Set collection

Gentlemen Thieves is a board game with secret identities, bluffing and theft featuring Arsène Lupin and other characters inspired by author Maurice Leblanc. Whoever ends up with the biggest stack of loot at the end of the game wins!

At the start of the game, each player secretly takes one of the five burglar tiles, which come in five different colors; each player also receives 2-4 helping hand tokens. Five locations are set out, each with two randomly chosen equipment tokens next to them; equipment tokens come in five types, with each type appearing in the five colors of the burglars. Special tokens are placed out as well: two loot tokens next to the bank, one lock on the museum, and one tunnel next to the manor; six additional loot tokens, along with a car token and the second tunnel, are placed to the side. Three randomly drawn equipment tokens are placed face up.

At the start of each round, the matchmaker determines the alliances for that round, placing two alliance markers – each showing a burglar in the appropriate color – in one area and the other three in the other area. Thus, the burglars form provisional teams for the round and are trying to work together to rob a location – any location! – but they don't necessarily know who's who. On a turn a player either:

Chooses one of the face-up equipment tokens, places it next to a location (with no more than three tokens of the same type being allowed at a location), then reveals a new equipment token.
Draws the top equipment token from the stack, then places it at a location.
Plays a helping hand token to move a special token or add a new special token to a location.

As soon as all five types of equipment are at a location, a burglary takes place there. Who steals the goods? The alliance that has the larger presence there based on the colors of tokens. These tokens are then flipped face down (becoming loot), added to any loot tokens present there, then split among the burglars in the alliance and placed on the scoreboard. The matchmaker token passes to a new player, who must move at least two alliance tokens, then a new round begins.

The special tokens naturally change the rules: The location with the lock cannot be robbed, although someone can choose to move the lock so that a burglary does take place. The car allows someone to move an equipment token to a new location. When the second tunnel is placed next to a location, the two locations with tunnels are now linked and the types of equipment present are considered to be together when determining whether a burglary takes place – although if the lock is on one of those locations, then nothing can be stolen!

A brigadier token is shuffled into the final six equipment tokens, and when it's drawn, the game ends immediately. Players then reveal their identities, and the player with the most loot wins!

Long ago, the Grand Octopus, one filled with cosmically divine powers, reigned over the entire world — until an unfortunate combination of circumstances imprisoned it at the bottom of the ocean. Idle under miles of water, it fell asleep dreaming of the day when its time would come once again.

In Night of the Grand Octopus, you are one of the Elect and have been recruited by the Illuminati to form a cult to glorify the tentacled one. What's more, your dreams have told you that the time has come, the stars have aligned so that you can perform the "Ritual of Appeal" and bring the Grand Octopus to surface once again. To perform the ritual, however, you need the right magical components, components to be found in a famous English university for young wizards and witches — and you're not the only one seeking them.

In each round, players secretly place their cultist and monster tokens on locations, then reveal those locations at the same time. If only one cultist group occupies a location, that cult gains strength — but if two or more cults want the same spot, they must negotiate or both lose cult strength. If, on the other hand, a rival monster occupies the location, the cultist is eliminated. Gulp!

In Fresco, players are master painters, working to restore a fresco in a Renaissance church.

Each round begins with players deciding what time they would like to wake up for the day. The earlier you wake up, the earlier you will be in turn order, and the better options you will be guaranteed to have. Wake up early too often, however, and your apprentices will become unhappy and stop working as efficiently. They would much rather sleep in!

Then, players decide their actions for the turn, deploying their apprentice work force to various tasks. You'll need to buy paint, mix paint, work on painting the fresco, raise money by painting portraits (which you'll need to buy the aforementioned paint!), and perhaps even send your apprentices to the opera in order to increase their happiness. Points are scored mostly by painting the fresco, which requires specific combinations of paints, so you'll need to buy and mix your paints wisely, in addition to beating other players to the paints and frescos you would like to paint.

Fresco: Big Box contains all of the material from the original Fresco game, plus all expansions released through the end of 2012 and the all new 2nd expansion (with modules 8, 9, and 10)! You can play without expansions for a lighter family game, or add in expansions – whether one, two, or all – to vary play and to increase the decision-making and difficulty, resulting in a very flexible game with a high replay value.

Cartoona is a creature-building, tile-laying game featuring the pop art of Robert Burke. The goal is to be the first player, or team to reach 50 points by building colorful and odd cartoon creatures. This is accomplished by placing tiles of different creature parts together and by playing cards that speed the process, or hinder your opponents. The game box includes 94 creature part tiles, 70 action cards, 8 player screens, and a rules booklet.

In Blueprints, players are architects who must use different colored dice to build three different structures from blueprints, with the dice providing different advantages to you. In the game, each round progresses like this:

Discover your blueprint.
Each turn, choose a die and place it in your building.
Reveal your building, tally your points, then discover who wins the awards and prizes.

After three rounds, players tally their awards and prizes to see who wins. Who will be the best architect?