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The Cinque Terre are five coastal villages in the Liguria region of Italy known for their beauty, culture, food, and proximity to one another. Produce carts are commonly found in each village marketplace.

In Cinque Terre, a game of strategy, players compete to sell the most valuable produce in the five villages. Players act as farmers and operate a cart in which they will harvest produce and deliver them to the five villages to sell. Additionally, players will compete for Produce Order cards, which reward Lira points for selling desirable produce in specific villages. Players track sold produce in each village using their Fulfillment Cards. The winner is the player who gains the most Lire by selling valuable produce, gaining popularity in the villages, and fulfilling Produce Orders.

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In the year 2097, the entire Earth was enveloped in a cataclysmic shift in climate, plunging the globe into another ice age. Nearly 90% of the world’s population was eliminated, driving the survivors to band together into loose communities and tribes.

In Arctic Scavengers, you are the leader of a small tribe of survivors. Resources, tools, medicine, and mercenaries are all in scarce supply. You and your tribe are pitted against up to four other tribes in a fight for survival. Build up your tribe, skirmish against other players head-to-head, or even bluff your way to victory.

The player with the largest tribe at the end of the game is declared the winner!

Components:

• 144 cards:
  • 67 Mercenary cards
  • 36 Tool cards
  • 20 “Refugee” cards
  • 14 Contested Resources cards
  • 6 “Junk” cards
  • 1 setup / initiator card
• 1 junkyard mat
• 1 contested resources mat
• 1 rulebook

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Timeline: Diversity is a card game played using 110 cards. Each card depicts a historical event on both sides, with the year in which that event occurred on only one side. Players take turns placing a card from their hand in a row on the table. After placing the card, the player reveals the date on it. If the card was placed correctly with the date in chronological order with all other cards on the table, the card stays in place; otherwise the card is removed from play and the player takes another card from the deck.

The first player to get rid of all his cards by placing them correctly wins. If multiple players go out in the same round, then everyone else is eliminated from play and each of those players are dealt one more card for another round of play. If only one player has no cards after a bonus round, he wins; otherwise play continues until a single player goes out.

Timeline: Diversity can be combined with any other title in the Timeline series.

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I’m the Boss!: The Card Game, a version of Sid Sackson’s classic negotiation game I’m the Boss! that’s based on his original design of that game, is still all about negotiation, with players trying to end up with more money in hand than anyone else.

The game plays in rounds, and each round consists of a separate money-making deal. Each round, players play cards in clockwise order in turns to give them the right to a “cut” of the current deal, the value of which depends on the cards played. When a player has passed twice, he can no longer influence that round. After everyone has passed twice, the round ends, and points are totalled to calculate the value of that deal. Players then earn money for each “cut” or piece of the action that they have, which represents their share of that deal. While playing cards, players can negotiate in order to encourage other players to make plays that are favorable to them.

After a fixed number of such deals (rounds), the game ends, and the player who has the most money wins.

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In Spin Monkeys, one of four winners in Rio Grande Games’ 2009 game design competition, you are a monkey in the jungle when one day a wayward carnival makes a stop. You and your fellow monkeys jump in the bumper cars and away you go. You have no idea why there is fruit all over the arena floor, but you aim to grab as much of it for yourself as possible!

Game synopsis:

Spin Monkeys has each player starting on a junction at the edge of the board with a hand of 5 cards. The cards have 8 possible degrees of rotation from 45 to a full 360 degrees. On each turn players choose a card, rotate their monkey clockwise to the degree, then move one junction per played card in front of them. On the first turn you only go one junction, but as the game goes you can travel more junctions as you play more cards, picking up all the fruit you glide over, apples, oranges and bananas, leaving peels. Some cards have text that let you do special actions, like taking more fruit, or rotating during your movement. As you go faster, traveling more junctions per turn, it becomes harder to avoid running into the sides of the board or other monkeys. When you bump into the side of the board you lose cards, slowing you down. If you crash into another monkey you get to spin them, and steal a piece of fruit. After you play your hand, you get 5 new cards to direct your monkey with. Game goes until only one kind of fruit is left on the board. Most points in fruit wins!

