Board Game Posts

Developments

Players receive research points in the car body and engine categories via Research development cards. Some of the cards earn the player two research points (the card contains either two car bodies, two engines, or one car body and one engine).

Other cards immediately earn the player a car body or engine from the supply (identical to the respective action; please take a look at the icons at the bottom of the card).

The number of research points a player has determines which car bodies and engines a player may take with the car body and engine actions. At the start of the game, each player has one research point in both categories from their respective start tile. …

The art faker Belratti has been using his extraordinary talent for decades to paint pictures in the style of others. He dupes the art world and takes over the artistic signature of each painter.

Belratti sees the possibility to insert his fakes into a museum. The museum manager Cat wants to expand his museum by adding two new rooms. For this he instructed the painter Owl to deliver suitable pictures.

But watch out! Belratti will try to add his masterful fakes to the gallery once again. Whether he manages to outsmart Cat and Owl is up to you! Together the purpose of the game is to try to expose the fake Belratti's fake paintings, so that they do not get placed into Cat's museum. The team plays against Belratti. …

Useful tips for First-Time Travelers

Undertaking the trip of a lifetime aboard such a luxurious carriage might be intimidating at first. Hopefully the tips that follow will help you navigate through the often arrogant and occasionally disdainful atmosphere of the Mystery Express and its extraordinary cast of characters!

The Player Characters' Special Power

Until players feel they truly belong to the small clique of old-timers aboard the Mystery Express, it is recommended that they take advantage of the Special Power associated with each of the five characters offered with the game. Each has a distinctive personality and corresponding unique Special Power, giving him/her an edge over fellow passengers. …

Components

• 72 Profession Cards
• 4 Capital Cards
• 4 Modifier Cards
• 8 Gold Discs

Object of the Game

Players take turns playing cards either in front of themselves (their hometown) or into the middle of the table (the capital).

Playing a card in the capital lets you take a special action, while cards in your hometown are worth points at the end of the game.

At the end of a round the total value of a color in your hometown must not exceed that color's value in the capital, or else you will lose those cards. The player with the most points after 3 rounds, wins the game. …

Choose a shape. Drop it in the drop zone. If your shape doesn't break any rules based on where it landed, then you earn points based on how high it landed and if it is touching bonus circles.

Players take turns dropping their shapes until all of the shapes have been dropped. Then, the player with the most points wins!

Components

Setup

Place the game board in the middle of the table so everyone can reach. Place the scoring track next to the game board. Set your score markers on the large yellow starting space. …

Founders of Gloomhaven can also be played as a solo game with a few extra rules.

Setup

Select a race and set up the game as normal, collecting all of the components listed on page 3, except without the voting tiles or the "Income" action card used in a two-player game.

Note that some racial actions will make the game easier than others:

• Easy: Orchid, Quatryl

• Medium: Savvas, Harrower, Aesther

• Hard: Human, Vermling

• Very Hard: Valrath, Inox

In a solo game, the player controls all eight resources, so selecting resources is not necessary, but the rest of the game setup should be performed, ending with placing the player's race's resource onto any numbered grey space. The game difficulty will also be affected by where this resource is placed: …

(Frequency of card in parentheses)

Green Thumb Cards

Chemical Spray (2)

Play this card to rid your patch of varmints, hornworms and weeds.

Works on multiple attacks at once. Side Effect: You may not harvest during the turn you played the card.

Hoe (4)

Play this card to remove any weeds from your tomato patch.

Hot Pepper Spray (1)

Play this card to rid your patch of varmints and hornworms. Works on multiple attacks at once.

Soapy Water (1)

Play this card to rid your patch of Hungry Hornworms. …

Components

• 56 hat cards (7 each of 8 different hats)

Object of the Game

Collect the most cards by matching the hat card on top of your head or one in your hand with the face up card in the middle. Also try to win other players' cards if they fall off their heads by shouting, "Hats Off!"

Setup

Shuffle the deck and deal four cards to each player. Stack the remaining deck face down in the center of the play area.

All players select one card from their hands, look at it, and then balance it face down on top of their heads, so other players cannot see it. Remember your card! …

The game proceeds as described above with the following changes:

Setup

First, the towers of an imaginary third player, the "Zihin" (Arabic for "spirit") are placed on the game board by both players.

Taking turns, both players place any one of the Zihin towers on one of the two starting lines of the same color until 8 Zihin towers have been placed on the game board.

The ninth Zihin tower is taken out of the game! In turn, each player now places his own towers, one by one, on one of his own two starting lines, just as in the standard game. …

In the game of Seikatsu - a word that means "life" in Japanese - players tend a shared garden between each of their pagodas, and compete to have the most breathtaking view of the finished garden.

Take turns drawing and playing Garden tiles that feature both a bird and a flower to create flocks of birds and rows of flowers, as seen from your pagoda. Who has the best view of the garden? It's all a matter of perspective!

Components

• 1 Garden board
• 32 garden tiles
• 1 Cloth Bag
• 3 Scoring Pawns
• 4 Koi Pond Tiles

Setup

1 Lay out the Garden board in the center of the play area, and rotate it so that each player is directly facing one of the Pagodas on the board. The pagoda you are facing determines your player color. In a 2-player game use only the pink and blue pagodas. …