Tag: Contracts

Finca

| T3d-1978

The gameboard of Finca shows the mediterranean island of Mallorca. Players try to crop and deliver the fruits of Mallorca (such as oranges, lemons, almonds, grapes etc.) by means of moving workers on a traditional windmill. Object of the game is to distribute your crop as effectively as possible in order to deliver faster than your opponents.

From the Box: Mallorca, Island of the Wind. A place of golden beaches and a light-blue sea. The almond harvest is at hand, in addition, juicy oranges, lemons, and figs are ready to be picked and taken to the market. Olive trees bewitch the country with their curled branches and sumptuous vineyards invite passers-by to walk among their warm earth. In the midst of this landscape, your centuries-old natural stone farmhouse provides a home and supports your large windmill: your FINCA.
Listen to the wind, which propels your windmill! Then take in the course of the yearly harvest the sweetest and most valuable fruits from the land. Load them on your old donkey cart and travel around the island, selling them everywhere. If you manage this quickly, you will soon be the richest farmer on the island.

Game Mechanics:

  • Contracts
  • Mancala
  • Once-Per-Game Abilities
  • Rondel
  • Set Collection

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 5 Players
  • 45 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.07

Everdell Duo

| T3d-1978

In Everdell Duo, you either compete against your single opponent or play co-operatively with another player to earn the most points. You accomplish this by placing workers to gather resources, then use those resources to play cards face up in front of you, creating your own woodland city.

Cards may be played from your hand or from the face-up area on the board called the meadow. However, only cards touching the sun or moon token may be played from the meadow, and players move these tokens each time they perform a turn. Therefore, planning for and timing which cards you play is critical.

Each game you try to achieve various events, the requirements of which differ from game to game, making certain cards and combinations more important to pursue.

The game lasts for four seasons, then players add their scores to determine the winner. If you’re playing co-operatively, check the requirements for the chapter you are playing to see whether you have won.

—description from the publisher

Game Mechanics:

  • Contracts
  • Cooperative Game
  • Income
  • Open Drafting
  • Scenario / Mission / Campaign Game
  • Set Collection
  • Solo / Solitaire Game
  • Variable Set-up
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 2 Players
  • 30 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.70

Emberleaf

| T3d-1978

Emberleaf is a competitive card-dancing and tile-placement board game.

As a brave Emberling, your mission is to rebuild your home in the heart of an ancient forest. To succeed, you’ll explore the wilderness, gather resources, clear dangerous areas, and construct new homes for your kin. Along the way, you’ll recruit heroes into your fellowship, each bringing unique skills that will help empower your team. But beware – space in the forest is limited, and other Emberlings have their own plans.

The game features:

  • Card Dancing: Place hero cards within your moving grid to activate skills and enhance your fellowship. Slide cards to trigger powerful combinations and charge them at the perfect moment for even greater effects.
  • Tile Placement: Build vibrant villages to address the diverse needs of your villagers.
  • Engine Building: Recruit heroes to acquire new skills and empower your existing fellowship.
  • Resource Management: Navigate the forest, clear dangerous areas, and collect essential resources.

Every decision you make shapes the destiny of your people. Can you rise to the challenge, guide your village to prosperity, and win the heart of your fellow Emberlings?

—description from the publisher

Game Mechanics:

  • Contracts
  • Kill Steal
  • Set Collection
  • Solo / Solitaire Game
  • Tile Placement
  • Variable Player Powers
  • Variable Set-up

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 5 Players
  • 90 – 120 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.05

Dune: Imperium – Uprising LAST BAD IMAGE

| T3d-1978

In Dune: Imperium Uprising, you want to continue to balance military might with political intrigue, wielding new tools in pursuit of victory. Spies will shore up your plans, vital contracts will expand your resources, or you can learn the ways of the Fremen and ride mighty sandworms into battle!

Dune: Imperium Uprising is a standalone spinoff to Dune: Imperium that expands on that game’s blend of deck-building and worker placement, while introducing a new six-player mode that pits two teams against one other in the biggest struggle yet.

The Dune: Imperium expansions Rise of Ix and Immortality work with Uprising, as do almost all of the cards from the base game, and elements of Uprising can be used with Dune: Imperium.

The choices are yours. The Imperium awaits!

Game Mechanics:

  • Automatic Resource Growth
  • Card Play Conflict
  • Resolution
  • Contracts
  • Deck, Bag, and Pool
  • Building
  • Delayed Purchase
  • Force Commitment
  • Increase Value of Unchosen Resources
  • Multi-Use Cards
  • Open Drafting
  • Solo / Solitaire Game
  • Team-Based Game
  • Turn Order: Progressive
  • Variable Player Powers
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 6 Players
  • 60 – 120 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.50

Coffee Rush

| T3d-1978

A cup of coffee sure is relaxing — for the customer. For the coffee shop, however, orders tend to pile up during peak hours, and it is no different today at Coffee Rush. Your goal: Complete customer orders to increase your ratings and be recognized as the best barista!

In more detail, each player moves on the ingredient board to collect the ingredients that they need to fulfill orders — and fulfilling orders boosts your rating. Orders that are not fulfilled in time become penalties, which subtract from your rating. If a player has fulfilled three orders, they may activate an upgrade that lets them acquire ingredients more easily.

