Abstract Strategy

This beautiful and functional board has room for two teams of large marbles. Players take turns pushing the marbles around the board, with the goal of pushing six of the opposing player's marbles off the board. The central idea is that a column of marbles has weight given by the number of marbles in line. Someone will need to push with a heavier group of marbles in order to push the column along that axis. However, with six possible directions, it's difficult to defend yourself perfectly. Also, it's possible to play the game with up to six players when supplemental marble sets are purchased.

Welcome to sunny Gopher Gulch, home of a unique gopher population known far and wide for their bright and colorful coats! Due to their particular diets, our local gophers have developed fur in remarkable shades of red, purple, and orange… this is a sight that has to be seen to be believed, and every season we get bus after bus of excited tourists like yourself, eager to see our little furry friends! Quite a few Gopher Ranchers have set up shop around town, and each of them will try to show you exactly what you’ve come to see. Thanks for visiting Gopher Gulch, please remember to tell your friends!

~The Gopher Gulch Tourism Board

Players are gopher ranchers in the town of Gopher Gulch, each placing tiles to build their own warren of burrows, hoping to attract all three types of gophers. It’s a delicate balancing act where every tile counts. Build your warren, forming burrows of three different colors. Complete a burrow of a particular color that is longer than the current shortest burrow in that color, and the gopher living there moves into the new one; it stays there until it gets lured away again by an even bigger burrow! There is one less gopher of each color than there are players, so not everyone will be able to host all three gopher types at once.

Every once in a while the tour bus will arrive, and the tourists will be most excited to see the types of gophers promised to them by their tour schedule. If your ranch is missing those particular gophers, you’ll get complaints from the tourists. At the end of the tourist season, the rancher with the fewest complaints wins!

We are in the realm of SIAM which once upon a time was heaven on earth, a vast country where elephants and rhinoceros had been living in peace for centuries. Once, the earth started to shake and SIAM was reduced to three regions surrounded by gigantic mountains. Since then, elephants and rhinoceros don't have enough space to live. These two incredibly strong species shall now struggle mercilessly to rule over two territories.

Contents:

A wooden board
5 elephants
5 rhinoceros
3 rocks
5 pieces of felt to stick under the board, 1 in the center and 1 under each corner
Rules of the game

Each player has 12 rings (in four sizes)and 3 bases of the same color. These are placed one at a time, in turn, on one of 25 territories laid out in a five X five pattern. You may place a ring:

i) onto or next to a territory that already has a ring in your color, or

ii) next to a base of your color.

You also may place a base next to a territory that already has a ring in your color. Each territory can accommodate up to four rings as long as all the rings are different sizes. The winner of the territory is the player who has placed the most rings on it when the game ends, which occurs when no one can place any more rings on the board. The bases do not count in the scoring but can be placed on a territory to prevent any other player from placing a ring on it.

Game description from the publisher:

In the strategic game Sparta, set in 228 B.C., you will relive the fascinating experience of skillful Spartan and Achaean warriors. Will Sparta seize power, or will the Achaeans maintain their stance?

Designer Yannick Holtkamp developed this strategic game at the age of 12. Still at school at age 14 in late 2011, he is enrolled as a science student at the University of Düsseldorf.

User summary:

The game is played on a 10x10 grid. Each player starts with a row of eight fighters on their side of the board. In the middle rows of the board, there are eight cities - each player owns four of these.

Each turn, a player may move one of their fighters up to two squares in any direction, changing direction between the moves if so desired.

If the fighter ends its turn in one of his own cities, he is promoted to a hero, and may move up to three squares on future turns.

If the fighter ends its turn on an opposing city, the city is conquered; it now belongs to the player that conquered it.

If, after the move, there are pieces trapped in between two opposing pieces, they are captured and removed from the board. Pieces are trapped if they are between pieces of the other side along a horizontal, vertical or diagonal row without a vacant square in between.

The game ends if one of the following happens:

One player owns all cities. That player wins the game.
One player has only one piece left on the board. His opponent wins the game.
Both players have only one or two pieces left on the board. The player with the most cities wins the game.