Fantasy

Description from the publisher:

After being stripped of all their possessions, a mage, a warrior, an elf, and a dwarf are forced to go rob the local Magic Maze shopping mall for all the equipment necessary for their next adventure. They agree to map out the labyrinth in its entirety first, then find each individual’s favorite store, and then locate the exit. In order to evade the surveillance of the guards who eyed their arrival suspiciously, all four will pull off their heists simultaneously, then dash to the exit. That's the plan anyway…but can they pull it off?

Magic Maze is a real-time, cooperative game. Each player can control any hero in order to make that hero perform a very specific action, to which the other players do not have access: Move north, explore a new area, ride an escalator… All this requires rigorous cooperation between the players in order to succeed at moving the heroes prudently. However, you are allowed to communicate only for short periods during the game; the rest of the time, you must play without giving any visual or audio cues to each other. If all of the heroes succeed in leaving the shopping mall in the limited time allotted for the game, each having stolen a very specific item, then everyone wins together.

At the start of the game, you have only three minutes in which to take actions. Hourglass spaces you encounter along the way give you more time. If the sand timer ever completely runs out, all players lose the game: Your loitering has aroused suspicion, and the mall security guards nab you!

Elfenroads combines the previously released Elfenland and Elfengold, along with the new Elfensea.

In Elfenland, young elves have to pass a very special test before they are accepted as grownups. All elf girls and elf boys receive a map of Elfenland, and they have to visit as many famous towns in Elfenland as possible, using the common types of transportation: dragons, unicorns, giant pigs, elfcycles, troll wagons, magic clouds, ferries and rafts. These types of transportation, however, are available in limited numbers and can be used only in specific regions. Thus, an exciting race starts among the elves to find out who will make the best use of the available transportation. The one who visits the most towns wins.

Elfengold, an expansion for Elfenland, adds gold coins to the game that players use to bid for the Travel Counters and other new items. It also adds Gold Value Tokens to the towns that indicate how much gold players earn for visiting a town. Two magic spells and a new obstacle — a Sea Monster — are included as well as two round cards to allow for longer games up to six rounds.

In Elfensea, as in Elfenland, young elves have to pass a special test before they are accepted as grownups. The same rules apply in Elfensea as in Elfenland, except as described in the rules. The game board map is different, and the common types of transportation — dragons, unicorns, giant pigs, magic clouds, whales and rafts — differ somewhat as well. As in Elfenland, these types of transportation are available in limited numbers and can be used only in specific regions. Thus, an exciting race starts among the elves to find out who will make the best use of the available transportation. The player with the most points wins.

In Ethnos, players call upon the support of giants, merfolk, halfings, minotaurs, and other fantasy tribes to help them gain control of the land. After three ages of play, whoever has collected the most glory wins!

In more detail, the land of Ethnos contains twelve tribes of fantasy creatures, and in each game you choose six of them (five in a 2/3-player game), then create a deck with only the creatures in those tribes. The cards come in six colors, which match the six regions of Ethnos. Place three glory tokens in each region, arranging them from low to high.

Each player starts the game with one card in hand, then 4-12 cards are placed face up on the table. On a turn, a player either recruits an ally or plays a band of allies. In the former case, you take a face-up card (without replacing it from the deck) or the top card of the deck and add it to your hand. In the latter case, you choose a set of cards in your hand that match either in tribe or in color, play them in front of you on the table, then discard all other cards in hand. You then place one or more tokens in the region that matches the color of the top card just played, and you use the power of the tribe member on the top card just played.

At the end of the first age, whoever has the most tokens in a region scores the glory shown on the first token. After the second age, the players with the most and secondmost tokens score glory equal to the values shown on the first and second tokens. Players score again after the third age, then whoever has the most glory wins. (Games with two and three players last only two ages.)

Description from the publisher:

In a forgotten time when magic could move mountains, the Kingdom of Caladale was home to people of all kinds, living in castles of unimaginable beauty — but on one fateful night, an ancient spell of great power was cast by one unable to control it. By daybreak all of the castles were destroyed, their walls and towers torn apart, twisted together and scattered across the land.

The people of Caladale must now rebuild, competing for walls and towers from the broken and twisted remains of each other's homes to rebuild their castles and reclaim the glory of Caladale!

In Castles of Caladale, players lay tiles to construct beautiful castles and rebuild the kingdom. Building the most complete and largest castle earns a player glory throughout the land!

The first player with a palace to amass 12 victory points (VP) in constructed buildings and captive Emperors in Ekö wins the game.

To set up, fill the board with all the pawns, placed at random. Before starting the game, each player can exchange their Emperor pawn with another of their pawns elsewhere on the board. On your turn, you must do both phases in this order: the action phase, then the reinforcements phase. During the action phase, you must perform one single action:

Move: Move to an empty space, regroup or attack; you can attack only a stack of enemy pieces that contains strictly fewer pieces than the attacking stack — except that a stack of four pieces can be attacked and destroyed by a stack of one piece.

Construct: You can construct only one building per space; subsequent construction on the same space replaces the existing building. Each terrain type allows specific types of construction. In order to construct a building on an empty space or on a space already containing one of your buildings, you must sacrifice pieces from a single stack adjacent to this construction space.

Once per turn, you can take an extra action by sacrificing three stackable pieces. A stack that contains the Emperor can attack an enemy stack even if it contains an equal number of pieces, and even if it contains another Emperor. Each enemy Emperor you have captive is worth 3 VP.

During the reinforcements phase, if you have pieces in your reserve, you must return at least one piece to play if you can.
You can place up to three pieces onto a single stack of your color on the board (never on an empty space), respecting the following rule: You cannot place reinforcements on a stack if it is adjacent to another player's building.

The game ends immediately when a player has amassed 12 VP by adding up the values of his buildings on the board and any Emperors they have captured — each village is worth 1VP, each tower 2VP, and each castle and captured Emperor 3VP — and they have at least one palace. Alternatively, if a player is the only one with pieces remaining on the board (making reinforcement impossible for the other players), they win.