Tile Placement

Fertility

You are a Nomarch in Ancient Egypt. The Pharaoh put you in charge of a Metropolis and its region. The flooding of the Nile is coming to an end and the lands of the Valley are ready to offer their riches. Organize the collection of resources, build districts with the most lucrative shops, supply them with goods and earn the most Debens for the glory of the Pharaoh. The player who will make the best use of the resources of the Nile Valley will win the game.

Fertility is a simple resource management game that raises tough decisions for you to take. Each turn, you collect some of the riches of the Valley of the Nile and immediately decide how to use them : supply one of your Shop to earn money, or spend them to build new districts, offering you new opportunities. Be wise because your choices are irreversible. None of the resources already stocked in your shops can be moved or reused until the end of the game. But any resource unspent by the end of your turn will be definitively lost. Optimize your turns and choices if you want to win.

A player’s turn goes through three fast and simple steps. They start by placing one of their Valley tile on the central board in order to collect resources : alabaster, bovines, papyrus flowers, grapes or wheat. They then have the opportunity to spend these resources to build a new District tile on their Metropolis board, for opening new opportunities. Lastly, they supply their Shops in their Metropolis by stocking the remaining resources. Any resource that a player has left unused at the end of their turn is lost. So, the aim is to collect as many resources as possible, but even more to be able to optimize how to use them. The game ends after 9 turns and each totally supplied Shop is worth money for their owner. The player with the highest amount of money is the winner.

Gaïa

Gaïa is a 2-5 player game in which you create a world, instill life in it, build cities, try to satisfy their needs, and use godly powers to shape the world to your benefit.

In game terms, Gaïa involves tile placement, area control and influence with a twist of power cards. Each player has five wooden figures, and if you're the first to place all five of your figures on the board, you win!

Gaïa includes two levels of rules, with the basic rules allowing for play with those as young as eight thanks to the game's simple mechanisms and non-attacking nature. The advanced rules give you the opportunity to use godly powers — lightning, volcanoes, rain, sun, earthquakes, etc. — to shape the world after it has been created. You can even steal an opponent's cities, making it a more aggressive game with a higher level of strategy.

Riverboat

Riverboat posits each player as the owner of a 19th century farm on the bank of the Mississippi River. You need to organize your workers to ensure that the fields are ordered according to their type and harvested when ready so that the goods can be shipped to New Orleans.

In more detail, the game lasts four rounds, and at the start of each round players draft phase cards until they're all distributed. The phases then take place in numerical order, with the player who chose a phase being the first one to act. In the first phase, players place their workers in the fields, with each player having the same distribution of colored field tiles, but a different random placement for each player. In phase two, players organize their crops, trying to group like types together, with some fields requiring two or three workers. In phase three, players harvest crops and load riverboats, with a dock needing to be filled with all the goods of a single type before it can be loaded. In phase four, the boats are launched and players can take special actions, with additional victory points possibly coming in phase five.

Newton

Around the middle of the 17th century with the advent of the scientific method, a period of great change begins, called the scientific revolution. Many great scientists, with their theories and ideas, change our perception of the universe: Galileo Galilei, Copernicus, Kepler, Bacon and, above all, Sir Isaac Newton.

In Newton, players take the role of a young scientist who wants to become one of the great geniuses of this period. To do this, they travel around Europe, visit universities and cities, study to discover new theories, build new tools, and work to earn money.

The game is played over six rounds. Each round, every player plays five cards from their hand, with each played card allowing the player to perform one of the game's actions. An action has a variety of effects, which depend on the symbols of that action visible on the board. At the end of the round, a player can take back all the cards played except one. One card has to be left on the board, which means that you give up one possibility of doing that action, but also that the action will be carried out with greater strength. Fortunately, you can acquire new cards that will allow you to perform more actions and with additional powers.

After six rounds, you calculate your final scoring, and the player with the most VP wins.

—description from the publisher

Mesozooic

The age of the dinosaurs is back — this time safely behind glass! Build the best dino zoo and impress your guests in a frantic, real-time puzzle game.

Dinosaurs are back and the world is clamoring to see them! In Mesozooic, it's your job as the director to plan and construct a zoo that will surpass any others. Fill your zoo with a variety of crowd-pleasing features: wow your visitors with towering dinosaur enclosures, entertain them with prehistoric attractions, and let them travel around the zoo in style on a network of monorails.

Over the course of three rounds, players draft the most desirable features into their hand, piece their zoo together in real-time, and score each layout to see who has created the best zoo.

After drafting your favorite features, you’ll have to organize them in your zoo—but things won’t always go as planned! Race against time by frantically sliding the cards one at a time to match up features and optimize your zoo’s layout. Complete dinosaur enclosures, connect monorail tracks, and maintain your attractions to score points. The zoo with the best layout will score the most points!

When drafting cards, you can choose to customize your zoo however you like. Choose from attractions, monorails, dinosaur enclosures, or topiary.

Guests will be dazzled by the larger-than-life attractions at your zoo. Pterodactyls soar through the aviary, dinosaur eggs hatch in the nursery, and underwater creatures swim through the bright blue waters of the aquarium. Your zoo can include any or all of these attractions! To keep things running smoothly, attractions need to be regularly maintained. In order to score attractions in your zoo, you must keep a maintenance truck next to the attraction.

While visiting your zoo, guests will need to get around. Hopping on the monorail will quickly transport your guests to other corners of the park. In order to be effective, the monorail’s route must be connected. If you can continue the track, each connection will score points for your zoo.

The highlight of the zoo is, of course, the dinosaurs themselves! Let guests come face to face with these creatures from another age. Create the perfect environment for gentle herbivores or powerful carnivores, each in their own enclosure. Each completed enclosure will score points.

Careful planning and quick thinking can give you the edge. Astonish guests with the amazing creatures from a land before time. Will guests flock to your dinosaur zoo?

-description by the publisher