A fascinating game for dominance set in the distant past when all the world's land masses were joined in a single super-continent: Pangea. This unique game promotes battle and migration as the world breaks into pieces. The player-controlled species advance and evolve based on the in-game action. Featuring satisfying depth and near limitless possibilities, you will discover new facets to game-play each time you join in the Conquest of Pangea.
In 2001, 2F-Spiele published the original Funkenschlag.
In 2011, it is time to look back...a long time back! To celebrate the tenth anniversary of the original Funkenschlag, designer Friedemann Friese will take you back in time and let you relive the early beginnings of mankind. True to the name of the German edition (a literal translation of which is "Flying Sparks"), it is time for Funkenschlag: Die ersten Funken, or "The First Sparks".
The First Sparks transports the Funkenschlag mechanisms into the Stone Age. The order of phases during a game round, the player order, the technology cards: you know all these parts from “Funkenschlag”. But what is new? What is different?
The First Sparks is much faster and far more direct. You are immediately part of the action. Each turn, each decision is important. As a clan leader you decide on the well-being of your clan during the Stone Age. You need to develop new hunting technologies and get new knowledge - to successfully hunt food or to learn to control fire. With the help of these skills, you will harvest enough food to feed your clan and spread it far enough to reach new hunting areas.
In a game of The First Sparks you are always confronted with many decisions: Which technology cards offer you the biggest advantages? When is the right time to spread your clan on the game board? Which hunting areas will grant the most food? Reaching new hunting areas or trying to secure parts of the game board for your own clan are important factors for your strategy. Empty spaces are cheaper for you to settle compared to spaces in which other clans are already settled. If you are the first to increase your clan size to 13 clan members, you win The First Sparks.
Another day, another mammoth hunt. But the spoils of the hunt remains to be divided, and everyone tries to secure the largest share for themselves in this quick and clever family strategy game. Each round the tiles are shuffled in the bag and dropped onto the table. The face up symbols show the spoils of today's hunt.
The tiles are then divided by a unique mechanic: When it is your turn, you may either A) Take any number of tiles from the pool, or B) Claim that another player has been too greedy, taking all of that player's tiles, but returning at least one tile to the pool (you must of course show yourself to be a little less greedy).
The next player without tiles then follows in turn. This way the size of the pool will gradually increase, and the round is over once the last player without tiles decides to take what's left in the pool. Every player will then have a share of tiles, and a scoring phase follows.
Tactical play will help you get the meat, fur, tusks, animals, and tools you want (each tile has a different way of scoring), but you may also play cards for immediate effects or to secretly influence the scoring.
- Game material is language independent -
Cavemen: The Quest for Fire is a card-drafting game in which players take the role of tribal leaders. The tribes compete for opportunities to hunt dinosaurs, recruit tribesmen, and discover new technologies, vying to be the first with enough knowledge and prestige to invent fire and usher in the age of modern humanity!
You have two resources to manage: Food and Teeth. You must spend Food each turn in order to keep your Tribe from starving. Teeth indicate prestige among the tribes. Use Teeth to bid for the conch and to acquire Cavemen and Caves.
Each turn, cards are drawn from the deck to fill a common Card Pool. Players take actions based on what is available in the pool. For example, if a Beast is drawn into the Card Pool, you can hunt it for Food and claim its Teeth as a sign of your bravery.
If you hold the conch during the Action Phase, you benefit by taking your Action first and taking a second Action after everyone else has gone once. Players can bid Teeth to take control of the Conch from another player. This can be important to get the first pick of the cards in the Card Pool.
The game features 21 different inventions that allow players to evolve diverse strategies, capitalizing on their tribe's individual strengths. There are challenging decisions every turn as players must evaluate what resources are available, guess what their opponents will do, and weigh the amount of risk they're willing to take.
On an icy lake, two clans of prehistoric men clash in a match of Kairn, better known as Caveman Curling, this being an ancestor to the modern sport of curling. Players compete as individuals or are grouped into two clans, and they try to land their stones the closest to a target each round. On a player's turn he takes two actions:
• He launches a stone across the ice, flicking it with his finger toward the target on the other end of the game board.
• To improve the positioning of his stone or the chances of it staying in place, he can choose to use either a small or large hammer or a totem. With a hammer, the player moves the stone according to the size of the hammer. As for the totem, the player sets it on top of the stone; if the totem falls off the stone, the player can shoot it again on a later turn.
If your player or clan has one or more stones closer to the center of the target than the other clan, you score points. The first player/clan to collect six points wins.
A note about the different editions.
Caveman Curling (2012)
Kairn (2010)
There are significant production differences between Kairn and Caveman Curling, though the game play is almost identical between the two versions. Kairn (200 copies) was designed and self-published by Daniel Quodbach in 2010. Blackrock Editions and Scorpion Masque produced 1000 copies of Kairn and released it at Essen in 2011. Gryphon Games version of the game has yet to be produced, pending the conclusion of a current Kickstarter campaign that was organized to gauge demand for its version. Caveman Curling is scheduled for mass production in January, 2012, and to be released in late February, 2012. The first and only production copy of the Gryphon version will arrive in the US on December 14, 2011 and a video will be made showing the differences between Kairn and Caveman Curling.