Tikal is a game of exploration within the Central American jungles in search of lost temples and the treasures within. Players send their team of explorers into the jungle, exposing more and more of the terrain. Along the way, you find temples that require further uncovering and treasures. Players attempt to score points for occupying temples and holding onto treasure.
Tikal is the first game of the Mask Trilogy.
Sequel:
Tikal II: The Lost Temple
A civilization building game has finally been created that clocks in under two hours. Tempus plays on a modular board with an array of landscapes on each land tile to ensure a different game every session. Each turn pushes players' technological advancements forward, starting from fire and ending in the modern age.
Players are constantly faced with tough choices to vie for technological superiority or better positioning on the game board. This game features a rubber-banding mechanic in technological upgrading, where players catch up to the leader's advances at the end of every turn and shoot forward to take advantage of any new technologies that are discovered. This keeps players constantly in check, while rewarding planning for the next turn by giving an edge-up.
Tempus showcases a simple diceless battle mechanic featuring a subtle fog of war with Idea cards. Each card is dual-purposed. Using a card for war means giving up extra abilities that the Idea cards can grant. Or you might just want to hold on to them to advance in technology.
"The way to have Power is to take it" - William "Boss" Tweed
Tammany Hall is a game of backstabbing, corruption, temporary alliances, and taking power at all costs. If you want to rule New York, you are going to need to play the city's growing immigrant populations against one another. Help the immigrant groups who owe you political favors, call in those favors to slander your rivals, and win elections.
In Tammany Hall, players help immigrants settle in New York, collect political favors from those immigrant groups, send ward bosses into Manhattan to secure votes, and slander political opponents. An election is held at the end of every fourth year, and the player who uses his power base best will be elected mayor. The Mayor's grip on the city is tenuous at best. After every election, the Mayor must pay off his political rivals by placing them in offices that they can wield to try to take control of the city. Every player is your friend, every player is your enemy.
Tammany Hall was the political machine that dominated New York City politics by organizing the immigrant populations. While the organization's influence spanned from its founding in the 1790s to its collapse in the 1960s, this game is set in lower Manhattan roughly between 1850 and 1870 – the era of Boss Tweed.
In Taluva, players place tiles consisting of volcanoes and other terrain. Tiles can be placed adjacent to other tiles or on top of other tiles. Thus, the island expands outward and upward during the course of the game. At the same time, the players are trying to settle their peoples on the island by building huts, temples and towers. Each building type has a different restriction regarding placement. The game ends when all the land tiles have been played or when a player builds all of his buildings in two of the three types.
Reef Encounters of the Second Kind was released at Essen 2006. It is an expansion set for Reef Encounter, introducing new creatures, opportunities, and tactics to the basic game.
The crown of thorns starfish with their voracious appetites have now found the reef and will consume any corals that they can reach. Blue shrimps will assist host shrimps in protecting the larger corals, but these blue shrimps are notoriously unreliable. Meanwhile, the polyp tiles now come in a variety of different forms, and even the rocks are liable to change shape.
A selection of cards provides one-off opportunities to influence the game, to introduce or to move the blue shrimps, or to affect the scoring at the end of the game. An appropriate card is also required before a parrot fish can consume its first coral.
Contents: 4 blue wooden shrimps, 48 special tiles, 56 cards (28 in English and 28 in German), and 2 rules sheets, one in English and one in German.
Expands:
Reef Encounter
Reef Encounters of the Second Kind Microbadge :