Tag: Worker Placement

Games with a Worker Placement mechanic require players to coordinate various workers as those workers gather resources.

Dinosaur Island

| T3d-1978

In Dinosaur Island, players will have to collect DNA, research the DNA sequences of extinct dinosaur species, and then combine the ancient DNA in the correct sequence to bring these prehistoric creatures back to life. Dino cooking! All players will compete to build the most thrilling park each season, and then work to attract (and keep alive!) the most visitors each season that the park opens.

Do you go big and create a pack of Velociraptors? They’ll definitely excite potential visitors, but you’d better make a large enough enclosure for them. And maybe hire some (read: a lot of) security. Or they WILL break out and start eating your visitors, and we all know how that ends. You could play it safe and grow a bunch of herbivores, but then you aren’t going to have the most exciting park in the world (sad face). So maybe buy a roller coaster or two to attract visitors to your park the good old-fashioned way?

Game Mechanics:

  • Action Points
  • Dice Rolling
  • Economic
  • Set Collection
  • Tile Placement
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 90 – 120 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.03

Cupcake Empire

| T3d-1978

Cupcakes are at the height of fashion in the city. It’s the perfect time to expand your business. Even though at the moment you only have one small Bakery, the dedication and the level of creativity of your employees means that there are no limits to your ambition.Your task will be no piece of cake since your competitors share your same goals and they are not going to make it easy for you. Only those who work the most efficiently and effectively will manage to build their own cupcake empire.

Cupcake Empire is mainly a dice game. Your personal board represents your business and the dice your workers. In each of the columns of the board you can carry out one specific action; create new recipes for cupcakes, open new stores, serve customers, hire new workers, etc. On each turn you will have to decide which column you are going to activate, taking into account that the more dice there are and the more specialized they are, the more effective the action will be. Through these actions you will increase your level of sales and production, trying to get them to grow in equal measure since at the end of each of your turns your Income will increase by the amount indicated by the marker that is the furthest behind i.e. that has made the least progress.

Game Mechanics:

  • Dice Rolling
  • Economic
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 45 – 60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.79

Court of the Dead: Mourner’s Call

| T3d-1978

Everyone is already dead in the Underworld. It’s time to join the factions of Bone, Flesh and Spirit as they work to achieve the goal of the Underworld: to gather enough forces to take on the celestials of Heaven and Hell to end their ceaseless war. If the players work diplomatically in Court of the Dead: Mourners Call to maintain a balance, they can ensure the Underworld survives long enough for them to also complete their collective and hidden individual objectives. The player who best contributes to these goals will earn Death’s favor and a place among the elite of the Underworld.

You are a Mourner — an allegiant of Death — dedicated to realizing his noble ambition to end the celestial war and restore balance to the universe. However, Death’s purpose includes your own ulterior motives. You and your fellow Mourners must unite and rise, or fall together. But only one Mourner will achieve their particular vision of the Underworld united. Your task will not be easy. While the Underworld is united in its purpose, it is divided in its strategy to achieve that aim. There are three factions in the Land of the Dead: Bone, Flesh, Spirit. Each is a unique path to rise up against Heaven and Hell.

You will need to strategically manipulate your influence within these factions, their strongholds and guilds, and within the Court of the Dead if you wish to achieve your ends. But beware: The power within mortal souls — known as Etherea — is a perilous substance. Use it carelessly, and you risk invoking the Dreadsgrip – a destructive force within every Mourner that consumes all it touches, including its former master. Failing to satiate the celestials’ war need, or triggering the Dreadsgrip, has dire consequences for all Mourners. Are you strong enough to achieve your own ambitions and be the champion for the uniting force for which all Mourners Call?

