New to Games? 18 - Shut Up & Sit Down

Sheriff of Nottingham

The Sheriff of Nottingham is a fun and engaging game for all where each player will have the chance to step into the shoes of the Sheriff himself! Other players, acting as Merchants will attempt to bring their goods into the city for profit. Beware though, while many may act as honest merchants, there is always the possibility of contraband being smuggled into the city!

Experience Nottingham in a whole new way! Declare your goods, deal with the Sheriff and secure victory in a fun-filled and exciting adventure!

In this management game you’ll have to build your own gigantic, coal-powered amusement park and make it the largest and most profitable in the region. By constructing the three-dimensional, beautifully designed rides, you will see your park grow right before your eyes.

But as owners of those fantastic steam park, building attractions won’t be enough: you’ll also need to manage your employees, invest in advertising in order to attract and please the different kinds of guests visiting your park, and, above all, keep the dirt you park produces under strict control!

Choose your strategy well! Build Stands to attract more Visitors, or Toilets to keep the Dirt under control. Whatever decision you take, take it quickly: the less time you spend planning, the more ??time you’ll have to maintain you Park. Thanks to a clever, original action-choosing mechanic, winning a game of Steam Park is as much a matter of being the best… as of being the fastest!

ILLEGAL is a crazy, offbeat party game for 5 to 9 players where participants each take on the role of an illegal dealer. The game is accessible to casual as well as expert gamers, and has a mature theme. The rules of ILLEGAL are simple, but the game will challenge your skills in negotiation, misdirection, discretion, charisma, and persuasion. The more you play, the more you will learn to expand and master these skills. Each game lasts about half an hour, and is packed with intense exchanges, interactions and a lot of humour. Launch into this risqué adventure! Dare to become one of these offbeat dealers and get a good laugh with your friends.

WITNESS THE CRAZIEST CAMEL RACE OF ALL TIME, AS THINGS REALLY GO TOPSY-TURVY WHEN CAMELS STACK UP AND ENTIRE PYRAMIDS TURN UPSIDE DOWN.

As members of Egyptian high society, you gather in the desert with one simple goal: to gain the most money by backing the right camel to win a leg or even the entire race. However, in this race, it’s not just the lucky ones who can beat the odds. Reading the dynamics of the race and having a good sense of timing is just as important when it comes to backing the right camels and taking the victory.

Place your bids wisely and decide when it is time to strike, and maybe – just maybe – with a little bit of timing and a lot of luck, your bid will pay off!

Have you ever considered that our minds are positively brimming with all sorts of random information? Soap brands, pop songs, sports teams…the list is endless! Normally, it’s easy to give an example of a dog breed, a frozen food, or a fairy tale character – but be warned; you’ll find that your brain works a little differently under pressure!

Anomia is simple. Players flip cards in turn until the symbols on two players’ cards match. Matching players must race to give an example of the category on their opponent’s card. Whoever blurts out a correct answer first wins their opponent’s card, and drawing continues. Sounds easy, right? Think again! Wild cards create unexpected matches, and face-offs can cascade when you lose a card, revealing a new match. Pay attention – it could be your turn at any time!

Fast moving and hilarious, Anomia will have everyone roaring with laughter as they try to beat each other to the punch! Winner of multiple awards, including the Mensa Select Seal, ASTRA’s Best Toys for Kids, Major Fun’s Party and Word Games Awards, Dr. Toys Best Vacation Products, and the National Parenting Seal of Approval.

Developer Stefan Brück at alea describes Las Vegas as “an easy, dice-rolling, fun-and-luck game with a lot of interaction and ‘schadenfreude'”. Who doesn’t love schadenfreude? (Well, other than those being schadened, I suppose…)

In more detail, Las Vegas includes six cardboard casino mats, one for each side of a normal six-sided die. For each mat, players draw money cards until at least $50k is showing, but the amount may end up being a lot more, making that casino more desirable.

Each player has eight dice of a different color, which they take turns rolling. When you roll your dice, you can choose to place them on the relevant casino cards; for example, a die showing a 1 will be placed on the casino mat marked “1”. You must place at least one die per turn, although you may place more. All players take turns doing this until all the dice have been used. Finally, the player with the most dice on each casino card takes the money associated with it. In case of a tie, the next non-tied player takes the highest-valued money card at that casino.

Las Vegas rates a 1 out of 10 on alea’s difficulty scale.

Roll For It! is a casual, family-friendly dice and card game. Each player starts the game with six dice of a single color, and three target cards are laid face-up on the table. Players take turns doing the following: On a turn, a player rolls all of her dice not already on cards, then places any dice that match the targets on the corresponding cards. (Alternatively, before taking her turn, a player can first choose to reclaim all of her dice from all cards.)

If the player now fulfills the target with her dice – e.g., a pair of 3s, a quartet of 6s, or a specific combination of numbers – she claims the card, takes back her dice (and returns any other dice on the card to their owner), then places a new card on the table. Each card is worth a certain number of points. The first player to earn forty or more points wins!

There are two sets of Roll For It! available — the red set comes with translucent dice and the purple set comes with pearl dice. There are no duplicate cards between the sets. Each set allows play for 2-4 players, but when they are combined, up to eight players can compete in the same game of Roll For It!

In Trains and Stations, a new take on train games, players must make deliveries, develop buildings, and profit from their decisions while working with and against other players. Will you focus on establishing mining operations in an attempt to gain a monopoly on coal, silver and gold? Or perhaps you will focus on laying tracks across the landscape and helping other players move their goods – taking your cut, of course. Every game will evolve differently with unique twists and turns as you control the movement of goods across the game map!

You and your opponents represent powerful developers in a burgeoning Nevada city. You will earn money and prestige by building the biggest and most profitable casinos on “The Strip,” the town’s backbone of dust and sin. You start with nothing but parking lots and dreams, but from there you build, sprawl, reorganize and gamble your way to victory. Score the most points investing in the most profitable development companies and putting the best bosses in control of the richest casinos. Put your dollars on the line . . . it’s time to roll!

The game board is broken into 8 different areas, each consisting of a number of empty ‘lots’. Players build lots by paying money and placing a die of the value matching the one shown on the lot’s space onto the lot, along with a casino tile of one of 7 colors. Adjoining lots of the same color are considered a single casino. The casino’s boss is the player whose die value is higher than any other in the casino. On each players turn, players turn over a new card representing a new lot they get. The card also is one of the casino colors. Any built casinos of the matching color will score both money and VP. Money is earned for each lot in the casino, where each lot may be owned by a different player. VP goes only to the casino’s owner. Players can expand their casinos; try to take over casinos owned by other players; make deals to trade lots, casinos and money; or gamble in opponents’ casinos to make more money. Ultimately, though, only victory points matter, and that means making yourself boss of the biggest casinos.

After being pulled through a black hole, four spaceships find themselves in a dimension with physics never before encountered and without fuel. By mining and collecting basic elements from the space dust and asteroids in the area, you can muster just enough thrust to move your ship. But in this bizarre dimension, gravity is not working like how you’ve been taught. Your ship will typically travel towards the nearest object… which is usually another ship… and those ships are moving. Sometimes forwards, and sometimes backwards. It’s a real mind-bender!

Time is running out to save your crew and your ship! As a grim reminder of the cost of failing to escape, the frozen hulks of dead spacecraft litter the escape route. But with careful cardplay, you can slingshot past these derelict craft and be the first to escape from the Gravwell!

Sheriff of Nottingham

Steam Park

Illegal

Camel Up

Anomia

Las Vegas

Roll For It!

Trains and Stations

Lords of Vegas

Gravwell: Escape from the 9th Dimension

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