The game ends once all order cards have run out or after a barista collects their fifth penalty card. The player with the highest rating wins!

Game Mechanics:

  • Contracts
  • Grid Movement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • ~30 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.82

Darwin’s Journey

| T3d-1978

When all you can identify in the horizon for many long days is the line that detaches the sea from the sky, the glimpse of a distant shore appearing before you will make you shiver at the understanding that the adventure is about to begin.

You find yourself astonished, landing on the shore that will be the origin of an extensive exploration through the Galapagos, a magic place of inconceivable beauty and endless biodiversity. There, you will gather repertoires and expand your knowledge of the natural sciences. Your eyes will learn how to detect the hidden species in the tropical forest, gazing at the countless colors and textures of nature. After inspiring hours spent studying and getting to enlightening conclusions, you will rest under a sparkling sky, admiring the stunning complexity of the animal realm.

Darwin’s Journey is a worker-placement Eurogame in which players recall Charles Darwin’s memories of his adventure through the Galapagos islands, which contributed to the development of his theory of evolution.

With the game’s innovative worker progression system, each worker will have to study the disciplines that are a prerequisite to perform several actions in the game, such as exploration, correspondence, gathering, and dispatch of repertoires found on the island to museums in order to contribute to the human knowledge of biology. The game lasts five rounds, and thanks to several short- and long-term objectives, every action you take will grant victory points in different ways.

Game Mechanics:

  • Contracts
  • Pick-up and Deliver
  • Set Collection
  • Solo / Solitaire Game
  • Variable Set-up
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 60 – 120 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.90

Cities

| T3d-1978

You’ve been tasked by the city council to put together a plan to transform a whole neighborhood in the city. You have the opportunity to build new housing, office buildings, parks, and leisure areas near the waterfront. It is in your hands to make the city a better place.

Cities is a city-building game in which you draft the best projects and arrange them in your own playing area. With action and resource draft mechanisms, it will give you the opportunity to visit the cities of Sydney, Venice, New York, Barcelona, Rio de Janeiro, Lisbon, Mexico City, and Buenos Aires. Can you design the most magnificent neighborhood?

The game is played over eight rounds (or four rounds in a two-player game). Each round, players use their workers to collect 1 scoring card, 1 city tile, 1-2 feature tiles, and 2-4 building pieces. City tiles are made up of park spaces, water spaces, and building spaces. Building pieces are placed on building spaces of the same color to form buildings, which can be 1-4 stories high. Whenever a player fulfills an achievement, they place one of their discs on the achievement board. At the end of the game, players add up the points they have gained from all of their scoring cards and achievements.

Game Mechanics:

  • Contracts
  • Pattern Building
  • Set Collection
  • Tile Placement
  • Variable Set-up
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • ~45 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.92

Critter Kitchen

| kithorning

In Critter Kitchen, you are a proud restaurant owner determined to set yourself apart during Restaurant Week at Bistro Bay! You’ll do this by completing various ingredient-related challenges over the course of the week and hopefully impressing the celebrity critics with a grand meal at the end of the week. However, you can’t be everywhere at once, meaning you’ll have to rely on your chefs to gather as many ingredients (and rumors!) as they can throughout Bistro Bay. Each round players will simultaneously and secretly decide where to send their workers, and deciding who goes where. Some chefs are fast but can only carry one item, whereas others are slower but can carry much more! Wow the critics and establish yourself as the best restauranter in this adorable game.

Game Mechanics:

  • Contracts
  • Variable Player Powers
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 5 Players
  • ~60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.45

Crafting the Cosmos

| T3d-1978

Welcome to Crafting the Cosmos, where you get to construct your very own universe! Each player’s turn is split into two phases: the Energy Phase and the Craft Phase, followed by a collective End Phase. During the Energy Phase, players will move their energy token around the board to gather resources, which they will then use in the Craft Phase to construct their own galaxy. You can create stars, nebulas, and even life to maximize your points and create the best universe!

Game Mechanics:

  • Contracts
  • Map Addition
  • Tile Placement
  • Track Movement
  • Variable Player Powers

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 60 – 90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.93

Altiplano 🟡

| T3d-1978

Altiplano is a bag-building game along the lines of Orléans, set in the South American highlands of the Andes (the “Altiplano”). The competition for limited resources is considerable, as it was in Orléans, but the greater focus in Altiplano is on building up your own production to be the best that it can be – or at least better than that of the other players!

The object of the game is for players to use their goods to produce more goods that will be worth points in the end. Each player starts with a unique role tile, giving them access to different goods and methods of production. Players have limited access to production at the start, but they can acquire additional production sites during the game that open up new options. The various types of goods — such as fish, alpaca, cacao, silver and corn — all have their own characteristics and places where they can be used. For example, silver can be sold for a high price at the market, fish can be exchanged for other goods at the harbor and alpaca can produce wool at the farm that can then be made into cloth.

Aside from building up an effective production, players must fulfill their orders at the right time, develop the road in good time and store their goods cleverly enough to fill their warehouses in the most valuable way. Often, a good warehouse keeper is more relevant in the end than the best producer.

Game Mechanics:

  • Action Points
  • Contracts
  • Modular Board
  • Open Drafting
  • Tile Placement
  • Variable Player Powers
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 5 Players
  • 60 – 120 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.29