Area Majority / Influence

Bring balance back to the forest!

Time is broken and shattered. The seasons all exist at once, and day and night have no real cycle — they rotate at the whim of the forest. This enchanted land has been driven into chaos and it's up to you, the cunning mystics of the forest, to tame extraordinary woodland creatures and use your magic to bring back balance.

In Brew, players must choose how to use element dice, either to take back control of as many seasons as possible in an area-control game or to procure goods at the local village in a worker-placement game. Recruiting woodland creatures and brewing potions can help offset chance die-rolls or create an engine to help you tame the lands.

San Francisco, 1850. The Gold Rush is in full swing. Ships stream steadily in San Francisco Bay, brimming with would-be treasure hunters. Anchored off the coast of the boomtown lies a flotilla of abandoned vessels, their crews long since taken by gold fever. A few business moguls stake their claims on these derelict ships, towing them into the harbor to house their growing empires. Over time, this wharfside district, known as the embarcadero, would become the very heart of business enterprise in the thriving port city.

In Embarcadero, players step into the shoes of these savvy entrepreneurs. Build San Francisco on the hulls of these abandoned vessels and carve out a foothold in the city council. Do you have what it takes to rule the waterfront?

The game takes place over three rounds. In each round, players take turns playing cards and placing tiles to take control of wharves to earn points and influence.

—description from publisher

As another sun sets and the pale moon rises over the ancient proving grounds, the bravest and wiliest creatures gather for the Klash — the ultimate test of wits and ability!

Kombo Klash is a tactical tile-laying and combo-scoring game for 2-4 players. Can you master each creature's unique ability and form the craziest Kombos needed to win the game? Use the raven to summon extra tiles into your hand, score bonuses by adding wolves to the Klash, or kick other animals across the board with the kangaroo! Manipulate tiles by playing alligators and vultures, steal them back into your hand by playing hypnotic snakes, and smash through tiles by using gorillas...and don't forget the chameleons, who can do anything and everything!

The goal of Kombo Klash is to score as many points as possible by the end of the game, which occurs at the end of a round in which one or more players reaches or exceeds the predetermined target score. The player with the most points at the end of that round wins.

Modern day markets offers to their visitors various kind of stands, restaurants, and services.

In Mercado de Lisboa, players buy stands in the market, open new businesses that influence those stands, and bring customers to them.

Mercado de Lisboa is a thinky filler title, a tile-placement game based upon the Lisboa city-building system in which players pay money to own stands in the market, open restaurants next to them to improve their profit and bring in customers that earn money for players with matching stands. Mercado de Lisboa is a fast-paced game, very straightforward and easy to learn rules with deep tactical choices.

Just beyond the towering vines lies an ancient pathway into the unknown. Push back the thorn-riddled stocks to discover a clandestine garden, blooming with mysterious vigor. Vivid colors mark the way to intricate tiles zigging and zagging through the green. Within the flowers lies the key to greater meaning. An explanation for all things unknown...

In Umbra Via, players compete to control and complete the most cunning paths. Reach into your bag to select wooden flowers, then place them on your secret board in the order of the paths you want most. But when players reveal their choices, things get delightfully tricky. Experience the magic of Umbra Via and find out why this award-winning design belongs on any table.

In more detail, at the start of each round four tiles are revealed from the deck, with each tile showing part of a path, e.g., a straight line, a curve, or a T. Players secretly draw three cubes from their bag and place them on spaces on their personal board corresponding to these tiles. They all reveal their choices, move their cubes to the chosen tiles, then secretly place three more cubes, then move those cubes to the tiles. Whichever tile ends up with the fewest cubes on it is placed in the 4x4 grid first, maintaining the same orientation, by the player who bid the most cubes on that tile. (Some cubes in your bag are worth two cubes during the bidding phase, but are then removed from the tile and returned to your bag prior to placement.) Then the next tile is placed on the grid, and so on.

When you place a tile, if all the "open" ends of that path are cut off — whether by the edge of the board or other tiles — you count how many cubes each player has on the path. The player with the most placed cubes retrieves "double-bidding" cubes from the reserve equal to the number of tiles in the path, adding these cubes and all other cubes to their bag. The player with the secondmost cubes on the path retrieves half this many "double-bidding" cubes, and so on. After removing and returning all the cubes on this path, remove the tiles from the grid, placing them in a discard pile.

As soon as a player has retrieved all of their "double-bidding" cubes from the reserve, they win!