Animals: Turtles

In Spectacular, you are creating and developing your own animal park for vulnerable species. In order to preserve the species, you must ensure breeding within each habitat. Spectacular provides simultaneous play and ensures interaction between the players, as your opponents’ decisions will affect which tiles and dice are available for you. The game also comes with asymmetric player boards (on their backs).

During the game, you select animal tiles and dice, where the dice represent food for the animals. The color of the dice must match the habitat color of the animal tiles. Each turn provides crucial decision-making where you need to consider whether to draft a die of a certain value or ensure an animal tile which may not be available again.

At game end, for each area of connected tiles of the same habitat, you score points for the sum of your dice of that color. However, points are only awarded if dice values of 1 or 2 are placed on certain “family” tiles within the habitat! Over the course of the game, you will also build watchtowers, which will score you points for all three dice adjacent to them. To make your park even more spectacular, you also aim to collect as many different species as possible, with increasing points awarded for greater variety. Finally, the player with the most points wins the game.

After a few plays, you may challenge yourself by playing with three (of 18) mission tiles. While they offer the potential for a higher score, they also raise the difficulty level of the puzzle.

—description from the publisher

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

The king is throwing an unprecedented year-long event to commemorate the 100th year since Everdell's founding. Come one, come all, to the Bellfaire!

Bellfaire is a new expansion for Everdell that offers several different gameplay modules, including:

Components and rules for 5-6 players
Player powers and resource boards
A Bellfaire board with a new Market location
Garland Awards, which are shared endgame goals
New Special Event cards

—description from the publisher

Slide and steady wins the race!

It’s hot! All the animals of the jungle are meeting at the lake… But Turtle is late, as usual. How can he join his friends as soon as possible? Slide down the river!

With a flick, the players propel the turtle into the lake, then flip over animal tiles to advance on their personal board. Who will be the first to find all their animals?

—description from the publisher

Within the charming valley of Everdell, beneath the boughs of towering trees, among meandering streams and mossy hollows, a civilization of forest critters is thriving and expanding. From Everfrost to Bellsong, many a year have come and gone, but the time has come for new territories to be settled and new cities established. You will be the leader of a group of critters intent on just such a task. There are buildings to construct, lively characters to meet, events to host—you have a busy year ahead of yourself. Will the sun shine brightest on your city before the winter moon rises?

Everdell is a game of dynamic tableau building and worker placement.

On their turn a player can take one of three actions:

a) Place a Worker: Each player has a collection of Worker pieces. These are placed on the board locations, events, and on Destination cards. Workers perform various actions to further the development of a player's tableau: gathering resources, drawing cards, and taking other special actions.

b) Play a Card: Each player is building and populating a city; a tableau of up to 15 Construction and Critter cards. There are five types of cards: Travelers, Production, Destination, Governance, and Prosperity. Cards generate resources (twigs, resin, pebbles, and berries), grant abilities, and ultimately score points. The interactions of the cards reveal numerous strategies and a near infinite variety of working cities.

c) Prepare for the next Season: Workers are returned to the players supply and new workers are added. The game is played from Winter through to the onset of the following winter, at which point the player with the city with the most points wins.