Card Game

Pagoda is a two-player only game in which players compete to build multiple layers of up to six pagodas. Each player has five face-up and two face-down colored cards, and they use these cards to build colored pillars and levels of the pagoda. Once a pillar has been placed on the ground floor, all other pillars placed must be of the same color. When someone places the fourth pillar on a level, he places a floor tile of the pillars' color on top, with this tile have colored dots to indicate which color of pillar can be placed on top.

Players score points each time they place a pillar, with a pillar on ground level being worth one point, a pillar on the second floor two points, and so on. When a player places a floor tile, he gains one point as well as two actions associated with that color on his individual action board. The fourth floor tile is placed upside-down to show only one colored dot. Two pillars can be placed on this dot, each worth five points, and once placed the pagoda is finished. After three pagodas are finished, players finish the round, then the player with the most points wins.

From the website:

It is the late 12th century. The sun has set on the classical period of Japan. The emperor’s power has waned and a new power is growing on the horizon. Now, through alliances, court manipulation, and hand to hand combat, competing factions will battle in an epic struggle for control of feudal Japan.

Rise of the Shogun is a two player HeroCard game that can be expanded to a three or four player game with additional decks.

Expanded by:

HeroCard Rise of the Shogun Miko Expansion Deck
HeroCard Rise of the Shogun Prince Expansion Deck

This game adds a very interesting twist to the standard trick-taking genre. There are five suits and players must follow suit, if they can. However, the winner of the trick is the highest card played, regardless of suit. The winner gets all the cards from the trick, minus the card he won it with. That card is given to the player that played the lowest card. After all tricks have been played, the scoring begins. Players score the face-value of the cards in the suits that they only collected one or two of, and one point per card for suits with more than two. The player with the most points after a number of hands wins the game.

In Citadels, players take on new roles each round to represent characters they hire in order to help them acquire gold and erect buildings. The game ends at the close of a round in which a player erects her eighth building. Players then tally their points, and the player with the highest score wins.

Players start with a number of building cards in their hand; buildings come in five colors, with the purple buildings typically having a special ability and the other colored buildings providing a benefit when you play particular characters. At the start of each round, the player who was king the previous round discards one of the eight character cards at random, chooses one, then passes the cards to the next player, etc. until each player has secretly chosen a character. Each character has a special ability, and the usefulness of any character depends upon your situation, and that of your opponents. The characters then carry out their actions in numerical order: the assassin eliminating another character for the round, the thief stealing all gold from another character, the wizard swapping building cards with another player, the warlord optionally destroys a building in play, and so on.

On a turn, a player earns two or more gold (or draws two building cards then discards one), then optionally constructs one building (or up to three if playing the architect this round). Buildings cost gold equal to the number of symbols on them, and each building is worth a certain number of points. In addition to points from buildings, at the end of the game a player scores bonus points for having eight buildings or buildings of all five colors.

The expansion Citadels: The Dark City was initially released as a separate item, but the second edition of the game from Hans im Glück (packaged in a tin box) and the third edition from Fantasy Flight Games included this expansion. With Dark City, Citadels supports a maximum of eight players.

This game of tactics, strategy and confrontation is set in a fantasy world after the Great Depression. Each player runs a company of special agents, and their agents become teams in threes. The aim of the game is transporting the crystals and leftover artifacts (guns and transporting means!) from the mine to your own campsite and from the campsite to your home. The transport will succeed only if the team is strong and fast enough, and if you can use the transporting capacity of your men optimally. However, nobody is left alone with their problems. The competition and the robbers ensure interaction and surprises…

The basic game consists of 5 rounds. Players try gaining crystals and artifacts from the central mining project (bidding for the best bunch of crystals), then in the tactically most important phase they choose their 3-card "teams" to take actions in order of their speed. On your turn you can go to the mine to take crystals to your camp; you can attack others' camps for crystals and you can transport your crystals home or to the bank from your camp. You can also collect or use the artifacts found: they can help in increasing your transporting capacity or battle power, but if you don't use them they can mean lots of points in the end of the game. At the end of the game, whoever has the most points (from crystals and artifacts at home and points from the bank) wins.

Krysis website and rules