In Zoo-ography, players take turns drafting building tiles to construct a zoo while drafting sets of animals as they arrive on boats into the game. Players have to balance building pens to support the animals available while also building sufficient attractions to keep guests engaged. Each zoo can earn up to 10 stars by meeting a variety of specific goals involving biodiversity, attractions, features, and aesthetics.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is dead. His last conscious action on his deathbed was composing the Lacrimosa movement of his Opus Requiem. You, as one of his sponsors, will meet with the widow in order to participate one last time in the funding of the works of the Austrian genius. Also, you will reminisce and retell all your memories alongside Mozart in order to make sure that she portrays you under the best light when writing her memoirs in order to enter history as Mozart's most important patron.
In Lacrimosa, players take the roles of patrons of the late musician, contributing with their fundings to the composer's works one last time. During the game, you play in two different timelines: the present and the past. In the present, you commission the missing parts of the Requiem from other composers in order to complete it. When developing past events, the game takes place in five epochs in which you contribute by buying new compositions from the composer to sell or exhibit, accompany him on the different journeys through the main courts and theaters in Europe, and gather the resources you need in order to support the musician during his career.
During the game, you play cards from a limited hand that you will improve as the game progresses. These cards can be played either as actions or as resource generators, and players need to optimize their resources and finances in order to support their best version of the story and their relationship with Mozart.
—description from the publisher
Locals and tourists in Maui are heading to the beach for a chance to find a nice spot to lay their towels and enjoy the amazing view of the Hawaiian ocean. In Maui, you want to find and place beachgoers on your sand so that they create pleasing patterns, while also placing their towels close to the ocean or under the shade of trees or umbrellas to earn the most points. However, getting too close to either of these areas is risky and might ruin their plans!
In the game, you have your own beach board with room for 13 towels, the board has seven rows in which towels can be placed, and during set-up, you randomly place eight umbrellas in designated locations on your board. Each player places one random towel in the left most column of their board; each towel has three different patterns on it. Place six random tiles in the two rows of the market and one sand dollar in each row.
On a turn, either take all the sand dollars from either row of the market or take a towel from the market; towels cost 0, 1, or 2 sand dollars, with those dollars being placed in the market row. When you place a towel, you must match at least one pattern with the towel that's rightmost on your beach board and you want to match as many patterns as possible. For each match you make, you advance that pattern's scoring marker 1-3 spaces on the score board; the closer to the ocean or the shade the more points you score, but if you place part of a towel outside the play area, you're penalized.
If you cover an umbrella, you receive its bonus, whether that's advancing a pattern's scoring marker or receiving one of two types of pearls.
When someone places a towel in the final column of their beach board, you complete the round, then see who's scored the most points from patterns, pearls, and leftover sand dollars, which are each worth a point. Instead of playing with umbrellas, you can flip your beach board to find a septet of sand crabs. Whenever you cover a crab with a towel, the crab crawls onto that portion of the towel, costing you both that pattern and a few points.
The conquest of space was one of the greatest achievements of the 20th century.
In 1957, the first satellite - named Sputnik 1- was launched into orbit. Just four years later, Yuri Gagarin was the first human in space, aboard the spaceship Vostok 1.
This game is dedicated to the early space explorers: all the outstanding people who worked to make space travel possible. As Yuri Gagarin said at the moment of his launch: “Let's go!”
You are the head of a Research & Development Hub in a Space Research Center, competing with other such Hubs in the spirit of the Golden Age of Astronautics. Your goal is to complete large- scale space projects by gathering the best and brightest minds humanity has to offer.
Thanks to your efforts, satellites, manned spaceships, and orbital stations will be launched into space!
You score Progress points by recruiting Specialists and completing Projects. The game ends when all available Projects are completed, or you have recruited 12 Specialists to your Hub. The player who made the most Progress is the winner!
Key game features:
Closed loop resource system: when recruiting a Specialist to your team, you pass Research tokens to a player to your left.
Specialists are assigned to the Divisions according to their skills. The more Specialists you have in a Division, the easier it is to recruit new ones to that Division.
All Specialists have unique abilities. Only the ability of the top card in each stack is active. Therefore, by adding a new Specialist, you often get a new ability but lose the other one. Think carefully what is more important for you at that moment in the game!
In 1954, with an explosion over a hundred thousand times more powerful than even the wildest estimates, the Castle Bravo nuclear test obliterated the Bikini Atoll, and ruptured the Earth down to its mantle.
As water levels rose in the aftermath, the remnants of humanity fled their homes and took to the sea. World leadership came together to build a massive Flotilla, mankind’s last bastion of civilization.
Now, ten years after the disaster, the Flotilla is home to the very last of us.
Flotilla features two distinct and interwoven modes of gameplay, as you try to outpace your opponents in bringing prosperity to humanity’s new home. You begin the game as a “Sinkside” Fleet Commander, commissioned by world leaders to explore the new face of the ocean, scour the depths for resources, and rescue any survivors you come across. At any point in the game, you may choose to turn “Skyside,” by selling your skiffs, and leaving your seafaring life behind to now grow the Flotilla itself.
The choice of if or when to switch from a “Sinkside” explorer to a “Skyside” settler defines the very core experience of Flotilla. They represent two similar but distinct game experiences, utilizing the same game components, seamlessly intertwined among all players. If you switch, you’ll flip over all of your accumulated game components, watching your crew grow into new roles with new art for the same characters, while finding entirely new uses for your ocean tiles and resources, and beginning to trade with the “Sinkside” players as you go after new objectives. As players turn “Skyside,” different niches are filled, forever changing the game’s economy. Mastering this ebb and flow will be critical if you’re to shape the new face of humanity!
As a “Sinksider,” you will explore the ocean with your skiffs, pulling some of the 92 hexagon-shaped ocean tiles out of a bag, and arranging them to help you effectively collect resources, discover valuable artifacts from the sunken civilization, all while trying to avoid toxic radiation left from the disaster. You’ll dive for supplies, rolling a pool of custom dive dice that vary based on the depth level of your skiffs. You’ll also carefully manage your resources, trading them on the open market for the currency you can use to buy more skiffs and outposts, or stockpiling them for when you turn “Skyside.”
As a “Skysider,” you will use your resources to build an expansive network of watercraft and docks, using the “Skyside” of your ocean tiles. Your divers will also have new jobs as researchers, rolling custom, multicolor Research dice, to discover new technologies that allow the Flotilla to manage a growing population. You’ll also build Sonar stations, making life a little easier for the “Sinksiders” still out exploring the unknown, while earning quite a few points for yourself.
On both sides, you’ll also grow your relationships with the four different governing guilds, each giving you unique bonuses and more powerful crew. The players with the strongest relationships will also earn valuable points at the end of the game!
The components in Flotilla are unique, immersive, and interconnected. Your skiffs will be able to actually carry up to four resource barrels, and come in a unique shape for each player color. Artifact tokens slot into matching spaces in a double-layered hub board and art on the ocean tiles lines up to create a unique layout for your growing Flotilla each time you play.
In Flotilla, you’ll find significant strategic depth and variety, while giving players the freedom to tell their own story. Will you build the Flotilla by being the first to go Skyside, or stay Sinkside for the whole game, becoming the most powerful seafarer of them all?