention to the other civilizations' endeavors.

The shadows of the great civilizations are about to eclipse the galaxy. Lead your people to victory!

Galaxy Defenders is a sci-fi cooperative, tactical battle game in which 1-5 players fight together against an oncoming alien menace. Each player takes control of one or more agents with unique powers to defend the planet from the alien invasion. Gameplay revolves around a tactical combat system, using custom ten-sided dice. Each player sequentially plays his Agent turn and then one Aliens turn. Players carry out their turns [agent and aliens] in clockwise order until the last player finishes his Aliens turn. Once done, the game passes to the Event phase that will bring the players to the next round. Players may choose up to five agents:

Marine: Coming from U.S. Special Forces, the Marine is an excellent soldier who can manage different combat situations, especially multiple enemies.
Biotech: The Biotech is the most technologically adept agent in service. He can use Nano-Technology to heal wounds or control war drones.
Infiltrator: A deadly and stealthy agent. This lethal specialist prefers hiding in the shadows. She has fast movement and good short-range combat ability.
Sniper: A silent sharpshooter and expert in camouflage and ranged combat. The sniper has average movement and excellent long-range firepower.
Hulk: The Hulk was a successful mercenary and now is one of the best agents; although slow, he enjoys an extraordinary resistance to damage and has high firepower.

There is no "Alien player" in Galaxy Defenders; instead, the aliens are controlled by the game system itself, through an artificial intelligence system based on two types of cards:

Alien cards, which define the behavior of each different alien and detail its skills and combat abilities.
Close Encounter cards, which are used at the beginning of each alien turn to determine which aliens activate.

The combination of a unique AI for each alien species and the uncertainty about alien activation in a turn provides a realistic simulation of the chaos of battle and a sophisticated challenge for the players. Since having more agents brings more alien activations for the aliens, the turn structure allows the level of difficulty to scale dynamically based on the number of agents in play. If agents die during the game, the system "recalibrates" the difficulty to a reasonable and enjoyable level, so you still have a chance to complete the mission.

The battle for Earth will be carried out in a series of twelve missions organized in a completely story-driven campaign. Mission events influence future games in two different ways:

Each mission has multiple endings, and the outcome of any mission will change the flow of the story.
The agents gain experience during the missions. This experience transforms a good soldier into a perfect Galaxy Defender agent with multiple skills, basic and improved tactics, and the ability to use new devices, improved human weapons, and Alien technology.

With the downloadable Galaxy Defenders: Alien Mind variant, you can transform the game into a competitive affair, with one player becoming the alien mastermind and controlling the alien army and the card in play, attempting to thwart each mission undertaken by the Agents. To do this, the alien player completes his own game objectives, obtaining new "alien signals" that can be teleported onto the battlefield. This variant, which allows for play with up to six players, can be used in a single mission or for a whole campaign of Galaxy Defenders. Using Alien Mind may increase the game difficulty and is suggested only for expert players.

Official FAQ: http://www.galaxy-defenders.com/faq.php
Additional Missions: http://www.galaxy-defenders.com/mission.php
Galaxy Ball: http://www.galaxy-defenders.com/gb-cards.php

Ricochet Robots is less of a game and more of a puzzle, which explains why there's such an odd number of solutions possible. There's a four-piece modular board that forms a large room with walls spread around the board. There are also color-coded targets on boards. Placed on top of the surface are four robots. The idea for each turn/puzzle is to get the like-colored robot to a randomly selected target. The trick is that once a robot starts moving, it will continue to move until a wall or another robot stops it. Therefore, players are seeking a sequence of moves for the robots that will enable them to move the required robot to the target in the fewest moves.