Set collection

Keyflower is a game for two to six players played over four rounds. Each round represents a season: spring, summer, autumn, and finally winter. Each player starts the game with a "home" tile and an initial team of eight workers, each of which is colored red, yellow, or blue. Workers of matching colors are used by the players to bid for tiles to add to their villages. Matching workers may alternatively be used to generate resources, skills and additional workers, not only from the player's own tiles, but also from the tiles in the other players' villages and from the new tiles being auctioned.

In spring, summer and autumn, more workers will arrive on board the Keyflower and her sister boats, with some of these workers possessing skills in the working of the key resources of iron, stone and wood. In each of these seasons, village tiles are set out at random for auction. In the winter no new workers arrive and the players select the village tiles for auction from those they received at the beginning of the game. Each winter village tile offers VPs for certain combinations of resources, skills and workers. The player whose village and workers generate the most VPs wins the game.

Keyflower presents players with many different challenges and each game will be different due to the mix of village tiles that appear in that particular game. Throughout the game, players will need to be alert to the opportunities to best utilize their various resources, transport and upgrade capability, skills and workers.

Keyflower, a joint design between Richard Breese and Sebastian Bleasdale, is the seventh game in the "Key" series from R&D Games set in the medieval "Key" land.

A long time ago at the Japanese Imperial court, the Chinese Emperor offered a giant panda bear as a symbol of peace to the Japanese Emperor. Since then, the Japanese Emperor has entrusted his court members (the players) with the difficult task of caring for the animal by tending to his bamboo garden.

In Takenoko, the players will cultivate land plots, irrigate them, and grow one of the three species of bamboo (Green, Yellow, and Pink) with the help of the Imperial gardener to maintain this bamboo garden. They will have to bear with the immoderate hunger of this sacred animal for the juicy and tender bamboo. The player who manages his land plots best, growing the most bamboo while feeding the delicate appetite of the panda, will win the game.

From the box:
The players as part of a tourist group, travel through this fascinating country and discover different cultures, traditions and sights. They visit temples and animal parks and experience the bright and colorful diversity of the land. Tile by tile they collect various symbols to build a pattern called Kolam and the player who creates the longest sequences of these symbols recieve the most victory points.

Tzolkin: The Mayan Calendar presents a new game mechanism: dynamic worker placement. Players representing different Mayan tribes place their workers on giant connected gears, and as the gears rotate they take the workers to different action spots.

During a turn, players can either (a) place one or more workers on the lowest visible spot of the gears or (b) pick up one or more workers. When placing workers, they must pay corn, which is used as a currency in the game. When they pick up a worker, they perform certain actions depending on the position of the worker. Actions located "later" on the gears are more valuable, so it's wise to let the time work for you – but players cannot skip their turn; if they have all their workers on the gears, they have to pick some up. 

The game ends after one full revolution of the central Tzolkin gear. There are many paths to victory. Pleasing the gods by placing crystal skulls in deep caves or building many temples are just two of those many paths...

Il Vecchio is set in the 15th century, when Cosimo de Medici – also called "Il Vecchio" ("the Elder) – and his family ruled over Tuscany and its capital Florence. The players represent the heads of Florentine families trying to rise their families to power. To achieve this, they send out their family members to locations in Tuscany to perform various tasks, specifically to recruit followers (knights, assassins, abbots) and collect money as both are needed to take control of provinces in neighboring regions; controlled provinces provide power and a bonus action. Another task is to gain the favor of the squirearchy as these favors are indispensable when it comes to getting an official position in Florence, e.g., a seat on the town council to enhance actions in Tuscany, or a noble rank to gain power at the end of the game.

To complete these tasks, however, a proper middleman must be present at a location, and as these middlemen travel a lot, they are rarely met. That's why it is so important to have one's family members in the right place at the right time – to save on time and money while achieving one's goals.

At the beginning of the game, each player has four family members in Tuscany. Players take turns performing exactly one action. Before his action, a player may pay money to move one of his own family members to another location. The available actions are to:

Take a location-specific action in Tuscany. This requires both a middleman and one of your own standing (active) family members at that location. After the action, this family member is laid down (inactive).
Travel to another region and take over a province, which costs both followers and money.
Travel to Florence where you'll spend scrolls (and possibly money) to claim a city council or nobility tile.
Introduce a new family member to the board.
Raise all lying family members on the board.

The game ends when the "Power of the Medici" has faded, as indicated by a diminishing pile of crest tiles. Certain actions require you to remove such a tile, and the game ends when they're all gone. Players then sum their power points – earned for gained tiles and majorities in the regions and Florence – for a final scoring, and the player with the most power wins.