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Control
  • Auction/Bidding
  • Dice Rolling
  • Hand Management
  • Open Drafting
  • Take That
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 5 Players
  • ~90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.94

Cosmogenesis

| T3d-1978

In a game of Cosmogenesis, each player creates their own planet system, starting from a star and an asteroid belt. To do this, they use the elements available on the different sections of the central board. In each round, players obtain one element from each of the four sections over four turns and with these elements players form planets and moons. These then collide with each other, causing them to increase in size, develop rings, form atmospheres, and of course create life. Players do all of this in order to fulfill their own objectives, which like the rest of the elements of the game, are obtained from the central board; at the end of the game, these provide the victory points that determine the overall winner.

Game Mechanics:

  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • ~60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.59

Coimbra

| T3d-1978

In the 15th and 16th century, Portugal is thriving under its leading role during the Age of Discovery. Nestled in the heart of Portugal, the city of Coimbra serves as a cultural center of the country. As the head of one of Coimbra’s oldest houses, you seek to earn prestige by deepening relationships with nearby monasteries or funding expeditions of the era. To reach this goal, you must vie for the favors of the city’s most influential citizens, even if you must offer a bit of coin or some protective detail.

Coimbra introduces an innovative new dice mechanism in which the dice players draft each round are used in multiple different ways and have an impact on many aspects of their decision making. While there are many paths to victory, players should always seek to optimize their opportunities with every roll of the dice. Combined with ever-changing synergies of the citizens, expeditions, and monasteries, no two games of Coimbra will ever be the same!

Game Mechanics:

  • Action Drafting
  • Auction/Bidding
  • Dice Rolling
  • Open Drafting
  • Set Collection
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 60 – 90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.27

Cellulose: A Plant Cell Biology Game

| T3d-1978

Cellulose: A Plant Cell Biology Game is a worker placement game that puts 1-5 players inside a plant cell, where they will compete over limited resources in order to undergo photosynthesis, produce carbohydrates, and build the cell wall. With everyone vying for the same actions, players must time their use of proteins, hormones, and cell component cards in order to diversify their strategies and outplay the competition.

Cellulose is the standalone sequel to Cytosis (2017). It has some of the same DNA, but Cellulose expands familiar game systems, allowing players greater control over available resources, strategic paths, and even game length.

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Majority / Influence
  • Set Collection
  • Solo / Solitaire Play
  • Tech Trees / Tech Tracks
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 5 Players
  • 45 – 90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.55

Caylus 1303

| T3d-1978

A classic game is back! As one of the first worker placement games, Caylus stands among the true board game classics of the 2000s. The original designers’ team, together with the Space Cowboys, have now created a revamped version!

The mechanisms of Caylus 1303 have been streamlined and modernized for an intense and shorter game. Don’t be fooled, though, as the game has kept both its depth and ease of play while a lot of new features have been added:

  • Variability of the starting position for a virtual infinity of possibilities. No more pre-set strategies!
  • Characters with special abilities, with a wavering loyalty, offer their services to the players.
  • And of course, brand new graphics!

The King calls you again, so it’s time to go back to Caylus!

Game Mechanics:

  • Open Drafting
  • Take That
  • Tile Placement
  • Variable Player Powers
  • Variable Set-up
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 5 Players
  • 60 – 90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.88

The Castles of Burgundy

| T3d-1978
The Castles of Burgundy

The Castles of Burgundy

The game is set in the Burgundy region of High Medieval France. Each player takes on the role of an aristocrat, originally controlling a small princedom. While playing they aim to build settlements and powerful castles, practice trade along the river, exploit silver mines, and use the knowledge of travelers.

The game is about players taking settlement tiles from the game board and placing them into their princedom which is represented by the player board. Every tile has a function that starts when the tile is placed in the princedom. The princedom itself consists of several regions, each of which demands its own type of settlement tile.

