Memory

Mascarade (second edition)

Who are you in Mascarade? Whoever you want to be...at least until someone else calls you out on it!

Each character receives a face-down role card at the start of the game, and in a game with 4-5 players some role cards are placed in the center of the table. On a turn, you take one of three actions:

1) Announce your character: Claim the power of a certain character and take the associated action. You don't have to have that character card in front of you to take this action, but if someone else says that they're that character and reveals the card to prove it, that player takes the action instead while you lose one coin to the tribunal.

2) Swap cards or not: Take another player's character card along with yours, place them under the table, shuffle them around a bit, then give one card back to the other player while keeping one for yourself. You (presumably) know whether you changed characters and can have some idea of who you are now, but that other player might be in the dark.

3) Secretly look at your character: Look at your character card to make sure of who you are.

Play continues until one player obtains 13 coins and wins — or until a player has lost all of their coins, in which case the player with the most coins wins.

Mascarade includes more character cards than the number of players, so not all characters will be used in each game. The rules suggest that you use certain characters in your first games, but once you know the game, you can try many other distributions.

Note that this second edition of Mascarade includes 17 role cards, with these cards being a mix of roles from the original base game and the 2014 expansion.

My Very First Games: Off to Bed!

It’s time to go to bed — but the rabbit, bear and cat are unable to settle down because their beds, pillows and covers are all muddled up! What's more, the animals each want their favorite stuffed toy.

If the children have good powers of memory and a bit of luck in turning over the tiles in My Very First Games: Off to Bed!, they can succeed in getting their animal into bed first.

—description from the publisher

Star Clicker

Star Clicker is the new cooperative game of Christophe Raimbault - author of Colt Express - in which players are kids trying to save their planet from evil aliens while their parents are in mission far far away.
“Easy, we’ve seen our parents do it so many times!"
"Let’s click on that button...”
“Oups, sorry for the missile in your ship bro...”

How to play?
Starclicker is a cooperative game in which you embody a pilot kid trying to save its planet from an Alien attack. At your turn, click and reveal one of the 9 buttons from your Spaceship Dashboard and do its action: move forward one tile, shoot, make a quarter turn or joker (choose among the 3 actions). When three of the buttons of the same zone are revealed, hide them. When you shoot a friend, shuffle the three buttons of the colour of the shot. When you shoot an alien ship, remove it from the board. When you land on a new tile, flip it to reveal its hidden face. There can be nothing, a meteorite or a satellite. When an alien ship reaches the planet, it damages its shield. Once there is no shield left the next damage is the last one and game is over. You and your team win when all the communication satellites have been repaired and before the mothership is empty or planet destroyed.

—description from the publisher

Blabel

Blabel is a cooperative game in which players speak different fictional languages and have to learn to understand each other in order to build the Tower of Blabel together.

Each player gets a dictionary, made from 3 cards, that teaches them how to say the 10 words of the game in their unique language. These words are 4 materials, 4 objects to build, "yes", and "no". Then, each turn, the foreman tries to explain to the other players what they need to build. However, they can only speak the languages of the game.

The players' ability to notice similarities between their languages and remember one another's words will determine whether they manage to build the Tower of Blabel before they run out of turns.

But things are not always that peaceful in Blabel. You'll be facing earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, and fires, so build a resistant tower, or it'll be destroyed by these forces of nature.

—description from the designer

Spaceteam

Spaceteam is a fast-paced, cooperative shouting card game in which you race to repair your malfunctioning spaceship.

Your goal is to ensure that all ship systems are functioning properly before time runs out. Each player must deal with the various malfunctions in their sector by flipping cards from the malfunction deck in front of them, and fixing the ship's systems. You'll have an arsenal of disorganized space tools spread among all players' hands, but finding the right tools can be harder than you think, especially when your Spaceteam is franticly worrying about malfunctions in their own sector. If that wasn’t hard enough, you’ll also have to deal with complications such as wormholes and asteroid fields, which require the coordination of the entire Spaceteam. There are no turns; everyone plays and shouts at the same time. Victory is achieved if enough malfunctions are corrected to reveal the 6 hidden System-Go Cards before time is up.