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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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tallon.simmons 30 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

sahmreviews 17 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

philryuh 3 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?

7 points | unvote | 2 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

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

tallon.simmons 4 days ago

You Are What You Play - State of the Collection 2019

A Brief Synopsis

I've always loved gaming - though, in the days past, it was games of the digital format that I enjoyed. Only ever playing anything of an analogue nature when my great-grandmother insisted (side note: she always won, and usually cheated to get there. But, memories of chocolate covered graham crackers, and card games with her will always be cherished).

So, a few years ago, I shifted into a career that requires me to stare at a screen all day. That fact, combined with other external forces of life, began to cause my enjoyment of video games to diminish. I then picked up Yo-Yoing (or 'Throwing' as it were) as a hobby for a while. Yeah, seriously, it's a thing. And it's really cool! Check out r/Throwers on Reddit if you're interested!

Then, about a year ago, a coworker introduced me to designer board games in the form of Tiny Epic Galaxies. It was confusing, and I had no idea what I was doing, but I was intrigued nonetheless. I began to research games, watch how to play videos, and so on. This led to the purchase of my first modern board game (which I'll reveal in the list below); and from that point on, there was no turning back.

All of the being said, I play mostly solo. Though, my wife greatly enjoys gaming when our girls give us the time :). My tastes lean towards the (quite) heavy euro end of the spectrum, with a couple of notable exceptions.

Now then, without further ado, and in no particular order...

The Games

1. Scythe

Scythe holds a special place in my heart, it was the first designer board game I purchased, and I've played it well over a hundred times with my wife. It's my number one game of all time, and I don't see that ever changing.

2. Above and Below

Above and Below is a neat little "worker placement" game; where you are able to send your workers off on adventures that are randomly selected from an encounter book. This game was added to the collection primarily for our 5 year old daughter.

3. Megaland

Another Ryan Laukat title; this one I picked up just a week or two ago during a sale at Target. A light, push your luck game, with great art and an interesting theme. This is our aforementioned 5 year old's new favorite game.

4. My Little Scythe

Another game for the 5 year old. This one though, is really a great simplification of the Scythe formula, and is great fun for both young and old.

5. Robinson Crusoe

This doesn't hit the table terribly often. And, when it does, the game usually ends in loss ha! But, that doesn't really matter; the stories this game can tell are fantastic. A brutal, narrative masterpiece.

6. Spirit Island

One of my wife's favorites. An extraordinarily thematic, brain-burning co-op, with a massive amount of replayability.

7. Teotihuacan City of Gods

I've only played this a few times solo at this point, but there's something about this game that I greatly enjoy. An unwind with a cup of coffee type game for me.

8. A Distant Plain

My first foray into the beloved COIN series - A Distant Plain is a thought provoking look at one of the more controversial wars of our time. One of my favorites, and surely not the last COIN that will land on my shelf.

9. Brass: Lancashire

Brilliant; Highly interactive; with an excellent unofficial solo bot. Plus, the Roxley reprint art and components are lovely.

10. Gaia Project

The art here is not my favorite, and the graphic design leaves one wanting, but this is still one of the greatest games I've played. Also, it includes quite possibly the best solo implementation in any game, ever; Automa Factory knocked it out of the park with this one.

11. Feudum

A very heavy, rough around the edges game. With quite a few questionable design/graphic design choices. That being said, I still adore this game. The barrier to entry is rather high, but worth it, in my humble opinion.

12. Root

What can I say about Root, that hasn't been said before? A cutthroat strategy game wrapped in great art. 10/10 would revolt again.

13. Agricola

This game is still a masterpiece after all these years.

14. The Gallerist

One of Lacerda's 'lighter' games. Mechanically simple; strategically brutal; just one more reason he's my favorite designer.

15. Lisboa

Lisboa has you interacting with the nobles of the time, to rebuild Lisbon Portugal after an earthquake, tsunami, and fires ravage the city in the late 1700's. This game is my #2 of all time. Only slightly trailing Scythe.

16. Too Many Bones: Undertow

I acquired this only a week ago, and have played it > 5 times so far. A fantastically fun adventure with the best components I've seen in a game. Now I just need the rest of the Too Many Bones collection...

17. The Coin Tribes' Revolt: Boudica's Rebellion Against Rome

A COIN type game in micro form. Currently only available as a print and play - it does sounds as though it may get published at some point. Highly recommend for fans of the COIN series looking for something similar, that plays in a much shorter time.

18. Not Pictured

Sushi GO!
Machi Koro: Bright Lights, Big City
Deep Sea Adventure

More Pictures!

6 points | unvote | 7 comments

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Mentioned On Reddit

Terra Mystica

Terra Mystica: Merchants of the Seas expansion has got a BGG listing

9 minutes ago

This looks awesome! Very excited. I’m so happy to see new content and support for Terra Mystica still.

Join Discussion

Hansa Teutonica

The accessibility of Scythe - great accessible design in an inaccessible game

77 minutes ago

Here I Stand, the keys on player cards go out on the board as you conquer them, and show the new VP and card draw values. First pub in 2006 vs Eclipse 2010. Curious to know an earlier game that did it. Pre-dates Hansa Teutonica (which I STILL need to play) mentioned below (2009).

Best image I can find: https://boardgamegeek.com/image/2737335/here-i-stand

Those square markers at the bottom (last open one reading "2 Cards 9 VP") get placed on the board as you conquer keys, and returned to your card if they're taken away.

Join Discussion

Eclipse Board Game

The accessibility of Scythe - great accessible design in an inaccessible game

77 minutes ago

Best image I can find: https://boardgamegeek.com/image/2737335/here-i-stand

Those square markers at the bottom (last open one reading "2 Cards 9 VP") get placed on the board as you conquer keys, and returned to your card if they're taken away.

Join Discussion

Here I Stand Board Game

The accessibility of Scythe - great accessible design in an inaccessible game

77 minutes ago

Best image I can find: https://boardgamegeek.com/image/2737335/here-i-stand

Those square markers at the bottom (last open one reading "2 Cards 9 VP") get placed on the board as you conquer keys, and returned to your card if they're taken away.

Join Discussion

Legends of Andor

New to this hobby! Where to get started?

2 hours ago

Saint Petersburg is a great medium-weight engine builder that works well at 2-4 players. Islebound is a tonne of fun too. And if you really like engine builders, you've got to check out Splendor.

Regarding a fun game that can be played at 1 or more players, check out Legends of Andor. It's a tight puzzle that needs to be solved, and although there is combat, it's not a hack and slash type game at all.

Also, if you're after a really tight 2-player game, definitely check out Targi.

Join Discussion

St. Petersburg

New to this hobby! Where to get started?

2 hours ago

Also, if you're after a really tight 2-player game, definitely check out Targi.

Join Discussion

Targi

New to this hobby! Where to get started?

2 hours ago

Also, if you're after a really tight 2-player game, definitely check out Targi.

Join Discussion

Splendor

New to this hobby! Where to get started?

2 hours ago

Also, if you're after a really tight 2-player game, definitely check out Targi.

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: $21.80(13% Off)
Designers: Ludovic Roudy, Bruno Sautter
Artists: Ludovic Roudy, Bruno Sautter
Publishers: Repos Production
Year Published: 2018

Mechanics:

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