The game is played in five phases, each consisting of five rounds. Each phase begins with the game board stocked with settlement tiles and goods tiles. At the beginning of each round all players roll their two dice, and the player who is currently first in turn order rolls a goods placement die. A goods tile is made available on the game board according to the roll of the goods die. During each round players take their turns in the current turn order. During his turn, a player may perform any two of the four possible types of actions: 1) take a settlement tile from the numbered depot on the game board corresponding to one of his dice and place it in the staging area on his player board, 2) take a settlement tile from the staging area of his player board to a space on his player board with a number matching one of his dice in the corresponding region for the type of tile and adjacent to a previously placed settlement tile, 3) deliver goods with a number matching one of his dice, or 4) take worker tokens which allow the player to adjust the roll of his dice. In addition to these actions a player may buy a settlement tile from the central depot on the game board and place it in the staging area on his player board. If an action triggers the award of victory points, those points are immediately recorded. Each settlement tile offers a benefit, additional actions, additional money, advancement on the turn order track, more goods tiles, die roll adjustment or victory points. Bonus victory points are awarded for filling a region with settlement tiles.

The game ends after the fifth phase is played to completion. Victory points are awarded for unused money and workers, and undelivered goods. Bonus victory points from certain settlement tiles are awarded at the end of the game.

The player with the most victory points wins.

Game Mechanics:

  • Dice Rolling
  • Grid Coverage
  • Pattern Building
  • Tile Placement
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 30 – 90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.00

Beyond the Sun

| T3d-1978

Beyond the Sun is a space civilization game in which players collectively decide the technological progress of humankind at the dawn of the Spacefaring Era, while competing against each other to be the leading faction in economic development, science, and galactic influence.

The game is played over a variable number of rounds until a number of game-end achievements are collectively claimed by the players. The winner is the faction with the most victory points, which are obtained by researching technologies, improving their economy, controlling and colonizing systems, and completing various achievements and events throughout the game.

On a turn, a player moves their action pawn to an empty action space, then takes that action. They then conduct their production phase, either producing ore, growing their population, or trading one of those resources for another. Finally, they can claim up to one achievement, if possible.

As players take actions, they research new technologies that come in four levels. Each technology is one of four types (scientific, economic, military, commercial), and higher-level technologies must match one of the types of tech that lead into it. Thus, players create their own technology tree in each game, using these actions to increase their military strength, to jump to different habitable exoplanetary systems, to colonize those systems, to boost their resource production, to develop android tech that allows growth without population, and more.

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Majority / Influence
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 60 – 120 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.14

Atiwa

| T3d-1978

The Atiwa Range is a region of southeastern Ghana in Africa consisting of steep-sided hills with rather flat summits. A large portion of the range comprises an evergreen forest reserve, which is home to many endangered species. However, logging and hunting for bushmeat, as well as mining for gold and bauxite, are putting the reserve under a lot of pressure.

Meanwhile, in the nearby town of Kibi, the mayor is causing a stir by giving shelter to a large number of fruit bats in his own garden. This man has recognized the great value the animals have in deforested regions of our planet: Fruit bats sleep during the day and take off at sunset in search of food, looking for suitable fruit trees up to sixty miles away. They excrete the seeds of the consumed fruit, disseminating them across large areas as they fly home. A single colony of 150,000 fruit bats can reforest an area of up to two thousand acres a year.

Just like that mayor, in Atiwa, you know that fruit bats — once scorned and hunted as mere fruit thieves — are in fact incredibly useful animals, spreading seeds over large areas of the country. By doing so, they help to reforest fallow land and, in the medium term, improve harvests. This realization has led to a symbiotic co-operation between fruit bats and fruit farmers. The animals are kept as “pets” to increase the size of fruit farms more quickly. Tall trees are left as roosts, providing shelter for them rather than hunting them for their scant meat. However, if you have a lot of fruit bats, you need a lot of space…

In the game, you will develop a small community near the Atiwa Range, creating housing for new families and sharing your newly gained knowledge on the negative effects of mining and the importance that the fruit bats have for the environment. You must acquire new land, manage your animals and resources, and make your community prosper. The player who best balances the needs of their community and the environment wins.

Game Mechanics:

  • Economic
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 30 – 120 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.75