Point to Point Movement

Infunitum is a hot new party game that was debuted at the Chicago Toy & Game Fair during November 2009 and it won the award for 'Best In Show - Game'. Not suprising with an overwhelmingly favorable rating from people that have played. The object of the game is to get to the center of the board. Players get to the center by earning points for unique answers to topics listed on game cards.

One player selects a card, chooses one of the three topics listed on the card and then reads the topic aloud to the other players. The one-minute sand timer starts and players write down as many answers as they can that relate to the chosen topic. Each unique answer earns one point. Each point represents a space on the game board.

On the way to the center of the board, there are some positive and some negative places to land. A player may land on +3 and move three spaces ahead. Conversely, a player may land on -3 and move three spaces back. There is also a sad-faced character for players that land on this space, go back to start.

The dynamics of the game always change depending on who plays. Topics are unique and sometimes have double, triple or more meanings, so creativity really helps. Infunitum is a fun party game, is excellent as an ice-breaker, and helps people get to know more about other players.

In Tokaido, each player is a traveler crossing the "East sea road", one of the most magnificent roads of Japan. While traveling, you will meet people, taste fine meals, collect beautiful items, discover great panoramas, and visit temples and wild places but at the end of the day, when everyone has arrived at the end of the road you'll have to be the most initiated traveler – which means that you'll have to be the one who discovered the most interesting and varied things.

The potential action spaces in Tokaido are laid out on a linear track, with players advancing down this track to take actions. The player who is currently last on the track takes a turn by advancing forward on the track to their desired action and taking that action. So, players must choose whether to advance slowly in order to get more turns, or to travel more rapidly to beat other players to their desired action spaces.

The action spaces allow a variety of actions which will score in different, but roughly equal, ways. Some action spaces allow players to collect money, while others offer players a way to spend that money to acquire points. Other action spaces allow players to engage in various set collections which score points for assembling those sets. Some action spaces simply award players points for stopping on them, or give the player a randomly determined action from all of the other types.

All of the actions in Tokaido are very simple, and combined with a unique graphic design, Tokaido offers players a peaceful zen mood in its play.

I Am Vlad: Prince Of Wallachia – an epic board game about the real life of Vlad the Impaler and about the habits, mysteries and actual facts of Wallachia and Transylvania – can be played by two, three or four players. The players begin the game from their own base and each have control over a Vlad hero as well as an Archer and a Wallachian Knight.

During the game, they try to eliminate the opposing Vlad heroes through tactical movements and attacks with their own units. Gameplay takes place on two boards: the Game Map and the Underworld Map. While the Game Map is the board on which all the interactions between players take place (including movement, battles, tactical actions, and the positioning of units and outposts), the Underworld is the area Archers and Wallachian Knights enter once they die in battle. I Am Vlad: Prince Of Wallachia has two types of battles: against enemy units and against neutral units; for both types, players use battle cards, magic cards, tokens, and an eight-sided die. Other tactical actions are made through tokens, gold coins, outposts, and so on.

Merchant of Venus uses many elements which come together to form a very interesting game. Players take on the roles of space traders who move their ships through interconnected systems discovering new alien worlds to trade with. As players start to make money delivering commodities in a unique supply-and-demand system, their earnings can be used to purchase better ships and equipment (shields, lasers, engines, etc...) and construct their own spaceports (which speed up trading) and factories (which create better commodities). Variations included in the rulebook allow for interplayer combat. The player who first acquires enough total value ($1000, $2000, $3000, $4000) in cash and port/factory deeds takes the day.

For the 2012 edition of Merchant of Venus from Fantasy Flight Games, the company promises that this revision "remains true to its magnificently campy core while updating the map and game components and expanding game play in surprising ways that will cause even the most hardcore fan to celebrate." That said, the player count has been lowered from six (in the Avalon Hill edition) to four, with the four races in the game being Human, Whynom, Qossuth, and Eeepeeep.

This game uses the very popular card system which first appeared in Avalon Hill's We the People game to detail the struggle between Carthage's Hannibal and the Roman Republic in approximately 200 BC.

(from Valley Games website:)

One of the greatest military commanders and tacticians in history descends on the Roman Empire once again. Do you face him as Rome and try to ward the invasion that comes from the North, or do you climb atop your war elephant and show Rome you will take that which they hold most dear: their territory.

Players use strategic-level cards for multiple purposes: moving generals, levying new troops, reinforcing existing armies, gaining political control of the provinces involved in the war, and generating historical events. When two armies meet on the battlefield, a second set of cards, called Battle Cards, are used to determine the winner. Ultimately both players seek victory by dominating both fronts: military and political.