Point to Point Movement

In this notorious game, an inversion of Clue, you hate Doctor Lucky. Maybe he left you out of his will. Maybe he killed your pet rock. Whatever the reason, you want him dead. Unfortunately, so do the other players. Since you don't want to go to jail, you need to make your attempt in secret; if anybody can see you, whistle nonchalantly, and let the Doctor live ... until next time.

Players move around the mansion, collecting murder weapons (to make the murder attempt stronger - doubly so if the weapon is used in an appropriate location); failure cards (to thwart opponents' plans); and movement cards (to try to get together with Doctor Lucky in a secluded location for his inevitable demise.) Players try to convince others to use up their failure cards first, the better for when their own attempts come.

In Edo, players represent daimyo in mid-second millennium Japan who are trying to serve their shogun by using their samurai to construct castles, markets and houses in Tokyo and surrounding areas.

At the start of Edo – which won "best evening-length game" in the 2010 Hippodice Game Design competition under the name Altiplano – each player has five samurai tokens, seven houses, one market and three square action cards, each of which has four possible actions on it. One card, for example, allows a player to:

Collect rice (up to four bundles depending on the number of samurai applied to the action),
Collect $5 (per samurai),
Collect wood (up to four, with one samurai on the action and one in the forest for each wood you want), or
Build (up to two buildings, with two samurai on the card and one in the desired city, along with the required resources)

Each turn, the players simultaneously choose which actions they want to take with their three cards and in which order, programming those actions on their player cards, similar to the planning phase in Dirk Henn's Wallenstein and Shogun. Players then take actions in turn order, moving samurai on the board as needed (paying $1 per space moved) in order to complete actions (to the forest for wood, the rice fields for rice, cities to build, and so on). Before a player can move samurai, however, he must use an action to place them on the game board; some actions allow free movement, and others allow a player to recruit additional samurai beyond the initial five.

One other action allows you to recruit additional action cards from an array on the side of the game board, thereby giving you four (or more) cards from which to choose for the rest of the game.

Building in cities costs resources and gives you points as well as money; as more players build in a city, the funds are split among all present, with those first in the city receiving a larger share. Players can also receive points or buy stone by dealing with a traveling merchant.

Once at least one player has twelve points, the game finishes at the end of the round, with players scoring endgame bonuses for money in hand and other things. The player with the most points wins.

Edo includes separate game boards for 2-3 players and for 4 players.

Indigo is a tile-laying game along the lines of Metro, Tsuro and Linie 1 in which players build paths bit by bit, with no player owning the individual paths and everyone trying to exploit the paths already present. Unlike those earlier games, however, your goal is to move gemstones from their starting locations on the board to your designated goals, with the player who scores the most points winning the game.

To set up the game board, place the central hex tile, then add five green and one indigo gems to it. Place six "u-turn" tiles at their designated locations on the outer edge of the game board, then place a yellow gem on each such tile. Each player places goal markers on goals between these u-turn tiles on the edge of the game board: in a two-player game, the players alternate goals; in a three-player game, each player has one goal to herself, while sharing two others; and in a four-player game, each player shares a goal with every other player.

On a turn, a player places a tile on any space on the game board, with the only restriction being that a player cannot create a route directly from one goal to another. Each tile has three route segments on it, connecting one pair of edges. If a player places a tile next to a gemstone, that gemstone "moves" as far as possible along the route so that all players can see where to place tiles to next move that gemstone. (Thus players avoid the mental gymnastics required in Metro and Linie 1 in which nothing moves until a route is complete.) When connecting to the central tile, the green gems move off first, with the indigo gem moving only with the sixth connection.

If a player places a tile so that one gem would run into another, both gems are removed from the game!

When a gem is moved to a goal owned by only one player, that player keeps the gem. If two players own the goal, then both players collect a gem of that color, taking the extra gem needed from the reserve. Once all the gems have been claimed, the game ends, with players earning 3 points for an indigo gem, 2 for green and 1 for yellow. The player with the most points wins.

The aMAZEing Labyrinth has spawned a whole line of Labyrinth games. The game board has a set of tiles fixed solidly onto it; the remaining tiles that make up the labyrinth slide in and out of the rows created by the tiles that are locked in place. One tile always remains outside the labyrinth, and players take turns taking this extra tile and sliding it into a row of the labyrinth, moving all those tiles and pushing one out the other side of the board; this newly removed tile becomes the piece for the next player to add to the maze.

Players move around the shifting paths of the labyrinth in a race to collect various treasures. Whoever collects all of his treasures first and returns to his home space wins!

The aMAZEing Labyrinth is simple at first glance and an excellent puzzle-solving game for children; it can also be played by adults using more strategy and more of a cutthroat approach.

Dust is a strategy board game of conquest and control. Seize power sources and capitals, develop your infrastructure, and build and wield vast, high-tech armies in your bid for global domination.

Players will probably recognize the map as that of Earth, but what they will not see are any borders or nations. In the world of Dust, the unending war and the new technologies have altered the political face of Earth beyond all recognition.

At the beginning of each turn, players select a card from their hand. This card represents their strategy for the coming turn and to a large extent dictates the actions a player can take.

During their production phase, players spend production points to buy additional factories and units. Each individual unit type has its own unique statistics and effects, so players have to carefully consider the composition of their armies.

In combat, players alternate rolling dice and destroying units until one side has been eliminated (either due to casualties or retreats) or a cease-fire is declared.

At the end of each game round, players score victory points for power sources, capitals, and majorities they control. The player who controls the most land areas earns bonus victory points, as does the player who controls the most sea areas and the player who controls the most production centers. The first player to amass a set number of victory points while also controlling a capital is the winner.

Only once a player has amassed at least half the victory points required to win can he or she attack an enemy capital. Once the war has been so escalated, however, then all players are free to attack capitals.

Dust English Rules http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/ffg_content/Dust/Dust_Rulebook_Prem_En...
Backstage http://www.kaleidosgames.com