Point to Point Movement

Notre Dame

Rio Grande Games' description:

The players take on the roles of the heads of influential families in Paris at the end of the 14th century. In the shadow of the Notre Dame cathedral, the players compete for prosperity and reputation. Each family controls one of the 3–5 boroughs that surround the site of Notre Dame. As head of his family, each player tries, through clever use of his action cards, to advance the power and prestige of his family, but penalties are assessed on those who do not take care of the health of the people who live in their borough. The player with the most prestige at the end is the winner.

Players play as well-off Parisians in the 14th century who wish to improve the importance and appearance of the city quarter around the famous Notre Dame cathedral. The primary game concept is original, but simple, card play players use to permanently improve their influence in the quarter. However, turn after turn, round after round, players must make choices that can have major implications. If one does one thing, then the other can't be done. Concentrating on one aspect means automatically ignoring another, which, above all others, is particularly dangerous in the case of the gradually approaching plague...

After 9 exciting rounds and about 75 action-filled minutes, Notre Dame is over. The maitre who has made the most of his cards and has garnered the most prestige points is the winner.

Description from Alea.

This game is #11 in the Alea big box series.

Expanded by:

6-/7-player expansion (unofficial)
Treasure Chest

Reimplemented by:

Notre Dame Express (unofficial)

Elfenroads

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.

Inhabit the Earth

Inhabit the Earth is a race game played on six continent boards. Players create their own menagerie of up to six creatures, each of which is represented by up to six cards, by using cards to introduce, multiply, evolve, and adapt their creatures. Each of the 162 unique cards identifies a creature's class, a continent and terrain that the creature inhabits, and a special or scoring ability.

Each class of creature is also represented by a counter, and the cards are also used to trigger the movement of the counters along the trails on the boards and by migrating, from one board to another. Breeding, achieved by flipping over a creature's counter, generates new cards. Movement facilitates further breeding and the chance to secure tokens for additional icons and point scoring.

At the end of the game, points are scored through abilities on the creature's cards, the position of the creatures' counters on the boards, and from tokens; the player with the most points wins. Rules for an introductory game for up to three players are included.

Clank!

Description from the publisher:

Burgle your way to adventure in the deck-building board game Clank! Sneak into an angry dragon's mountain lair to steal precious artifacts. Delve deeper to find more valuable loot. Acquire cards for your deck and watch your thievish abilities grow.

Be quick and be quiet. One false step and CLANK! Each careless sound draws the attention of the dragon, and each artifact stolen increases its rage. You can enjoy your plunder only if you make it out of the depths alive!

Serpent Stones

Serpent Stones is an interpretation of an ancient game believed to have been played by the Aztecs over 600 years ago. As head priest of an Aztec warrior house, you must command a specialized team of Aztec warriors in ritual combat on the battlefield to satisfy the gods. Drawing on the power of teotl from your temple stone, your warriors can wield specialized nahualli animal attacks to strike or capture opposing warriors standing in your team's way of capturing your opponent's temple stone. The gods may show you favor by giving you an advantage during battle, but will it be you or your opponent that quenches their insatiable blood thirst today?

Players of Serpent Stones sit on opposite sides of a game board featuring seven staggered rows of Serpent Stones and take turns drawing a card and playing/discarding a card from an initial hand of five cards. Serpent Stones features three types of cards:

Warrior cards, which are played on the Serpent Stones to build your Aztec warrior team
Nahualli cards, which strike or capture opposing warrior cards
Teotl cards, which are "god" cards that can give a player some tactical advantage during gameplay

A player wins when either he captures his opponent's temple stone by placing a warrior card on it or he forces his opponent to suffer the "Wrath of Tezcatlipoca", a fancy Aztecian way of saying the opponent ran out of cards.