Track Movement

Tokaido Duo

After Journeying the Tokaido road, it is now time to discover the island of Shikoku in Tokaido Duo!

In Tokaido Duo, two players pace the smallest isle of the Japanese archipelago. You will discover its many sceneries through the eyes of three different characters, and will thus experience a threefold spiritual journey.

As the Pilgrim, you will visit temples, forests, seashores and hot springs.
As the merchant, you will craft and sell handmade wares.
As the artist, you will paint a variety of beautiful sceneries, and gift them to passers-by.

You will earn points through all three characters' adventures as you slowly become one with their endeavours.

Amritsar: The Golden Temple

Amritsar, India is home to The Golden Temple or Sri Harmandir Sahib. This spectacular building is world-renowned as a sacred place for the Sikh community and one of the most famous pilgrimage destinations on Earth.
After being demolished several times, Maharaja Ranjit Singh rebuilt it using marble, copper and 750 kilos of pure gold, hence its name.
In Amritsar, the players will represent the different personalities of the time who helped the Maharaja of the Sikh Empire with the reconstruction of the Golden Temple.
Using a clever mechanic based on the sowing system of the classic mancala games, players will use the different workers and their very own elephant to carry out the necessary tasks. On your turn, you will be able to perform 1-3 actions depending on how well you have coordinated the workers and your elephant. These actions will consist of collecting resources in the quarry or the market, advancing on the different paths of knowledge, improving your personal board, turning to your mahout (elephant rider) for help and above all making donations to the temple with the aim of obtaining as many prestige points as possible. At the end of the game, the player with the most prestige will be declared the winner of the game.

—description from the publisher

Bites

New version of the Spiel des Jahres Recommended Big Points with a new theme, more engaging components, and rule tweak cards to make sure every play is different.

Four page illustrated rulebook. 20min play time. Highly interactive with no direct conflict.

Players move ants along a trail and collect food as they go. However, the value of that food depends on how the other ants move.

Shared incentives mean you are always trying to figure out what the other players are up to. Variable "rules cards" tweak the rules to every game so that each play is fresh.

During setup, a trail of food is laid out. On each player's turn, they can move any ant to the next food in the trail that matches their color (red ant to apple, purple ant to grapes, etc). Then the player takes the food token directly in front of or behind the ant, saving it to score at the end of the game.

However, players don't know for sure how much the food is going to be worth until the matching ant makes it to the ant hill at the end of the trail. This creates shared incentives as players work together to advance some ants and hold others back.

Along the way players also have the chance to pick up chocolate, which can be turned into special actions, and wine, which provides a way to score bonus points.

There are four decks of cards that define the rules for the game. Each game, one card is chosen from each deck to provide a unqiue combination. Players have to adapt their strategy to the actions the other players are taking and the unique rules for this game. The "rule decks" are:

Ant Hill - Food tokens are worth more points if the matching ant gets to the hill FIRST. Or, food tokens are worth more points if the matching ants get to the ant hill LAST.
Wine - The wine tokens have a different way of scoring in every game.
Chocolate - The chocolate tokens provide a different special power in every game. And, the best way to use that power will change based on the other special rules in play.
Variant - One special rule that applies to this game which offers an extra twist.

Your actions will change the incentives for the other players. Can you manage these cascading effects to collect the most valuable food collection?

Ready Set Bet

In Ready Set Bet, you and your friends head to the races for a day of cheering, jeering, and betting on your favorite horses, whose fates hang on every roll of the dice.

Ready Set Bet is played over four rounds. Each round consists of a race followed by bet resolution. During each race, players freely place their bet tokens on the board while the race is going on. After each race, players win or lose money for each of their placed bet tokens, then receive a VIP Club Card to help them win more money in the following races. After four rounds, the player with the most money wins!

—description from the publisher

Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition

Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition is an engine-building game in which players control interplanetary corporations with the goal of making Mars habitable (and profitable). You will do this by investing mega credits (MC) into project cards that will directly or indirectly contribute to the terraforming process. In order to win, you will want to accumulate a high terraform rating (TR) and as many victory points (VP) as you can. Players raise their TR by increasing global parameters: oceans, oxygen, and temperature. TR also determines each corporation's basic income, and, at the end of the game TR counts as VP. Additional VP and production capabilities are awarded for building project cards and other actions taken during the game.

The game is played in rounds, and each round the players will choose one of five phases, which determines which activities will take place during that round. This means every round is different, but can consist of building new project cards, taking general and project-specific actions, producing income and resources (plants and heat), or researching to draw more project cards. Every player will take all the phases selected for the round, and will receive a special bonus during the phase that they selected. To speed up the game, within each phase, players can act simultaneously without waiting for each other!

The game board has tracks for oxygen, temperature, and terraform rating, as well as a place for all of the ocean tiles that will be flipped over the course of the game. The game ends when there is enough oxygen to breath (14%), oceans enough to allow Earth-like weather (9), and the temperature is well above freezing (+8°C). It will then be possible, if not comfortable, to live on the surface of Mars!

The winner is the player with the most VP at the end of the game.