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Defenders of the Realm: Battlefields is set in the world of Richard Launius’ Defenders of the Realm, but is a stand-alone, non-cooperative game in which players compete against one another either one-on-one, two-on-one, or two-on-two. One side represents the Dark Lord’s invading army, while the other plays the heroes defending the realm.

Fourteen battlefield cards are included in the game, and three are laid out at random over which the sides will compete. Players take turns playing cards onto one of the battlefields in play in order to build up enough strength to claim that battlefield card. (Players hold seven cards with two players, five cards with four, and eight vs. four/four with three.)

Each battlefield card bears a special power that the winner of that card receives as a reward, such as “Remove all cards from one battlefield”, “Choose the next battlefield to activate”, and “Force the loser to give up one won battle”.

The first team to claim any five battlefields or three battlefields of the same color wins.

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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.

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In Rise of the Zombies, a fast-paced card game of zombie survival, players play Location cards to form a path from the Safe House to the Rescue Helicopter, while fighting off hordes of zombies. The players must also play fast because they are racing a real-world timer. If time expires, the Survivors are left behind and die.

Players play cards during a common “Survivor Turn”. At the start of the Survivor Turn, all players can discard and draw until the number of cards in their hands is equal to their Hand Sizes. There are no player turns. Declare what you are doing, which card you are playing, and which zombie you are attacking, and roll dice. This simulates the chaos of combat. Most cards can be used to perform more than one function. You can perform as many actions during the Survivor Turn as your cards can support. You can even trade weapons and items with other Survivors in your Location.

Once all players have resolved their actions, the Zombies get to attack.

The game is co-opish… how you play the game is up to you. You don’t gain anything by having other Survivors die, but if you spend too much time trying to help others, it might cost you your own survival.

Help them? Leave them behind? It’s all up to you.

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P.I. is a pure deduction game, with players competing in three consecutive mini-games in order to see who’s got the best chops in terms of solving their cases.

Each mini-game plays out the same way. To start, you receive in secret one suspect card (out of 12), one crime card (out of 10), and one location card (out of 14); this set of information represents the case that the player to your left must solve. The game board shows fourteen locations arranged so that each location touches a few others; each location has space for a suspect and crime tile. Shuffle the suspect tiles (12, plus two “no suspect”) and the crime tiles (10, plus four “no crime”), then place one face up in each location. Each suspect, crime and location is included in a deck of evidence cards, and nine evidence cards are revealed.

On a turn, a player either places an investigator, chooses an evidence card, or attempts to solve her case. When you place an investigator in a location, the player to your right looks at his case cards, then places a disc on this space for each case card he holds that matches the suspect, crime or location in this space. Additionally, he places a cube on this space for each suspect, crime or location that’s adjacent to this space.

When you choose an evidence card, the player to your right places a disc on the matching tile if the card matches one of the case cards he holds, places a cube on the matching tile if this tile is adjacent to a tile matching one of the case cards he holds, or places nothing if you’ve made a wild-eyed guess and the tile isn’t adjacent to anything.

To attempt to solve the case, you place a black token on your guesses. If wrong, you’re penalized two points and continue play next turn. If right, you receive 7, 5, 3 or 1 points depending on how many others have solved their cases in earlier rounds.

The mini-game ends once everyone has solved their case or only one case remains unsolved. All used investigators are removed from play, then the board and cards are reset for the next mini-case. Each player has only five investigators total, so use them wisely!

Whoever has the most points after three mini-cases wins.

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Serenissima is the new Ystari edition of the 1996 game (Méditerranée in France). The rules have been updated and the game is more fluid.

In Serenissima players represent a merchant family during the Renaissance. Players attempt to balance the need of trading and open commerce versus the cut-throat economic piracy of the day. Players create a fleet of ships to purchase and move various commodities around the Mediterranean while also keeping well manned ships to attack and defend against other player’s fleets.

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