Racing

Description from the publisher:

It's the year 1899, and strange phenomena is being observed in places like Stonehenge and the pyramids of Egypt. Time goes crazy, and newly discovered crystals have exhibited strange properties that allow for the creation of fantastic apparatuses.

In a race to exploit these discoveries, the rapidly industrializing nations have used them to construct gigantic steam-driven airships to travel through time and space. In Steam Time, the race is on for long-lost knowledge, vanished cultures, and hidden treasures. Travel to past ages, search for crystals, and use your crystals wisely to stay ahead of your competitors.

From the box:

ACT 1
It's showtime! And Muppet-mania has broken loose on stage. Our playful performers scurry about, bobbing stage left, weaving stage right, in a frantic, frenzied race to the footlights.

ACT 2
Muppets, Muppets everywhere! And you can move them all. You control the chaos, with a little "frog-imagination" from Kermit. Using his script and double spinner, direct the Muppets and their sets to their proper positions for curtain call.

FINALE
If you get your Muppets there first, the applause belongs to you.

This is a protected game and requires having a Membership to play. See Game Associate for Details.

"You don't have to be faster than the shark, just faster than your friends!"

Get Bit! is a card game where players are competing to stay alive as the others are being eaten by the shark.

The order of the swimmers is determined by simultaneously playing cards face-down then revealing the values. The number on each player's card determines position in line (higher numbers in front, lower numbers in back), however ties don't move. The swimmer at the back loses a limb to the shark and is flung to the front of the line! The process is repeated until only two swimmers remain on the table. When this happens, the swimmer at the front of the line wins the game!

Formula D is a high stakes Formula One type racing game where the players race simulated cars with the hope of crossing the finish line first. This is a re-release of Formula Dé with several changes from the original format. Whilst old tracks can be used with the updated Formula D rules, the new game features boards that have an F1 track and a Street Track on the other side. These street tracks each have a novel inclusion or two to add greater theme -

The game mechanisms are a simple race, get to the finish line first! However, players have to use a significant amount of planning, and rely on quite a bit of luck. Each player manages when to shift gears, with each gear providing a different speed. (For example, 4th gear is a die that rolls random numbers from 7 to 12 for spaces moved.) Each turn, players may move up one gear, stay in that gear, or move down gears. This forces players to match possible rolls with the optimum distance for that turn, and hopefully plan ahead. However, speed is not the only issue! Corners have a "stop" rule that requires players to stop once, twice, or three times on that corner in consecutive turns or face a penalty. This creates an effective speed limit to the corners.

Of course, things do not always go as planned! Players take penalties if they miss their roll, bump into another car, are blocked by other cars, have to brake heavily, or have to downshift several gears. These are taken off of a car’s attributes (Tire health, Brake wear, Transmission Gears, Body, engine, and Suspension). Losing the maximum in any of these categories will result in elimination, or a severe setback for that car. This requires that players manage their car’s health, plan for their best path, and have good luck on their rolls. This high amount of luck gives the game its family appeal, and lets weaker players have a chance at winning once in a while.

However, the fun does not end with a single race! The rules include the ability to customize your cars, use a pre-generated character, add Slipstreaming (Drafting) rules and road debris, and change tire types to modify your distance rolls. There are also variations for a single lap race, or multiple laps with pit stops to repair some of your damage points. In addition, numerous expansion tracks can be purchased to vary the demands on each driver and car. Each track may also have weather effects (rain) that change car handling and die rolls due to skidding on wet track. This opens up the game for rally rules giving championship points over a number of races.

Formula D adds a few items that are not in the original Formula De: There is the added excitement of illegal racing in the streets of big cities - anything goes! This adds custom cars, nitro acceleration, drifting in the curves, dirty tricks, gun battles, and trash on the road to add more variation. A basic change is the use of a "Dashboard" with movable pegs to manage your car’s attributes instead of the paper forms from Formula De. There are also two sets of pre-painted cars; a Formula 1 set and the Street Race set of stock cars. The street cars come with "Character" profiles to give a bit of role-playing to the game. Finally, the old category of "Fuel" for the car has been renamed Transmission Wear to give a better thematic fit to the effect of multiple downshifting.

The popularity of this game has given it a lot of expansions, some simplifications to the rules (See Formula Dé Mini), and a lot of "after market" parts. There are also fan expansions and tracks for the very dedicated player. In many ways, this has become a multiple game system.

Setting: In 1675, after a long career in piracy, Captain Henry Morgan skillfully gets appointed to be Governor of Jamaica, with the explicit order to cleanse the Caribbean of pirates and buccaneers! Instead, he invites all of his former "colleagues" to join him in his retirement, to enjoy the fruits of their looting with impunity. Each year, in remembrance of the "good old days," Morgan organizes the Great Challenge, a race around the island, and at its end, the Captain with the most gold is declared Grand Winner.

Goal: The game ends on the turn when at least one player's ship reaches the finish line, completing one circuit around the island of Jamaica. At that point, players are awarded different amounts of gold in accordance with how far away from the finish line they were when the race concluded. This gold is added to any gold a player gathered along the way by detouring from the race to search for valuable treasure, by stealing gold or treasure from other players, or just by loading gold as directed by the cards the player played during the race. The player with the most total gold acquired through all these means is then declared the winner.

Gameplay: The game is played in rounds. Each player always has a hand of three cards, and a personal board depicting the five "holds" of their ship, into which goods can be loaded during the game. Each round, one player is designated as "captain," with the next clockwise player being captain in the following round, and so on. The captain rolls two standard D6 dice, examines her cards, then announces which die will correspond to the "day" and which to the "night." Each player then simultaneously selects a card from their hand and places it face down in front of them. Each card has two symbols on it, one on the left - corresponding to "day" - and one on the right ("night"). The symbols indicate either ship movement (forward or backward) or the loading of a type of good. After every player has selected a card, all cards are revealed simultaneously and then resolved clockwise one by one, starting with the captain's. When it is a player's turn to resolve her card, for first the left symbol on her card and then for the right symbol, the player will load a number of goods or move a number of spaces equal to the number of pips showing on the corresponding day or night die for that round. Thus the main decision each player makes during the game is which of their current three cards would best serve them on a particular turn, given the values of the day and night dice. Finally, during the race, when a player lands on a spot already occupied by another player, there is a battle. Battles are mainly resolved by rolling a "combat" die, but players may improve their chances by using "gunpowder" tokens from their holds, if they loaded any on previous turns. The winner of a battle may steal some goods or treasure from the loser.

In Sum: This is a pirate-themed tactical race game with player interaction and side goals (e.g. detouring for treasure), so that the winner is the player who best balances their position in the race with their success at the side goals.