Worker Placement

Barges, freight and profits are what it's all about in Manila, a speculative contest for 3-5 players. Goods shipments, intended for transport along sea routes, are in danger of gathering dust in the warehouses or being lost at sea in a storm. While the players speculate about success and failure, the ultimate fate of the ships will be determined by the dice.

There are four shipments that need to get to Manila - jade, ginseng, silk and nutmeg. A round begins with an initial auction to become harbour master. If you win, you'll be allowed to buy a share of one of the shipments, choose which three shipments you'd like to take down river and how likely they are to make it to their destination in the harbour. If they make it to Manila, their share price will increase. The aim of the game is to bet on the outcome of these shipments, with dice ultimately determining their fate. How many of the three boats will make it and which ones? Would you like to provide insurance against possible failed ships or perhaps you think pirates will snatch a chance to take control? Manila is a fun family game that takes minutes to learn and brings the river boats of the Philippines to life!

Plague Inc: The Board Game is a strategic game of infection, evolution and extinction for 1-5* people - based on the smash-hit digital game with over 85 million players. Can you infect the world?

Each player is a deadly disease and they must battle against each other to spread their plagues, develop new symptoms and ultimately wipe out humanity.

Starting with Patient Zero, you spread your infection across the world by placing tokens in cities - earning DNA points and preventing other players from becoming dominant. Players choose which countries are placed on the board but you must be both climate resistant and connected to a country before you can infect it. Eventually, as countries become fully infected - you try to kill them using the Death Dice.

Each player’s unique pathogen can be upgraded by evolving trait cards onto an evolution slide (with DNA points). At the start, your disease is weak and unspecialised, so you will need to add new symptoms to make it stronger. Choose carefully and plan ahead in order to react to the changing world and exploit opportunities created by other player’s actions.

A simple nosebleed could accelerate things early on, whilst diarrhea will help you thrive in hot countries. Sneezing can infect new continents by air but Total Organ Failure would allow you wipe out multiple countries each turn.

As countries start to fall, use powerful event cards to alter the balance of power. You might try to eradicate a dominant player by bombing their diseased cities, or hold the Olympics to cause huge numbers of infected people to travel to a healthy continent.

When the world collapses, who will be the ultimate plague?

*5 players with 5th player expansion

You are one of the doctors that were just hired for the brand-new, cutting-edge Medical Center. Alongside your colleagues, you have to cooperate well, to admit, diagnose and treat various patients who need your help. Combine your strengths and treat efficiently the patients arriving at hospital, but be careful, because mistakes can be of the highest value in Rush MD!

'Rush M.D. is an innovative, real-time, cooperative board game that simulates the challenging and high-pressure nature of medical professions. A worker placement mechanism, using hourglasses as workers allows, but also limits, players to perform a multitude of actions. Each player handles 1 Doctor hourglass running around the hospital, admitting patients, providing immediate medical care, performing different kinds of exams as well as performing surgeries. Additionally, there are 4 more Nurse hourglasses, which can be used by all players. Nurses provide medicines to patients, supply all necessary drugs and equipment that you need to carry out all your exams and medical procedures. Any worker placed on an action space may not be used elsewhere before the sand within the hourglass runs out, making each decision important as time is limited.

The game plays from 1-4 players and lasts for 4 rounds of 4 minutes each. That means you only have 16 minutes in total to treat various patients, overcome many difficulties and challenges and manage to cooperate efficiently with your teammates, combine your forces into helping as many of your patients. A highly thematic experience that is equally rewarding for gamers and families, filled with fun, challenges and sharp decision making!

In Rush M.D. pressure is high as human lives are upon your hands! Can you handle the Rush, doctors?!

From the ashes of war, nations rise to power in the atomic age. Each player takes control of a nation struggling for power in the latter part of the 20th century. They build up their nation’s industry, commerce, and government by acquiring resources, building structures, and tapping sources of energy. The price of oil is going up, and nuclear energy is the wave of the future. The Manhattan Project: Energy Empire is set in the same "universe" as The Manhattan Project, but it's a standalone game, not an expansion.

The major threat in Energy Empire is not war, but uncertain global impacts, that result from side effects of industrialization and pollution. Many actions come with a cost. So, as nations become more industrious, they also increase the amount of pollution in the environment. Careful use of science can mitigate the harmful effects of industry, and can also help avert global crises.

Energy Empire uses worker placement, tableau-building, and resource management mechanics. On each turn, a player can choose to either work or generate. On a work turn, a player plays a single worker on the main board, then uses workers and energy to activate cards in their tableau. Players may spend energy to use an occupied space on the main board, so no spaces are ever completely blocked. On a generate turn, players get to renew their supply of energy by rolling "energy dice" that represent nuclear, coal, oil, solar, and other forms of energy.

Gregor Mendel is the 19th Century Augustinian Friar credited with the discovery of modern genetics. In Genotype, you play as his assistants, competing to collect experimental data on pea plants by trying to control how the plants inherit key Traits from their parents: seed shape, flower color, stem color, and plant height. The observable Traits of a Pea Plant (its Phenotype) are determined by its genetic makeup (its Genotype). The relationship between Genotype and Phenotype and the nature of genetic inheritance are at the heart of Genotype: A Mendelian Genetics Game.

During the game, players get Pea Plant Cards which show a set of Phenotype Traits they hope to produce and collect (such as pink flowers and tall height) in order to score points. Each round, Dice are rolled to represent Plant breeding, which may result in the Traits players are looking for. After the Dice Roll, players take turns drafting Dice towards completing their Pea Plant Cards or advancing their Research. The Traits produced during the Dice Roll come through the science of Punnett Squares, which show how the parent genes combine, one from each parent plant. By changing the genes of these parent plants, players can influence the likelihood of rolling the Traits they need. The completion of Pea Plant Cards via the Dice Draft is the main way players score points.

Each round consists of 3 phases: Worker Placement, Dice Drafting, and Upgrades.
1) During Worker Placement, players take actions to get more Plant Cards, change the genes of a parent plant, Garden, Research, stake Phenotype claims, gather new Tools, or even position themselves ahead of other players for the Dice Drafting Phase in a couple of ways.
2) Dice Drafting features a couple of interest steps, including the possibility to get first pick of dice, but only for one type of Trait (like plant height), or the possibility to get a pick of any dice, but only after those first picks have happened. De Novo Mutation Dice allow players to change the Trait of other Dice or gain additional Research.
3) The Upgrades phase lets players spend their Research to gain upgrades that let them work on more Plant Cards, draft more Dice each round, or gain additional Workers to be used during the Worker Placement Phase of each round.

Players work to match their Pea Plant Cards to the outcome of the Dice Draft and complete the cards for points. If they've placed a Phenotype marker, they will earn bonus points for every completed card that matches their claim. At the end of 5 rounds, the player with the most points wins.

-description from designer