Point to Point Movement

The circus has come to town! Under the tent, jugglers, clowns, magicians, strongmen and wild beasts capture the curiosity of a dedicated audience that applauds non-stop. After each performance, your little troupe accumulates fame and may one day pique the interest of P.T. Barnum, the greatest circus mogul of all time.

In 3 Ring Circus, players take on the role of a circus director who tours the United States at the end of the 19th century. Your objective is to hire artists and offer performances in various towns and cities with the intention of gaining fame. In towns, features are easy to set up and give you starting resources to upgrade your cast; small cities are somewhat more demanding, but they allow you to come into contact with better artists; audiences in big cities are even more demanding and want to see very specific numbers, but performing there brings you much more fame!

On their turn, players can hire an artist or host a performance. At the beginning of the game, each player's circuses are empty, so it will be necessary to contract to form the company. The artist cards grant more or fewer benefits depending on the order in which they act, so one of the keys to the game is planning the shows that will be offered.

If they decide to act, the players must move to a free space on the map. If it is a town, they receive the most basic currency cards as a prize. If you perform in a small city, depending on the number of pedestals you have in your company you can claim more or fewer entry cards (the second most valuable) or fame points. In the big cities, you get a lot of fame points, but the public always demands a specific type of artist.

While your little circus tries to survive, the great and splendid Barnum Circus travels across the country, and when it arrives in a big city, a score is held in that region, and the circuses that have given the most performances there will gain even more fame.

-description from the publisher

Edo — what we now know today as Tokyo, Japan — was a thriving city with an estimated population of one million, half townspeople and half samurai. With a huge shopping culture, Edo's main district, Nihonbashi, was lined with shops, selling kimonos, rice, and so much more.

Nihonbashi is the focus of IKI: A Game of EDO Artisans, which brings you on a journey through the famed street of old Tokyo. Hear the voices of Nihonbashi Bridge's great fish market. Meet the professionals, who carry out 700­-800 different jobs. Enter the interactivity of the shoppers and vendors. Become one with the townspeople.

One of the main professions in the world of Edo is the artisan. Each of the Edo artisans uses their own skill of trade to support the townspeople's lives. In this game, not only are there artisans, but street vendors, sellers at the shops, and professions unique to this time and age. Meet the puppet masters, putting on a show. Meet the ear cleaners that people would line up for.

The goal of this game is to become the annual Edoite, best personifying what is known as "IKI", an ancient philosophy believed to be the ideal way of living among people in Edo. Knowing the subtleties of human nature, being refined and attractive — these are all elements of a true IKI master.

Welcome to the Northern Expanse, a place where nature is still unexplored, mystical and dangerous. When the humans first arrived, they thought they found an unspoiled paradise, filled with bountiful forests, lakes swimming with fish and cold freshwater flowing from the mountains. But as their settlements expanded and the surrounding forests grew thinner, nature itself pushed back. Great creatures known as Beasts emerged, and with their fangs, claws and mystical powers, they proved an incredible threat to the humans. In order to protect the settlements, humans enlisted specialised hunters, tasked with tracking and killing the Beasts before too many of their kin perish.

The Beast uses a deck of direction cards to move over forests, swamps and caverns, using guile and deceit to hide its track from the hunters. However, whenever a hunter moves over a location where the Beast has previously been, a trail appears. Only when a hunter searches a location or the Beast itself attacks an unsuspecting target is the Beast's actual position revealed. More so, each hunter has but one chance of searching each round, making it a tense and difficult decision. Hunters seldom have full information whether the trail they’re pursuing contains the Beast’s actual location, or if the trail has already gone cold.

Each action you perform in this game is done by playing a card from your hand (up to a maximum of two cards per turn). This means that if a player wants to search, attack or move, they need to have a card in their hand that lets them do that. Before each round, both hunters and Beast participate in a draft for the most important cards. All action cards can be used by both Beast and hunters alike.

In order to win this game, you either need to cooperate every step of the way if you play as a hunter, or skillfully outmaneuver your opponents if you play as Beast. On their own, hunters are never stronger than the Beast. Only when hunters communicate, strategize and combine their actions can they bring down the Beast before it’s too late.

—description from the designer

Sydney's Royal Botanic Garden holds a special place in the hearts of locals. World renowned for its location, beauty, and historical and scientific significance, each of its 29 hectares are not only stunning, but a calming retreat from the city's streets.

In The Gardens, players draft cards depicting different features of the Gardens, using them to build their own portion of it in front of themselves. Players then score points based on what their visitors see as they walk past the Gardens' various flower beds, ponds, native trees, and statues. The tableau you build will have three rows — waterside, grass, and cityside — and you add one card a turn until the area is filled.

The game is accessible and simple to learn, yet offers strategic choices. Its included modules add variability and depth for experienced players, with landmarks such as the Opera House and Harbour Bridge that players can gain for extra points or special abilities, so join the picnickers, joggers, lorikeets, and bin chickens, and enjoy your day in the beautiful Botanic gardens.

-description from publisher

The London Underground is the world's first underground passenger railway, having opened in 1863. Its 11 lines move about 5 million passengers a day to 270 stations, along 400 km (250 mi) of track.

The massive network of London Underground stations makes up one of the most complex transportation systems in the world, and On the Underground challenges you to develop it. Build the most successful lines, connect them to landmarks, and attract passenger traffic!

Gameplay Overview

In On the Underground, the players build the Underground lines in London or the U-Bahn lines in Berlin. Each player controls 2-4 different lines, depending on the number of players.

On each turn, four destination cards are available, corresponding to stations on the map. You can take up to four actions; an action is either building track by placing one of your track tokens on the board or taking a branch token. A player may use two branch tokens to branch out of an existing line (whereas normally lines can be extended only at the endpoints).

After each player's turn, a passenger token is moved along players' lines, avoiding walking as much as possible, to reach one or two destinations determined at the beginning of the turn. The destination cards corresponding to the visited stations are then replaced by new ones, then the next player takes their turn.

Players score points in two ways:

By building track and connecting their lines to various types of stations, by building a circular line (in London), or at the end of the game if they have collected tiles from specific landmark stations (in Berlin).
By having the passenger use their lines when moving.

After all destination cards have been drawn and all players have taken the same number of turns, the game ends.

Differences from the First Edition of On the Underground

For their first turns only, the player first in turn order takes three actions, and the player last in turn order takes five actions. (Previously, everyone other than the start player had a few points added to their score as a balancing mechanism.)
The passenger is no longer removed from the board immediately when the draw deck is empty.
There is a new Berlin map, along with its corresponding cards and tiles.
On the London map, these single connections have been made double connections: Paddington-Shepherd's Bush, Shepherd's Bush-Goldhawk Road, Goldhawk Road-Hammersmith, Waterloo-Borough, London Bridge-Bank, Stratford-West Ham, and West Ham-Canning Town.
On the London map, this double connection has been made a triple connection: Borough-London Bridge
On the London map, the New Cross station has been removed, as has the connection between Aldgate and Canada Water.