Games for Two 21 - Shut Up & Sit Down

Ticket to Ride: Rails and Sails

The world is changing fast. All over the world, railroad tracks bridge countries and continents, and journeys that would take weeks can now be completed in a matter of days. Seas are no longer obstacles: huge steamers carrying hundreds of passengers sail across the oceans. From Los Angeles to Sydney, from Murmansk to Dar Es Salaam, Ticket to Ride: Rails & Sails takes you on a railroad adventure across the entire globe. All aboard, and get ready for an unforgettable journey!

Ticket to Ride Rails & Sails is the new installment in this best-selling train adventure series. Players collect cards of various types (trains and ships) that enable them to claim railway and sea routes on a nicely illustrated double-sided board, featuring the world map on one side and the great lakes of North America on the other. Elegantly simple and fast to learn, it takes the Ticket to Ride series to the next level! Veteran railroaders as well as family and friends will be delighted to set sail to the new horizons of Ticket to Ride…

On your turn in Zum Kuckuck!, you take one standing stick and put it on the nest. If both ends of the stick have the same color, you may choose to lay an egg on it. Otherwise, you take another stick whose top color is the same as the hiding color of the previous one, up to three sticks. After laying an egg or putting the third stick with different colors, your turn ends. There are penalties for a stick touching the ground or eggs falling from the nest.

The first person to lay all of their eggs can then put the cuckoo on the nest and win the game.

In Haru Ichiban, or “The Wind of Spring”, two apprentice gardeners compete to use this wind to their advantage to create harmonious patterns of their blossoms upon the lilypads.

Each gardener has eight flower buds numbered 1-8, with three of those buds being in hand at the start of a round. Sixteen lilypads are placed in the 5×5 pond, with one of them turned to its dark side.

Each gardener simultaneously chooses a reveals a bud, with the player with the lower number becoming the Little Gardener and the other becoming the Grand Gardener. In order:

The Little Gardener places one of his colored blossoms on the dark lilypad.
The Grand Gardener places one of his colored blossoms on the lilypad of his choice.
The Little Gardener moves one lilypad to an adjacent space, possibly moving other lilypads at the same time.
The Grand Gardener flips one unoccupied lilypad to its dark side.
Each gardener takes a new bud.

As soon as a gardener creates a specific pattern with blossoms of his color, he scores points: 1 point for a 2×2 square, 2 points for a horizontal or vertical row of four blossoms, 3 points for a diagonal row of four blossoms, and 5 points for a row of five blossoms. If the gardener has fewer than five points, the gardeners reset the board and start a new round with three buds of their eight; if the gardener has five or more points, the game ends and he wins!

During the medieval goings-on around Orléans, you must assemble a following of farmers, merchants, knights, monks, etc. to gain supremacy through trade, construction and science in medieval France.

In the city of Orléans and the area of the Loire, you can take trade trips to other cities to acquire coveted goods and build trading posts. You need followers and their abilities to expand your dominance by putting them to work as traders, builders, and scientists. Knights expand your scope of action and secure your mercantile expeditions. Craftsmen build trading stations and tools to facilitate work. Scholars make progress in science, and last but not least it cannot hurt to get active in monasteries since with monks on your side you are much less likely to fall prey to fate.

In Orléans, you will always want to take more actions than possible, and there are many paths to victory. The challenge is to combine all elements as best as possible with regard to your strategy.

France 1831: In a remote corner of Ardèche, the little village of Peyrebeille sees numerous travelers pass through. A family of greedy rural farmers is determined to make its fortune and has devised a diabolical stratagem to achieve this goal: Invest in an inn so they can rob traveling guests, allowing them to get rich without arousing the suspicions of the police! Whether or not their plan will work out, one thing is certain: Not every guest will leave this inn alive….

In The Bloody Inn, you are one of the competitive innkeepers, bent on amassing the most wealth. Unfortunately, your morals hinder you from robbing your guests… at least while they’re alive. Fortunately, your scruples have no qualms with murder. Of course, you can’t just have dead bodies piled everywhere: It’s bad for business, and besides, what if the police drop by for a visit? It’s all so much work! Perhaps you could employ some of the guests as accomplices? Everyone has a price, after all!

