New to Games? 19 - Shut Up & Sit Down

Las Vegas

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!

Jaipur, capital of Rajasthan. You are one of the two most powerful traders in the city. But that’s not enough for you, because only the merchant with two Seals of Excellence will have the privilege of being invited to the Maharaja’s court. You are therefore going to have to do better than your direct competitor by buying, exchanging and selling at better prices, all while keeping an eye on both your camel herds.

A card game full of surprises for seasoned traders!

The players take the role of courtesans of the Nippon emperor and take on the role of caring for his Giant Panda by growing a bamboo plantation.

Their mission: to farm parcels of land, irrigate them, and grow green, yellow or pink bamboo. In turn, they see what the weather brings and perform two actions from among those offered to them: get a new plot of land or irrigation channel, grow bamboo, feed the panda or draw an objective card.

The game ends when a player has completed 7 to 9 objectives (depending on the number of players). The player who gets the best score by adding the total value of their completed objective wins the game.

“Ugungu!” howled the caveman, a genius of his day. Club in hand, he stomped his feet meaningfully until his tribemates lifted the giant stone block. Thus, the first monument was born.

Club your tribemates to architectural domination! Ugg-Tect is a hilarious game of prehistoric architecture in which two teams, made of up to four player each, race to complete stone-aged structures. Leading each team is the charismatic ugg-tect, who must guide his workers to victory using nothing but a simple vocabulary of primitive grunts, a series of exaggerated gestures, and his trusty club.

Monikers is available exclusively through http://www.monikersgame.com/.

Monikers is a dumb party game for smart people. A game about naming the most inappropriate people and things you can imagine.

We’ve taken the basic formula from the classic guessing game Celebrity and tried to perfect it. The result: 400 of the weirdest, most interesting names we could think up over years of playtesting with friends.

Pairs is a “New Classic Pub Game” designed by James Ernest and Paul Peterson. You can play with 2 to 8 players, the rules are very simple, and each game takes about 5 minutes.

Pairs is a press-your-luck game. Each round, players take turns deciding whether to take a card or fold. Folding gets you some points, but catching a pair could get you a lot more points (and points are bad.) The first player to reach a target score loses the game.

Las Vegas

Roll For It!

Trains and Stations

Lords of Vegas

Gravwell: Escape from the 9th Dimension

Jaipur

Takenoko

Ugg-Tect

Monikers

Pairs

Feeds