Cities: London

Dearest Player, you have been invited, at the behest of your titled host, to make your debut during the 1851 social season of Victorian London.

Apistocracy is a 2-4 player game featuring worker placement, as well as a trick-taking game based on Whist. Each player has a season host with a unique ability. The hosts provide influence to open the first doors of the season, but players must make connections, thus building influence, to gain invitations to the most coveted events. Over the course of four weeks, players climb to the top of the social beehive to become Queen Victoria's favorite, commission painting sets in the gallery to become the artist's muse, make valuable connections in the ballroom to become the favored guest, learn secrets in the tea room, and curate their hand for the final whist game in the parlor. The player with the most Victoria points at the end of the season is named the "season's favorite" and wins.

The game offers players nuanced action selection, with opportunities for strategic decision making. Do you spend your resources to move up the beehive? Do you dance in the ballroom to gain a valuable card for your player mat? Do you commission your portrait and complete your painting set? Regardless of your choice, the main goal is to have fun! If you happen to create a buzz and become the season's favorite in the process, then bravo! If you do not achieve the coveted title, you need not give up — there's always next season!

Ticket to Ride: London features the familiar gameplay from the Ticket to Ride game series — collect cards, claim routes, draw tickets — but on a scaled-down map of 1970s London that allows you to complete a game in no more than 15 minutes.

Each player starts with a supply of 17 double-decker buses, two transportation cards in hand, and one or two destination tickets that show locations in London. On a turn, you either draw two transportation cards from the deck or the display of five face-up cards (or you take one face-up bus, which counts as all six colors in the game); or you claim a route on the board by discarding cards that match the color of the route being claimed (with any set of cards allowing you to claim a gray route); or you draw two destination tickets and keep at least one of them.

Players take turns until someone has no more than two buses in their supply, then each player takes one final turn, including the player who triggered the end of the game. Players then sum their points, scoring points for (1) the routes that they've claimed during the game, (2) the destination tickets that they've completed (by connecting the two locations on a ticket by a continuous line of their buses), and (3) the districts that they've connected. (A district consists of 2-4 locations, and you score 1-5 points for a district if you link all of its locations to one another with your buses.) You lose points for any uncompleted destination tickets, then whoever has the high score wins!

A heinous crime has been committed. A team of the Kingdom's finest detectives has been assembled and put on the case. They have a prime suspect, they have a motive, and they know what the opportunity to commit the crime was. Now all they have to do is prove it.

Using powers of deduction and communication, the players work as a team to eliminate dead leads and find clues to prove who, how, and why. All the relevant clues are available to them to do so. They just won't know it. On top of that, Sherlock Holmes himself is already on the case. Can they solve the crime before he does?

At the start of Beyond Baker Street, players select one of the crimes to solve, and a number of suspects, motives, and opportunities will be available for the players to convict of the crime. Each player holds a set of clues, but they won't be able to see their own clues — only those of their counterparts. Each turn, a player must take exactly one of the following actions:

ASSIST another detective
INVESTIGATE crime scene
CONFIRM evidence
ELIMINATE dead leads
PURSUE new leads

Players win together if they can gather enough evidence to make a conviction before Holmes does; otherwise, they crumble under the stress of the case.

London: The biggest, most important and richest city in England in the late medieval and early modern periods.

The Guilds played a major role in the lives of London's citizens, controlling the way in which trade, manufacturing and business was conducted in the city. The members of the guilds were rich men, who were appointed to the most influential positions in the community and wielded immense civic power. The chief representative of the Guilds became the Lord Mayor of London, and the leading delegates of the Guilds became his Aldermen. Other members of the Guilds were the burghers of London. The Guilds ran the city and controlled its commerce; each had its own Hall and its own Coat of Arms. Representatives of the Guilds met at the Guildhall to discuss the great issues of the day.

In Guilds of London, you place your liverymen in strategic Guilds, building your power base, so that you can achieve the status of Master in many of them. You also have the opportunity to spread your power into the commercially valuable Ulster or Virginia plantations. Control of each Guild provides victory points and additional actions that you can exploit, so that you can control the future development of the city.

London, 1901. At the world famous Portobello Market, the goal in the morning is to secure the best places to build stalls. Try to place your stalls in the most lucrative manner, cut off your opponents, and grab the most profitable alleys for yourself. You can build only where the Bobby stands—but a little cash will make the Bobby stand where you want him to!

East India Railway was the prototype title for this game, and it became Portobello Market when published by Schmidt.