Tag: Set Collection

Games with Set Collection mechanics require players to collect resources in sets to achieve various rewards.

First Rat

| OTSG Staff

For generations, the rats in the old junkyard have been telling each other the great legend about a moon made out of cheese and they want nothing more than to reach this inexhaustible treasure. One day, the little rat children discovered a comic in the junkyard that described the first landing on the moon, and thus the plan was born: Build a rocket and take over the cheese moon!

Fortunately, the junkyard has everything the rats need to build their rocket, and the other animals are willing to support this daring venture — at least if they’re well paid. Of course, all the rats work together to achieve this mighty goal. However, each rat family competes to build the most rocket parts and to train the most rattronauts so they can feast on as much of the lunar cheese as possible.

In First Rat, each player starts with two rats and may raise two more. On your turn, you either move one of your rats 1-5 spaces on the path or move 2-4 of your rats 1-3 spaces each as long as they end up on spaces of the same color. Your rats can never share the same space, and if you land in a space with another player’s rat, you must pay them one cheese, borrowing cheese from the back as needed. After movement, you collect resources (cheese, tin cans, apple cores, baking soda, etc.) matching the color of the space you occupy or move your lightbulb along the light string, which will boost your income in future turns. (More lights in the junkyard makes it easier for you to find things!)

If you end movement near a store, you can spend resources to buy a backpack or bottle top — or you can steal an item instead, with the rat then returning to the start of the movement track. You can also spend resources to build rocket sections (and score points) or spend cheese in bulk as a donation (and score points).

When you pick up apple cores, you move around the rat burrow to pick up comics or stored food or raise one of your rats from the nursery. Alternatively, you automatically get a new rat when one of your rats reaches the launch pad and boards the spaceship. When a player places their fourth rat on the spaceship — or places their eighth scoring marker on the board — the game ends, and the player with the most points wins. In the event of a tie, the tied player with the most rattronauts in the rocket wins.

First Rat includes a solo mode as well as variable game set-ups described in the rulebook.

Game Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 5 Players
  • 30 – 75 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.29

Extraordinary Adventures: Pirates

| OTSG Staff

While playing Extraordinary Adventures: Pirates, you become a pirate captain sailing three ships through the Caribbean in search of rich merchants to plunder and friendly ports in which to trade your booty for riches.

In more detail, you have one ship on each of the three “tracks”, i.e., pathways through the Caribbean Sea. On each turn, you play three cards from your hand to move your ships. Your cards have a basic movement number, and often a secondary action. You may use one or the other to move your ships down the track or gain special advantages.

Each of the three tracks winds through the Caribbean islands toward your ultimate goal: the Spanish Treasure Galleon at Trinidad. Along the way, there will be detours that lead to merchant ships that may be plundered, and towns that may be visited to cash in your plunder for treasure. Plundering merchant ships and visiting towns also allows you to recruit more crewmen (cards) for your crew (deck). The better your deck is, the faster that your ships are able to move, so deciding when to take detours for plunder and recruiting and when to sail on toward your ultimate goal is an important decision that every pirate captain must make.

The first pirate captain to reach the Treasure Galleon at the end of any track ends the game. Each pirate ship scores points based on what place they finished on each track, as well as for the treasures earned by selling plunder. The richest captain goes down in history as the Pirate King!

Game Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 6 Players
  • 45 – 60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.18

Ethnos: 1st Edition

| OTSG Staff

In Ethnos, players call upon the support of giants, merfolk, halflings, minotaurs, and other fantasy tribes to help them gain control of the land. After three ages of play, whoever has collected the most glory wins!

In more detail, the land of Ethnos contains twelve tribes of fantasy creatures, and in each game you choose six of them (five in a 2/3-player game), then create a deck with only the creatures in those tribes. The cards come in six colors, which match the six regions of Ethnos. Place three glory tokens in each region at random, arranging them from low to high.

Each player starts the game with one card in hand, then 4-12 cards (double the number of players) are placed face up on the table. On a turn, a player either recruits an ally or plays a band of allies. In the former case, you take a face-up card (without replacing it from the deck) or the top card of the deck and add it to your hand. In the latter case, you choose a set of cards in your hand that match either in tribe or in color, play them in front of you on the table, then discard all other cards in hand. You then place one token in the region that matches the color of the top card just played, and you use the power of the tribe member on the top card just played.

At the end of the first age, whoever has the most tokens in a region scores the glory shown on the first token. After the second age, the players with the most and second most tokens score glory equal to the values shown on the first and second tokens respectively. Players score similarly after the third age, then whoever has the most glory wins. (Games with two and three players last only two ages.)

Game Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 6 Players
  • 45 – 60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.11

Ecos: First Continent

| OTSG Staff

What if the formation of Earth had gone differently?

In Ecos: First Continent, players are forces of nature molding the planet, but with competing visions of its grandeur. You have the chance to create a part of the world, similar but different to the one we know. Which landscapes, habitats, and species thrive will be up to you.

Gameplay in Ecos is simultaneous. Each round, one player reveals element tokens from the element bag, giving all players the opportunity to complete a card from their tableau and shape the continent to their own purpose. Elements that cannot be used can be converted into energy cubes or additional cards in hand or they can be added to your tableau to give you greater options as the game evolves.

Mountain ranges, jungle, rivers, seas, islands and savanna, each with their own fauna, all lie within the scope of the players’ options.

