Set collection

It is 1729 in pre-revolution France, a time when the aristocracy has all the power and the means to rule the country. As a wealthy, well-educated aristocrat, you have travelled the world and had the fortune to enjoy your life to the fullest – but you see that history is about to change course and you know that in order to stay strong, your family must prepare well. You need to find new allies. You must absorb smaller families and use their potency to strengthen your kin. You have to arrange wise marriages, nurture strong connections at court, obtain titles, build mansions, and find the right spouses for your daughters and sons...

Legacy: The Testament of Duke de Crecy enables you to build a powerful dynasty in 18th century France as you step into the shoes of a French noble and compete for lasting honor. Over three generations, you – a resourceful patriarch or matriarch – will attempt to create a lasting legacy by establishing a house with ties to many different wealthy and powerful families from France and abroad (Spain, Italy, Russia and other countries).

This card game offers endless possibilities. Each time you build a family, you write a unique story, bringing to life the diverse relationships between parents and their children, between cousins, uncles, aunts, nephews and nieces. Whether you are looking for the best husband for your only daughter or a suitable wife for one of your two sons, whether you are looking to add new blood to your family by marrying into foreign nobility – you will be working to make your family rise in status through prestige and wealth, new skills and abilities.

In Legacy: The Testament of Duke de Crecy – known previously as Nobles of Paris and winner of Ducosim Spelontwerp in 2009 – you will find 75 spouse cards with unique traits, more than twenty secret missions, nine titles, and nine "contribution to the family" cards. This all culminates in a highly thematic card game that will satisfy players who enjoy exploring many different paths to victory.

Legacy is a worker placement game in which you take actions to improve the standing and/or wealth of your family. You will expand your family, creating an ever-growing tableau, the family tree. You will need to balance the three 'currencies' in the game, Prestige (converts to Honor points at the end of each generation, of which there are three), Income (your income which converts to hard cash at the end of each round, of which there are 9), and Friend cards (which are actual connections/friends, and are the only way to marry into wealthy/famous families, and can only be received through actions, such as marrying a woman who brings some of her social contacts with her).

Prestige, Income and Friend cards can be gained and lost. You can, for example, lose some prestige by marrying someone infamous or lose some Honor points (i.e. reputation) by asking friends for money. There are also numerous actions you can take that will affect one of the three 'currencies' detrimentally, such as bribing someone to get a title (for which you need to pay, but also in the loss of friends who felt they deserved that title, and not you), or the maintenance of a beautiful new park you have built for the people (losing you income). Finally, you can also take actions that result in the loss of some of your social contacts (friends), due to jealousy, or people simply no longer wanting to be associated with you.

These currencies are carefully balanced by the male and female friend cards in the game. Generally men will give you income and possibly prestige, but will cost you a dowry/wedding costs. Women, on the other hand, will give you connections (new friends you can choose from the current socialites (cards lying open on the table) and possibly prestige, and will sometimes even earn you a dowry!

The card interactions allow for multiple different paths to success, but you must choose your road strategically, planning out where you want to be headed, else you will be left behind in the dust by those with greater and more successful plans than yours.

Niagara is set in the not particularly safe world of rushing waterfalls. In the late 18th Century, the Shawnee and Iroquois Indians pointed white Desperadoes, Mercenaries and Adventurers in the direction of hidden caches of valuable jewels, in the hopes of turning them against one another and away from their territorial expansion ambitions. Players play as some of those Adventurers.

The first player to be able to claim ownership of five jewels is the winner. But the chase after the riches has some snags. The speed of the river is always changing, since the speed depends on the decisions of the players and the changeable weather. And once a canoe goes over the falls, it's a hefty investment to replace it. And there are also the Desperadoes to contend with, who aren't above trying to plunder the riches from Adventurers returning home. Niagara is distinguished by an innovative movement mechanic as well as a beautiful three-dimensional rendering of the waterfall setting.

Expanded by:

Niagara: Diamond Joe
The Spirits of Niagara

Sushi Draft is a fast little card game that looks good enough to eat! Over three rounds, players draft plates of sushi and collect sushi points, which are drawn randomly. The player with the most diverse menu gets dessert!

Sushi Draft includes a deck of 32 sushi cards (8 ikura, 7 ebi, 6 maguro, 5 tamago, 4 kappa and 2 "wild" triples) and 18 point tokens (three each for the five types of sushi and three for dessert); the point tokens range in value from 1-5, with the more plentiful sushi dishes being worth more points. At the start of each round, players shuffle the cards and receive a hand of six cards. Players simultaneously draft a card from their hand and reveal it, placing it on the table. They then keep one card, pass the remainder to a neighbor, and draft and play again. Once everyone has five cards in front of them, players receive point tokens. Whoever has the most sushi of each type draws a point token of that type at random; if players tie for the most of a type, however, then the player with the secondmost of that type draws the token instead. If all players are tied, then no one scores for that type of sushi. The player with the most types of sushi scores a dessert token at random.

After three rounds, players tally their points, and whoever has the highest score wins!

In Dragon's Gold, each player controls a team of dragon hunters (two knights, a thief, and a wizard). Like all dragon hunters, they have only one goal: gold, silver, jewels and magic objects. As for actually killing a dragon? It's a piece of cake. But the most difficult part comes after the dragon is dead: the adventuring party has to figure out how to share the spoils.

As soon as a dragon is overpowered, then some additional gems are revealed, and the players who had participated in that hunting party start a negotiation over how to divvy up the gems. If the sixty-second sand timer runs out, then no one gets treasure. When all of the dragons have been slain and the treasure claimed or discarded, the game ends and players score for their holdings, with silver and magic objects worth 1 point each, gold worth 3, the Black Diamond worth 7, and the colored gems scoring 10-15 points for those players who hold more than everyone else. (In the Advanced game, the colored gems score 8-12 points in addition to a variety bonus of 5 points for each set of different colored gems a player holds. The Black Diamond is worth 19 points [in the 2011 edition], but negates a player's score for all colored gems.)

The game is based on the traditional middle-eastern game of Okey. First created in the 1930s and sold in hand-produced versions until the late 1970s.

Similar to the Rummy that you play with cards - you try to get rid of all your tiles by forming numbers into runs of 3 tiles or more, or 3 to 4 of a kind. The colors of the numbers on the tiles are like card suits. This game may start rather uneventfully, but when the players start putting more and more tiles in play, the options for your upcoming turns can become more complex, challenging, and exciting (from areyougame.com).