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A Grand Voyage! The year is 1275, and Marco Polo has finally reached the court of Kublai Khan after four years of grueling travel over the Silk Road. Together with his father, Marco hoped to establish news trade routes to bring riches from the East back to Europe, and in The Voyages of Marco Polo , you will attempt to do the same. Players will attempt to recreate Marco Polo's famous journey over the Silk Road, playing as Marco and his father or one of their many associates from their travels, each with their own unique power. Collect points by completing contracts, visiting new cities, and reaching your final destination of Beijing and the court of Kublai Khan. Do you have what it takes to prosper? Find out in The Voyages of Marco Polo ! Preparing to Set Out The Voyages of Marco Polo is a Dice Placement game. At the beginning of each Round, players will roll their dice and then take turns placing those dice in space on the board for various effects. Some spaces have the same effect no matter the number on the die placed there, but some spaces have different effects depending on their result of the roll. Some spaces even require you commit multiple dice and take the action based on the lowest number rolled among the dice placed there. Placing dice is how players move their merchants down the trade routes and toward Beijing, gather money to pay for goods and their travels, acquire resources to fulfill their contracts. And, spaces are limited! Once another player has filled a space, you'll need to spend more resources in order to take the same action, potentially setting your plan back or forcing you to readjust. Plan well and choose your actions wisely, and you may just find yourself ahead of the pack. Multiple Strategies There are many decisions to be made from round to round, and there are multiple avenues to victory in any given game. The roads you take to victory can change from game to game thanks to the special power of your character and the unique city bonuses used for each. Unique Powers Each character has their own unique ability that can hugely impact your strategy as the game progresses. Raschid ad-Din allows you to choose the value of your dice rather than rolling them. Niccolo and Marco Polo give you an additional figure to move across the map and a camel at the beginning of every round. Take advantage of your special skills and leave your opponents in the dust! Different City Cards Every Game! With 31 different city cards, every voyage will be unique. Plan your route carefully as you seek to take advantage of the bonuses each city has to offer. At the beginning of each game, the city bonus cards will be drawn randomly from the deck, providing new strategic opportunities and incredible replayability.

Schotten Totten

A warm spring breeze flows through the valley as the birds begin to sing and the snow slowly melts away. Your precious village is slowly uncovered and the stone lines that define your property become visible. The earth is soft and the stones could easily roll just a bit into your neighbor's farm granting you the extra room your clan needs. No one will notice, right? Suddenly an arrow whizzes past your ear! It seems that your neighbor had the same idea and is now pushing stones to enlarge his property. Use your cards to create the best battle formations and defend your village. Claim enough stones to win the game!

Underwater Cities

Cryptid

You've studied the footage, connected the dots, and gathered what meagre evidence you could. You're close - soon the whole world will know the truth behind the Cryptid . A group of like-minded cryptozoologists have come together to finally uncover the elusive creature, but the glory of discovery is too rich to share. Without giving away some of what you know you will never succeed in locating the beast, but reveal too much and your name will be long forgotten! Cryptid is a unique deduction game of honest misdirection in which players must try to uncover information about their opponent's clues while throwing them off the scent of their own. Each player holds one piece of evidence to help them find the creature, and on their turn they can try to gain more information from their opponents. Be warned - give too much away and your opponents might beat you to the mysterious animal and claim the glory for themselves! The game includes a modular board, five clue books, and a deck of setup cards with hundreds of possible setups across two difficulty levels. It is also supported by an entirely optional digital companion, allowing for faster game setup and a near-infinite range of puzzles.

Fields of Arle

In the small East Frisian village of Arle on the verge of the 18th century, your family must take care of numerous tasks: dehydrate the moot, plow the farmland, and breed the animals. Improving your craftsmanship in the village and constructing the appropriate buildings will be invaluable. Turn by turn, assign various tasks to the members of your family while keeping an eye open for the changing seasons. Use your vehicles to trade resources with others and upgrade your goods. The fields of Arle await you!

Hanamikoji

Win the favor of the Geisha! Hanamikoji is a simple, yet deep game of careful consideration for two players. Each player takes the role of a restaurateur, attempting to curry the favor of the beloved geisha. Can you sequence your plays in thoughtful reflection to outmaneuver your opponent.? Find out in Hanamikoji ! Play Your Cards Right Gameplay is focused around the geisha, and the use of cards representing instruments of entertainment to sway them to your establishment. Playing the majority of a color's cards in a round will draw the matching geisha to your restaurant. However, each of your offerings must be planned in advance, as you can only present the geisha with gifts based on what offering tiles you have available. At the start of a player's turn, they draw a card from the deck and decide which of the four offerings to perform. Each player begins the round with the same four offering tiles available, and each tile must be used exactly once during the round to play or discard cards in certain patterns. Once each player has performed all four of their actions, the Victory Markers on each Geisha are moved toward whoever curried the most favor with the Geisha that round. If the two players tied on how much favor they curried, then the Victory Marker stays put. If at the end of a round a player has earned the favor of four Geisha or Geisha whose points total 11 or more, then that player wins the game!

