Set collection

Raiders of the North Sea

Raiders of the North Sea is set in the central years of the Viking Age. As Viking warriors, players seek to impress the Chieftain by raiding unsuspecting settlements. Players will need to assemble a crew, collect provisions and journey north to plunder gold, iron and livestock. There is glory to be found in battle, even at the hands of the Valkyrie. So gather your warriors, it’s raiding season!

Aim of the Game

The aim of Raiders of the North Sea is to impress the Chieftain by having the most Victory Points (VP) at the game’s end. Victory Points are gained primarily by raiding Settlements, taking Plunder and making Offerings to the Chieftain. How players use their Plunder is also vital to their success. The game ends when either only 1 Fortress raid remains, all Valkyrie are removed, or all Offerings have been made.

Gameplay Overview

Proceeding clockwise from the starting player, each player takes his turn in full. On his turn, a player may choose to Work or Raid. Players continue to take turns until 1 of the 3 end-game conditions has been met. Regardless of choices, each turn follows the same pattern:

1. Place Worker and resolve its action
2. Pick up a different Worker and resolve its action

Working
Having a good Crew and enough provisions are vital to successful raiding. So before making any raids, players will need to do some work to prepare their Crew and collect supplies. This is all done in the Village, at the bottom of the board. There are 8 different buildings, with various actions. Players must first place their one and only Worker in an available building (where there is no Worker present), before picking up a different Worker from a different building (where there is a Worker present).

Raiding
Once players have hired enough Crew and collected Provisions, they may choose to raid on their turn. To raid a Settlement (Harbour, Outpost, Monastery or Fortress), players need to meet 3 requirements. They must have:

1. A large enough Crew.
2. Enough Provisions (and Gold for Monasteries/Fortresses).
3. The required Worker colour.

Raiding offers various ways of scoring (Military Strength, Plunder, Valkyrie, etc.). This is also how Grey and White Workers enter the game.

End of the Game

There are 3 ways the game can end:

1. There is only 1 set of Plunder left in the Fortresses (1 of the 6 Fortress raids remains).
2. The Offering Draw Pile has been emptied.
3. There are no Valkyrie left on the board.

Yokohama

Once Yokohama was just a fishing village, but now at the beginning of the Meiji era it's becoming a harbor open to foreign countries and one of the leading trade cities of Japan. As a result, many Japanese products such as copper and raw silk are collected in Yokohama for export to other countries. At the same time, the city is starting to incorporate foreign technology and culture, with even the streets becoming more modernized. In the shadow of this development was the presence of many Yokohama merchants.

In YOKOHAMA, each player is a merchant in the Meiji period, trying to gain fame from a successful business, and to do so they need to build a store, broaden their sales channels, learn a variety of techniques, and (of course) respond to trade orders from abroad.

Cootie

Players race to construct a plastic bug, rolling a die to see which piece they get to add.

The Hennepin History Museum states that the first Cootie game was designed by William H. Schaper in 1949. However, Schaper's game was not the first based upon the insect known as the "cootie". The creature was the subject of several tabletop games, mostly pencil and paper games, in the decades of the twentieth century following World War I.

In 1927, the J. H. Warder Company of Chicago released Tu-Tee, and the Charles Bowlby Company released Cootie; though based on a "build a bug" concept similar to Schaper's, both were paper and pencil games.
Schaper's game was the first to employ a fully three dimensional, free-standing plastic cootie.

Known in Australia as Creepy Critters and in the UK as Beetle Drive.

Lord of the Fries

Game Synopsis: Lord of the Fries is a thematic sequel to Give Me The Brain!. It takes place at the same restaurant, has the same cast of characters, and requires roughly the same equipment. But the game is entirely different.
Players choose orders (sometimes randomly, sometime not) from the figuratively colorful Friedey's menu, and try to fill them with cards from their hands. Some orders are easy, like the Cowabunga. One Cow Meat, one Bun. Some are a little harder, like the Chickabunga Conga: same as a Chickabunga (Bird Meat plus Bun), plus Fries and a Drink. Sound easy? Now try your hand at a Lord of the Fries, a Meat Munch, or the infamous Patriarch (Fish Meat, Cheese, Bun, Fries, Drink, and the oft-maligned Strawberry Pie).

Awards

1998 Origins Award Nominee: Best Traditional Card Game
2003 Listed in GAMES Magazine's GAMES 100

Online Play

GameTable Online (free, multiplayer, real-time)

Versions

1998 cardstock version (out of print)
2003 Special Edition (color) as Lord of the Fries De-lux
2008 Third Edition (color)

Third Edition card count - 12 Drink, 12 Bun, 12 Fries, 12 Veggies, 12 Cow, 10 Bird, 8 Cheese, 8 Sauce, 8 Fish, 4 Pie

Stuff and Nonsense

Stuff and Nonsense is "the Inevitable Aftermath of Professor Elemental's Imaginary Polar Expedition", an adventure game about never leaving London. The players move about the city, collecting artifacts and stories, and then return to the Adventurer's Club to tell made-up stories of adventure. This game plays something like a board game, though the board is made entirely of cards. The mechanics revolve around collecting sets of cards, while trying to avoid meeting Professor Elemental, and deciding which destinations to pretend to return from. The cards are filled with humorous text and whimsical illustrations by Harold Fay.