In the wonderful land of Arkadia, a very old king has no heir. He organizes a tournament to offer his throne to the bravest adventurer of the kingdom. Up to five finalists will wander seven worlds full of surprises…

In the drawing game Loony Quest, players study challenging level cards, then try to replicate the outline to meet targets and avoid obstacles on their tracing sheets. Once finished, players place their sheets on top of the level card to see whether the drawings line up with the targets they meant to hit — or avoid. Largely inspired by video games, Loony Quest players discover various worlds, play with 3D and 2D levels, run into loony monsters — Loonies — and big bosses, trigger special stages, collect bonuses, use penalties on opponents, and gather as many Xperience points as possible to win.

Loony Quest features the same basic gameplay as in Doodle Quest, but has been developed differently by the publisher.

The woods are old-growth, dappled with sunlight. Delicious mushrooms beckon from every grove and hollow. Morels may be the most sought-after in these woods, but there are many tasty and valuable varieties awaiting the savvy collector. Bring a basket if you think it’s your lucky day. Forage at night and you will be all alone when you stumble upon a bonanza. If you’re hungry, put a pan on the fire and bask in the aroma of chanterelles as you sauté them in butter. Feeling mercantile? Sell porcini to local aficionados for information that will help you find what you seek deep in the forest.

Morels, a strategic card game for two players, uses two decks: a Day Deck (84 cards) that includes ten different types of mushrooms as well as baskets, cider, butter, pans, and moons, and a smaller Night Deck (8 cards) of mushrooms to be foraged by moonlight. Each mushroom card has two values: one for selling and one for cooking. Selling two or more like mushrooms grants foraging sticks that expand your options in the forest (that is, the running tableau of eight face-up cards on the table), enabling offensive or defensive plays that change with every game played. Cooking sets of three or more like mushrooms – sizzling in butter or cider if the set is large enough – earns points toward winning the game. With poisonous mushrooms wielding their wrath and a hand-size limit to manage, card selection is a tricky proposition at every turn.

Following each turn, one card from the forest moves into a decay pile that is available for only a short time. The Day Deck then refills the forest from the back, creating the effect of a walk in the woods in which some strategic morsels are collected, some are passed by, and others lay ahead.

In Quadropolis™ you enact the role of the Mayor of a modern city. You will need to define a global strategy to build your city according to your Inhabitants’ needs and outmatch your opponents, sending your Architects to have various buildings erected in your city. Each building allows you to score victory points. There are various types of buildings with different scoring patterns; many of them may be combined for better effect.

Will you be able to meet the challenge and become the most prestigious Mayor in history?

Under the trees, life is a breeze. Different colored trees will fill your arboretum and immerse you in a wonderful sense of freedom. Making the most beautiful arboretum is not an easy task and much planning is necessary in order to create wondrous paths.

Stronghold is a two-player game telling the story of a siege. Players take opposing sides: one has to defend the stronghold, and the other has to break into the castle as soon as possible. The game board represents the stronghold itself as well as the surrounding terrain, where enemy forces are placed and whence they proceed to the walls.

The defender has a small number of soldiers manning the walls, while the invader has an infinite legion of attacking creatures. A desperate fight takes place every single turn. The invaders build war machines, equip their soldiers, train them, and use black magic rituals to achieve victory. Meanwhile, defenders repair walls, build cannons, train soldiers, and do everything they can to hold the castle as long as possible.

If the invader manages to break into the castle before the end of seven rounds, they win; otherwise the defender wins.

This second edition of Stronghold features:

• Ten objective cards for the invader and ten hidden defense plan cards for the defender; each objective encourages the invader to consider a particular move, while each defense plan shows the defender different ways to surprise the invader • Shorter gameplay than the first edition, with attackers being placed on the board during set-up • Gameplay limited to two players only, replacing the team rules in the first edition • Streamlined rules and an enhanced rulebook • Improved components, such as a larger game board and new better artwork

Ticket to Ride: Rails and Sails

Go Cuckoo

Haru Ichiban

Orléans

The Bloody Inn

Loony Quest

Fungi

Quadropolis

Arboretum

Stronghold (2nd edition)

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