The Estates

The City Council recently approved the zoning map for a new urban development - The Estates - featuring high-end infrastructure and a modern atmosphere for its citizens. Soon after, the banks awarded millions of dollars in loans to six real estate investment firms to help develop this new area. The zoning map for The Estates calls for two rows of four buildings each, located between the River and Main Street. The meadows on the other side of the River are to remain a recreational area for the City. But, with hopes of larger profits, investors and building tycoons entirely ignore the City Council's demands and begin developing three rows of buildings instead. The Mayor catches wind of the potential for profit and begins planning a new mansion in The Estates, which would double the value of one of the building rows! With some sketchy Building Permits, investors begin developing buildings on the other side of the River, beyond the designated building zone. However, the City Council takes rigorous steps to put an end to the racketeering with an ultimatum: as soon as the first two rows are completed, the buildings in the uncompleted row will be torn down, resulting in a huge loss for all who invested there. At the end of the day, the investor with the highest-valued buildings will come out on top! Contents: * 1 Game Board * 36 Floor Cubes * 12 Rooftops * 6 Company Certificates * 3 Building Permits * 1 Cancel Cube * 1 Mayor * 2 Linen Bags * 60 Checks * 1 Rulebook

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sahmreviews 9 hours ago

ReviewThrift Treasure: Ea$y Money (http://www.sahmreviews.com/2019/05/thrift-treasure-easy-money.html)

At first we thought this game was the classic we owned way back when. Then we realized that Ea$y Money was an entirely different game altogether!...

[Ea$y Money]

2 points | unvote | 0 comments

tallon.simmons 23 hours ago

How-To/DIYScythe - DIY Legendary Box Organizer

WARNING - MAJOR RISE OF FENRIS SPOILERS AHEAD

Okay, you have been warned.

I actually spent about 20ish hours creating a foam core insert for this at one point. It was my first large foam core project, and turned out rather well. But, I realized after making a couple more inserts, that I just really don't like foam core as a material.

So, with the help of my wife, I finally got around to reorganizing the box today - I used the following:

9 Art Bin containers from Joann Fabrics - factions
1 large square container from Dollar Tree - airship tiles, encounter cards, combat cards, etc.
5 drawstring bags - resources, coins, and various Rise of Fenris modules
1 of the Scythe boxes that shipped in the Legendary Box - faction and player mats
1 small box from Rise of Fenris - encounter tokens

I have the metal coins, realistic resources, and extended board in the box, and as you can see, it closes fully (my foam core insert however, did not ha).

[Scythe]

4 points | unvote | 4 comments

trentellingsen 3 days ago

BGANew Search Page!

I've gone through and made a bunch of filtering abilities for the search page! Let me know what you think!

https://www.boardgameatlas.com/search/?order_by=popularity&ascending=false

8 points | unvote | 4 comments

philryuh 2 days ago

Testing the Latest BGA Feature: Game Search Filters

Intro

As usual, Trent (u/trentellingsen) is rolling out new BGA features left and right and the newest addition is a filter for your game search. When you head over to "All Games" page you will now be greeted by this sweet lineup of filters:

Price
Discount Rate
Average User Rating
Minimum Player Count
Playtime
Mechanics
Categories
Year Published

The Test

A new feature is always in desperate need of repeated usage for some fine-tuning. For example, when Trent added this article feature a while back, I started interviewing artists/designers in the industry to kill two birds with one stone:

Creating unique content for BGA in my area of expertise and interest (when I play Root, it's 1/2 fawning over the art and 1/2 strategizing)
Highlighting the people behind the scenes of the board game industry (I've always wished for the artists to get more attention from the community)
Testing out the article feature

Three things, but you get the point. I've since published 8 interviews while enduring through every little annoyances and bugs that needed to be worked out with Trent, and there's still more to be done.

Trying Out the Filters

Now let's try a series of interesting combinations of filters! I'll present the results below and you can provide feedback in the comments section.

