Income

"Hurry to the ship! Twelve houses from our town have already burned down!"

In Evacuation, life on our planet is being burned away thanks to increasingly intense sunlight, so everyone is trying to move all the people and factories in their territories from the "old" planet to a new one — and they have only four rounds in which to do so.

You start the game with a full functioning economy, and over the course of play, you must dismantle that economy and move it. Income on the old planet shrinks over time, and production probably won't be much better until you establish yourself on the new planet and kick things into action. Resources can't be mixed across the planets, so you need to take special care with your planning.

To do this, you choose actions from the player board, with the expert variant adding cards to your hand that allow you to choose additional actions and combine them. Each action has its own value, and the sum of these actions is important for an "end of the round" bonus. Additionally, players move their markers along the orbital track based on the value of their actions.

If you can raise production of three resources to level 8 and have three stadiums on the new planet, you win. Otherwise, players compare scores after four rounds. Evacuation includes modules to add new play options.

NOTE: A community FAQ is available here to provide some clarity on Frequently Misplayed Rules.

In a far-distant future, humans no longer inhabit Earth. The cause of their disappearance (or perhaps their demise) is unknown, but their absence left a void ready to be filled by another sentient species.

Over the span of untold generations, one species of the humble honeybee evolved to fill that void. They grew in size and intelligence to become a highly advanced society. They call themselves Mellifera, and they have made substantial technological advances in addition to the technology they adapted from human ruins, up to and including space travel.

In Apiary, each player controls one of twenty unique factions. Your faction starts the game with a hive, a few resources, and worker bees. A worker-placement, hive-building challenge awaits you: explore planets, gather resources, develop technologies, and create carvings to demonstrate your faction's strengths (measured in victory points) over one year's Flow. However, the Dearth quickly approaches, and your workers can take only a few actions before they must hibernate! Can you thrive or merely survive?

—description from the publisher

A combination of Tetris, rummy, Sim City, and dominos. Buy properties and build your business empire. But make sure all your suppliers are linked, or it can all fall apart.

You can play a solo game, or competing against others, or play co-op. There are over 200 cards with over 150 of those being unique.

Each player starts with a main office and a family business. Players buy, sell, and trade properties to grow a sprawling cityscape. All cards have links so you may connect a producer with its suppliers. Watch out for run-down derelict properties that your competitors might stick on you.

When all the properties are gone, the game is over. Players add up their victory points to determine the winner. Different properties vary in point values. An iron mine might have only 1 VP while the coveted Department Store has 10 VP.

—description from the designer

Emperor Qin Shi Huang has passed away. To protect him in the afterlife, a great army in the form of statues of faithful warriors must be assembled to stand guard in the Emperor's tomb. You will be among those tasked with building this magnificent army.

In Terracotta Army, you represent talented craftsmen and artists laboring to build the wondrous assembly of statues. During the game, you collect resources, upgrade your workers, and seek favor with the Emperor's advisors. Your goal is to play a crucial role in the process of creating the terracotta army, and your success is measured in victory points (VPs). During the game, you and your fellow players build the army together, but after the fifth round of the game is over, only one of you — the one with the most points — will stand as the winner.

During the game, you place warrior miniatures within the mausoleum, forming groups. A group's miniatures may belong to multiple players as denoted by the player bases on those miniatures. Multiple separate groups consisting of the same type of miniature may exist within the mausoleum.

You will have many opportunities to score points based on domination and presence. To achieve domination, you must be the only player with the most of the specific resource or type of statue currently being scored. (If you are the only player, you have domination.) To have presence, you must have at least one of the specific resource or type of statue currently being scored.

At the end of the fifth round, the player with the most VPs wins.

Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition is an engine-building game in which players control interplanetary corporations with the goal of making Mars habitable (and profitable). You will do this by investing mega credits (MC) into project cards that will directly or indirectly contribute to the terraforming process. In order to win, you will want to accumulate a high terraform rating (TR) and as many victory points (VP) as you can. Players raise their TR by increasing global parameters: oceans, oxygen, and temperature. TR also determines each corporation's basic income, and, at the end of the game TR counts as VP. Additional VP and production capabilities are awarded for building project cards and other actions taken during the game.

The game is played in rounds, and each round the players will choose one of five phases, which determines which activities will take place during that round. This means every round is different, but can consist of building new project cards, taking general and project-specific actions, producing income and resources (plants and heat), or researching to draw more project cards. Every player will take all the phases selected for the round, and will receive a special bonus during the phase that they selected. To speed up the game, within each phase, players can act simultaneously without waiting for each other!

The game board has tracks for oxygen, temperature, and terraform rating, as well as a place for all of the ocean tiles that will be flipped over the course of the game. The game ends when there is enough oxygen to breath (14%), oceans enough to allow Earth-like weather (9), and the temperature is well above freezing (+8°C). It will then be possible, if not comfortable, to live on the surface of Mars!

The winner is the player with the most VP at the end of the game.