Three great games from acclaimed designers Stefan Feld, Martin Wallace, and Vlaada Chvatil...! Each occupies its own space and has different, interesting mechanics; the lot has been curated to provide an easy pickup for jumpstarting a game night, or breathing some life into an old collection.
Please let me know if you have any questions, thanks- I want you to be satisfied!
Descriptions:
The bonfires are sources of light, energy and warmth created by the guardians of light in order to brighten the cities on the otherwise dark planet. The residents of the cities however, took the bonfires for granted and exploited them for their personal gain. Disappointed the guardians of light retreated and let the bonfires extinguish. The citizens could no longer live in the now dark cities and were forced to leave.
You are a group of gnomes living close to the cities and you also need and the light of the bonfires. Missing it now, you try yourself to visit the cities and learn how to ignite the bonfires once again: You must visit the guardians of light on their holy islands and ask for tasks to prove your good will. For each completed task, they will re-ignite one extinguished bonfire. Whoever manages to earn the greatest trust from the guardians and manages to brighten their city the most will win the game.
The engine for Bonfire are the three-coloured tiles you will be puzzling onto your player board. When you manage to place the same colours adjacent to one another, you will receive more action tiles of that specific kind. This will allow you to specialize in certain types of actions and pursue different strategies.
You can use the tiles to perform the following actions:
- Move your ship to an island
- Receive a task from an island by spending two resources
- Invite a guardian of light into your city
- Trigger a procession of guardians through your city and gain resources.
- Add a landscape tile to your city (this is where the processions take place)
- Recruit a gnome gaining a special ability or victory points
- Find support by the last bonfire, gaining portals, resources or action tiles
You will play in turn order until a fixed number of tasks has been solved, after which each player has 5 more turns. During final scoring, you will receive points for your completed tasks (the bonfires) and any improvements made there (portals, landscapes or guardians).
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Mythotopia is a deck-building game set in a medieval fantasy world that draws on the mechanisms found in A Few Acres of Snow with players customizing their personal card decks by drafting cards and expanding into provinces.
The game board is composed of forty provinces, each with its own card. At the start of play, you receive a number of Province cards at random, then mark your initial positions with town pieces. Shuffle these Province cards with a set of five Initial cards to form your starting deck, then draw a hand of five cards. The game includes 27 Improvement cards, 16 of which are drawn and placed on display; these cards will be drafted during the game.
Mythotopia has nine variable victory point (VP) cards, four of which are drawn at random for a game; place these cards on display with three fixed VP cards, then place a number of VP counters on each card. The fixed VP cards give points for building cities, roads and castles, while the variable ones may change the board situation by adding dragons, runestones and citadels. Alternatively they may grant VPs for controlling a certain number of sea areas, for successfully attacking other players, and for building cities/roads. As these VP cards vary from game to game, they alter the balance between developmental and aggressive play.
On your turn, perform two actions, then refill your hand to five cards. Nine actions are possible, such as buying armies or ships (after starting with six armies and two ships), placing these armies or ships, drafting Improvement cards (for a cost of one gold), placing cards in reserve (to use them on a future turn), permanently removing cards from your deck, using a card for its specific action, and invading a neighboring province. To invade, you must play the Province card from which you attack as well as military cards and food; invading must be the first of your two actions, so if you're placing armies to prepare for an attack, opponents have the chance to prepare defenses.
Three resources are used in Mythotopia: food to feed invading armies, stone to build cities, roads and castles, and gold to buy armies, ships and Improvement cards. Most provinces contain one resource type, and gaining that province gives you that resource. You can turn towns into cities, which increases the number of cards you can keep in your reserve. You can connect provinces with roads, which allows you to substitute one card for another on the same network in addition to moving armies freely between those provinces. Castles increase the defensive value of a province.
All of these constructions (cities, roads, castles) give you victory points, as does taking control of a province. Additional points are available via the VP cards, with you taking VP counters when you meet the condition on a card. For example, building a road gives you two VPs, but if the "Roadside Inns" VP card is in play, then you can expend an extra gold to gain an additional VP. You can lose VPs if you lose control of a province, but you never lose VP counters. The game ends after four of the seven VP cards have been emptied, and the player with the most VPs wins.
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Space Alert is a cooperative team survival game. Players become crew members of a small spaceship scanning dangerous sectors of the galaxy. The missions last just 10 real-time minutes (hyperspace jump, sector scan, hyperspace jump back) and the only task the players have is to protect their ship.
During play, the central computer will announce the presence of various threats on one of the supplied 10 minute soundtracks that also acts as a game timer. The threats vary from space battleships and interceptors to different interstellar monsters and abominations, asteroids or even intruders and malfunctions on the spaceship. Players have to agree who will take care of which task and coordinate their actions (moving around the ship, firing weapons, distributing energy, using battlebots to deal with intruders, launching guided missiles, etc.) in real time to defend the ship. Only a well-working team can survive 10 minutes and make the jump back to safety.
The game offers several difficulty levels, huge variability and a unique experience for one to five player teams. One mission lasts only about 30 minutes, including setup and evaluation.