Test #1: Most Expensive & Best Rated Worker Placement Games

Price: $60+
Average User Rating: 4+ Stars
Mechanics: Worker Placement

1. Dogs of War

2. Clockwork Wars

3. Kanban: Driver's Edition

4. Dungeon Lords: Happy Anniversary

Test #2: Best Rated & 30%+ Discounted Modern Games

Discount: 30%+
Average User Rating: 4+ Stars
Published: 2015-2019

1. Brass: Birmingham

2. Teotihuacan: City of Gods

3. Spy Club

4. Reykholt

Test #3: Going on a Long Adventure with a Discounted Game

Discount: 20%+
Average User Rating: 3+ Stars
Playtime: Over 120 Min.
Categories: Adventure

1. Mage Knight

2. War of the Ring (Second Edition)

3. TIME Stories: Prophecy of Dragons Expansion

Test #4: Getting Way too Specific

Discount: 30%+
Average User Rating: 3+ Stars
Playtime: 45 Min. Max
Mechanics: Tile Placement, Set Collection

Lanterns: The Harvest Festival

Test #5: Cooperative + Area Control Games with Best Ratings

Average User Rating: 3+ Stars
Mechanics: Cooperative, Area Control

1. Spirit Island

2. Terraforming Mars

3. Space Alert

Conclusion

It's 12am and I'm running out of juice. Let me know in the comments what you think about the results!

How are the filters working out for you?

6 points | unvote | 2 comments

Shekinah 2 days ago

Deception: Murder in Hong Kong or Decrypto?

I'm board gaming on a budget and also extremely indecisive. I wanted to invest in a game that I could bring out during parties/get-togethers and one that none of my friends own yet. I've narrowed it down to these two, but have a hard time deciding. Which one do you think is better and why? Or is there another game that I completely missed that would be great for a few twenty-somethings to play?

I watched the Geek & Sundry video of Deception and immediately wanted to try it out for myself, but I've heard really great things about Decrypto from my friends.

(I'm one of those people that takes forever to buy something bc I like to look at all the reviews, prices, and options I have before I buy, so advice is greatly appreciated!)

[Decrypto, Deception: Murder in Hong Kong]

4 points | unvote | 0 comments

BGAForumBot 3 days ago

Game of the Week (Carcassonne)

This is an automated weekly post to talk about the game of the week. It chooses a random game from the top 100 on the popularity charts to hopefully get the most discussion from people who've played it. What do you think about Carcassonne. Do you like it, own it, play it all the time, dislike, best strategies, or anything related to it?

[Carcassonne]

5 points | unvote | 3 comments

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Mentioned On Reddit

Broom Service

/r/boardgames Daily Discussion and Game Recommendations (May 25, 2019)

4 minutes ago

Thanks for the suggestions! Glass Road is a great one. I’ve already been looking into it. Didn’t consider it from a role selection/“take that” point of view though. It just looked to me like a short, sharp Uwe with an interesting resource mechanic.

Broom Service I’ll have to check out!

Join Discussion

Glass Road

/r/boardgames Daily Discussion and Game Recommendations (May 25, 2019)

4 minutes ago

Broom Service I’ll have to check out!

Join Discussion

Spirit Island

Most Overrated Board Games?

28 minutes ago

I think this is fair to say. Just because a game is overrated doesn’t mean it’s bad. I don’t think that Gloomhaven is as good as Spirit Island so that means I by definition think it’s overrated.

Join Discussion

Gloomhaven

Most Overrated Board Games?

28 minutes ago

Join Discussion

Space Base

/r/boardgames Daily Discussion and Game Recommendations (May 26, 2019)

51 minutes ago

Deception and Quacks look like great additions based on the games you’ve mentioned! One more to check out is Space Base. It’s a tabletop game where players are involved during everyone else’s turn. Definitely a different vibe than what else you got going, but it’s light and involved.

Join Discussion

Onitama

/r/boardgames Daily Discussion and Game Recommendations (May 26, 2019)

63 minutes ago

Based off your Hive and Santorini likings, maybe Onitama and/or Quarto. Both are abstracts and have aspects where you are giving the other player the win. Onitama is chess-like. Quarto is “four-in-a-row” where each player chooses their opponents’ piece for them to place.

Join Discussion

Quarto

/r/boardgames Daily Discussion and Game Recommendations (May 26, 2019)

63 minutes ago

Join Discussion

Aquarius

What are the best KIDS travel-sized games?

68 minutes ago

How old are the kids in question? My younger ones love Gamewright card games like Sleeping Queens, Duck Duck Bruce or Rat a Tat Cat. Aquarius has variants for kids. Love Letter, Spot It, or Kingdomino are favorites for my middle graders. Hive, Braverats and Schotten Totten are also fun 2-players.

Join Discussion

Featured Game

User Ratings
(6 Reviews)
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Just One

Players: 3 - 7
Playtime: 20 - 30 minutes
Minimum Age:8
Price: $21.29(15% Off)
Designers: Ludovic Roudy, Bruno Sautter
Artists: Ludovic Roudy, Bruno Sautter
Publishers: Repos Production
Year Published: 2018

Mechanics:

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Thrift Treasure: Ea$y Money

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