Set collection

The board of this game consists of six rows. On each row, twelve gems (of several colors) are arranged. Each player places his pawn in front of one of those rows.

Each player receives a playing card on which a shape consisting of several squares is depicted. Each player also gets 12 tiles consisting of 2, 3, 4, or 5 squares in some shape. By means of a dice roll, each player is assigned three or four tiles that he has to use to fill the shape on his card.

The players try to solve their own "puzzle." The race is timed by a sand glass. The outcome of this race determines the play on the main playing board.

The player who was the first to solve his puzzle in time gets to move his pawn up to three rows, the player who came second may move two rows, and the player in third may move a single row. The players may collect two gems from the front of the row their pawn is on, so the more rows you can move, the more control you have on what color gems you can collect.

After collecting gems, each player receives a new playing card with a new puzzle to solve, and a new round starts. In total, nine rounds are played.

In the end, the player who has collected the most gems in a single color wins the game.

Re-implemented as:

Ubongo BMM
Ubongo extrem
Ubongo - Das Duell
Ubongo - 3D (2009)

Yahtzee is a classic dice game played with 5 dice. Each player's turn consists of rolling the dice up to 3 times in hope of making 1 of 13 categories. Examples of categories are 3 of a kind, 4 of a kind, straight, full house, etc. Each player tries to fill in a score for each category, but this is not always possible. When all players have entered a score or a zero for all 13 categories, the game ends and total scores are compared.

The traditional (public domain) game Yacht predates the trademarked game, and has slightly different scoring.

There are four basic scoring difference between the tradition game Yacht and Yahtzee. They are: 1) Yacht has no Three of a Kind category, 2) there are no bonuses in Yacht, 3) there are no Joker rules in Yacht, and 4) the Full House category is scored as the sum of the dice. The other scoring rules are identical between the two games.

Travel versions of the game use a device that keeps the dice captured within cells of a plastic box and allows players to "lock" a particular die between rolls.

Theme
Players take the part of land owners, attempting to buy and then develop their land. Income is gained by other players visiting their properties and money is spent when they visit properties belonging to other players. When times get tough, players may have to mortgage their properties to raise cash for fines, taxes and other misfortunes.

Gameplay
On his turn, a player rolls two dice and moves that number of spaces around the board. If the player lands on an as-yet-unowned property, he has the opportunity to buy it and add it to his portfolio or allow the bank to auction it to the highest bidder. If a player owns all the spaces within a color group, he may then build houses and hotels on these spaces, generating even more income from opponents who land there. If he lands on a property owned by another player, he must pay that player rent according to the value of the land and any buildings on it. There are other places on the board which can not be bought, but instead require the player to draw a card and perform the action on the card, pay taxes, collect income, or even go to jail.

Goal
The goal of the game is to be the last player remaining with any money.

Cultural impact on rules
Monopoly is unusual in that the game has official, printed rules, but most players learn how to play from others, never actually learning the correct way to play. This has led to the canonization of a number of house rules that make the game more palatable to children (and sore losers) but harm the gameplay by preventing players from going bankrupt or slowing down the rate of property acquisition. One common house rule has players put any money paid to the bank in the center of the board, which jackpot a player may earn by landing on Free Parking. This prevents the game from removing money from play, and since players collect $200 each time they pass Go, this results in ever-increasing bankrolls and players surviving rents that should have bankrupted them. Another house rule allows players to take "loans" from the bank instead of going bankrupt, which means the game will never end. Some house rules arise out of ignorance rather than attempts to improve the game. For instance, many players don't know that properties landed on but left unbought go up for auction, and even some that know to auction don't know that the bidding starts at $1, meaning a player may pay well below the listed price for an auctioned property.

Background
In the USA in 1933, Charles Darrow devised Monopoly based on an earlier game by Elizabeth J. Magie. The patent was filed 31st August 1935 while the game was on sale in America. Based on an earlier game, The Landlord's Game, it was at first rejected by Parker Bros., as being too complicated to be a success. How wrong could they be! It came to the UK in 1936, made under licence by Waddingtons. Darrow died in 1967 having realised he had developed one of the most successful board games of all times. It was awarded as Game of the Century by the TRA (Toy Retailers Association).

Monopoly was patented in 1935 by Charles Darrow and released by Parker Brothers. The game was actually one of a number of variants in existence at the time, all of which date back to an earlier, 1904 game by Elizabeth J. Magie called The Landlord's Game. Magie was a proponent of the Single Tax put forth by famous author Henry George. The game was designed to show the evils of earning money from renting land (as it leads to the destitution of all but one player) and the virtues of the proposed Single Tax - players could choose to play under regular rules or alternate "Single Tax" rules.

The game didn't really go anywhere and Magie lost interest in it. Variations of the game evolved, however, and homemade versions traveled up and down the Atlantic coast and even as far west as Michigan and Texas, being developed all along the way. Eventually the game was noticed by Charles Darrow, who introduced it to the world in its current form.

Re-implements:

The Landlord's Game

Expanded by:
Official

Monopoly Stock Exchange Add-on
Monopoly Free Parking Mini Game
Monopoly Get Out of Jail Mini Game

Unofficial

Super Add-ons: Monopoly
Entrepreneur's Accessory to Monopoly
Game Spice: Monopoly Expansion
Mafiopoly
Monopoly: Mob Rule Expansion Deck
Final Fantasy Monopoly

Lascaux is a game about the French caves containing animal paintings; discovered in 1940 by four teenagers.

This auction game is based on the bidding mechanism of Michael Schacht's Mogul also implemented in No Thanks!

The deck consists of 54 cards each representing one of six animals and a combination of two colors. At the beginning of a round, cards are turned face up until all six colors are showing or seven cards are face up. All players secretly decide which color cards they hope to win at the end of the round. On their turn, players bid by placing a stone on the table. If a player passes, he picks up all the stones currently on the table and places his token on top of the token pile. The last player remaining grabs all the cards of the color he had chosen earlier in the round. The second to last player, whose token now sits at the top of the token pile, then picks up all the cards of his chosen color if any cards of that color are left. The same process is repeated for each player when their token is at the top of the token pile. The game ends when all the cards of the deck have been claimed. Players then earn points for each animal for which they have majority.

Components: 54 cards, 50 stones, 30 markers, rules.

Released: Essen 2007.

Designed by Reiner Knizia and illustrated by the incredibly talented Ursula Vernon, In BlackSheep, players try to corral the best combination of cows, horses, chickens and more while avoiding the mischievous black sheep. BlackSheep is perfect for two to four players ages eight and up. -From the FFG website.

There's a lot of randomness here, but also room for elementary strategy. Players make poker hands from two shared cards (figurines of ranked animals) and three of their own (these are actual cards). There are three such hands playing simultaneously, with players adding one or two cards at a time to any hand on their turn. When all players have played three cards onto a hand, a winner is chosen, based on the poker ranks. The winner takes the two shared cards (animal figurines), and new shared cards are added. At the end of the game, scores are calculated by summing numbers printed on the bottoms of the figurines they captured and some bonuses. The black sheep figurines are worth negative points.