Game Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 6 Players
  • 45 – 75 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.57

Dog Park

| OTSG Staff

Welcome to Dog Park, a mid-weight, competitive set-collection and point-to-point movement game in which players take on the role of dog walkers who recruit, walk, and care for their dogs over four rounds. Each round is split into four phases:

  1. Recruitment Phase: Players compete in two rounds of offers to add dogs to their kennels. Offers are made with players’ reputation (victory points), so must be placed wisely.
  2. Selection Phase: Players decide which dogs to place on their lead to walk this round.
  3. Walking Phase: Players journey through the dog park with their fellow walkers, collecting resources, earning reputation, and interacting with other walkers.
  4. Home Time Phase: Players earn reputation for their walked dogs, and lose reputation for any unwalked dogs in their kennel.

Players must choose their routes and dogs carefully to earn the best reputation and prove they are the most accomplished walker of them all. At the end of the game, the player with the most reputation wins.

Game Mechanics:

  • Auction / Bidding
  • Set Collection
  • Solo / Solitaire Game
  • Variable Set-up
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 40 – 80 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.17

Dinner in Paris

| OTSG Staff

The restaurant industry in Paris is buzzing after the inauguration of a new pedestrian square in a very popular district for Parisians and tourists from all around the globe. It is a golden opportunity for you, restaurant owners, to open one of the addresses that will contribute to the culinary diversity and the reputation of the French capital. However, there isn’t space for everyone and your opponents could throw a wrench in your gears!

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Majority / Influence
  • Contracts
  • Hand Management
  • Income
  • Race
  • Set Collection
  • Tile Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 40 – 60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.16

CV

| OTSG Staff

Have you ever wondered who you would have been if your life had gone differently? How would you direct your life if everything were up to you? Maybe you would be a magician, or travel around the world? Or maybe big business tempts you, and your goal would be to earn a million dollars?

“CV” means curriculum vitae – your resume – and in the dice and card game CV, you will lead a character through his entire life, making many choices about friends, relations, jobs, and activities. Everything is possible: a dream job, new relationships, and skills. You can be whoever you want!

Gameplay is built around the Yahtzee-style dice rolling and re-rolling system. On their dice, players are trying to roll sets of symbols that allow them to acquire cards; each round, these cards give benefits of some kind, such as new symbols and special abilities. At the end of the game, each kind of card scores points for the player.

Game Mechanics:

  • Contracts
  • Hand Management
  • Open Drafting
  • Push Your Luck
  • Set Collection

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • ~60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.84

Creature Comforts

| OTSG Staff

Life in the forest is a lot of fun, at least while the sun is shining and the leaves are on the trees. Those days don’t last forever though, and long before the weather starts to change, the wise animals start to harvest for the long cold winter ahead. You will spend many months tucked into your burrow and you want to make it as cozy as possible. A nice bowl of soup, a comfortable rocking chair, and some toys and games will go a long way to make those dark winter days pass by quickly.

In Creature Comforts, you spend the Spring, Summer, and Fall gathering different goods from the forest and spending them to collect items that will make your home more inviting while the world outside is covered in a layer of snow. Each round you send family members out to various locations in an attempt to gain supplies. If they fall short of their goal, they’ll learn a lesson and be better prepared next time. The family that has created the most comfortable den wins the game.

Game Mechanics:

  • Contracts
  • Events
  • Hand Management
  • Open Drafting
  • Push Your Luck
  • Set Collection
  • Solo / Solitaire Game
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 5 Players
  • ~45 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.36

Coatl

| OTSG Staff

The election of the Aztec High Priest is imminent. In order to prove their value and merit, the contenders engage in a race for prestige to win the favor of the gods. Will you be able to make the most beautiful sculptures of feathered snakes (called Cóatl) to stand out and gain access to the coveted title of High Priest?

In Cóatl, players work to build the most beautiful and valuable serpents. The serpents, or Cóatl, are constructed with a head, a tail, and a number of body tiles, each made from chunky, colorful plastic. On a turn, players will either take tiles from the central board to their personal board, or work to construct one of their Cóatls with the different tiles they’ve collected.

The game end is triggered when one player finishes their third Cóatl. Players receive points for fulfilling objectives, and the one with the most is named the new High Priest!

Game Mechanics:

  • Abstract Strategy
  • Hand Management
  • Open Drafting
  • Pattern Building
  • Set Collection

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 30 – 60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.02

Cleopatra and the Society of Architects

| OTSG Staff

Designed by Bruno Cathala and Ludovic Maublanc, Cleopatra and the Society of Architects is a fun and engaging game that includes a three-dimensional palace that players compete to build. Players strive to become the wealthiest of Cleopatra’s architects by constructing the most magnificent and valuable parts of her palace.

Players, however, will be tempted to trade in materials of dubious origins in order to build faster. While these corrupt practices might allow an architect to stay a step ahead of the rest, they come with a high price: the cursed corruption amulets honoring Sobek, the crocodile-god. When Cleopatra finally reaches her new palace at the end of the game, she punishes the most corrupted architects (i.e., the ones with the most amulets), depriving them of riches or giving them as a sacrifice to her crocodile! The wealthiest architect from among those still alive wins.

This new edition of Cleopatra and the Society of Architects has a new graphic design by Miguel Coimbra, a free-standing 3D palace, and rulebook updated by the designers for simplicity and fluidity, which incorporates these gameplay changes:

  • The combinations of resource cards to discard in order to build pieces of the palace have been reworked.
  • The player rewards for building the palace’s pieces have been recalculated.
  • The consequences of corruption have been reviewed.
  • The Great Priest is no longer activated in the same way.
  • The player count has changed from 3-5 to 2-4.
  • There is a new specific system to manage the character cards, which are no longer part of the deck, and are instead handled separately.

Game Mechanics:

  • Auction/Bidding
  • City Building
  • Hand Management
  • Set Collection
  • Tile Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 3 – 4 Players
  • ~60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.24