Strategy

Gaïa is a 2-5 player game in which you create a world, instill life in it, build cities, try to satisfy their needs, and use godly powers to shape the world to your benefit.

In game terms, Gaïa involves tile placement, area control and influence with a twist of power cards. Each player has five wooden figures, and if you're the first to place all five of your figures on the board, you win!

Gaïa includes two levels of rules, with the basic rules allowing for play with those as young as eight thanks to the game's simple mechanisms and non-attacking nature. The advanced rules give you the opportunity to use godly powers — lightning, volcanoes, rain, sun, earthquakes, etc. — to shape the world after it has been created. You can even steal an opponent's cities, making it a more aggressive game with a higher level of strategy.

Around the middle of the 17th century with the advent of the scientific method, a period of great change begins, called the scientific revolution. Many great scientists, with their theories and ideas, change our perception of the universe: Galileo Galilei, Copernicus, Kepler, Bacon and, above all, Sir Isaac Newton.

In Newton, players take the role of a young scientist who wants to become one of the great geniuses of this period. To do this, they travel around Europe, visit universities and cities, study to discover new theories, build new tools, and work to earn money.

The game is played over six rounds. Each round, every player plays five cards from their hand, with each played card allowing the player to perform one of the game's actions. An action has a variety of effects, which depend on the symbols of that action visible on the board. At the end of the round, a player can take back all the cards played except one. One card has to be left on the board, which means that you give up one possibility of doing that action, but also that the action will be carried out with greater strength. Fortunately, you can acquire new cards that will allow you to perform more actions and with additional powers.

After six rounds, you calculate your final scoring, and the player with the most VP wins.

—description from the publisher

Hong Kong has been struck by a large scale unexpected blackout. As the government struggles to maintain control, you decide to take matters into your own hands and try to bring back some kind of societal order! Daily life as you were used to it has quickly dissolved. Even the most mundane tasks have become incredibly challenging without electric power. Whoever best manages this situation and restores the semblance of order will surely claim a position of power in post-blackout Hong Kong!

In Alexander Pfister's Blackout: Hong Kong, you have to manage ever-changing resources and a network of various specialists to keep Hong Kong from descending into chaos while also staying ahead of your rivals.

—description from the publisher

Travel back in time to the greatest city in Mesoamerica. Witness the glory and the twilight of the powerful pre-Columbian civilization. Strategize, accrue wealth, gain the favour of the gods, and become the builder of the magnificent Pyramid of the Sun.

In Teotihuacan: City of Gods, each player commands a force of worker dice, which grow in strength with every move. On your turn, you move a worker around a modular board, always choosing one of two areas of the location tile you land on: one offering you an action (and a worker upgrade), the other providing you with a powerful bonus (but without an upgrade).

While managing their workforce and resources, players develop new technologies, climb the steps of the three great temples, build houses for the inhabitants of the city, and raise the legendary and breath-taking Pyramid of the Sun in the centre of the city.

Each game is played in three eras. As the dawn of the Aztecs comes closer, player efforts (and their ability to feed their workforce) are evaluated a total of three times. The player with the most fame is the winner.

You've studied the footage, connected the dots, and gathered what meager evidence you could. You're close — soon the whole world will know the truth behind the Cryptid. A group of like-minded cryptozoologists have come together to finally uncover the elusive creature, but the glory of discovery is too rich to share. Without giving away some of what you know you will never succeed in locating the beast, but reveal too much and your name will be long forgotten!

Cryptid is a unique deduction game of honest misdirection in which players must try to uncover information about their opponents' clues while throwing them off the scent of their own. Each player holds one piece of evidence to help them find the creature, and on their turn they can try to gain more information from their opponents. Be warned; give too much away and your opponents might beat you to the mysterious animal and claim the glory for themselves!

The game includes a modular board, five clue books, and a deck of set-up cards with hundreds of possible set-ups across two difficulty levels. It is also supported by an entirely optional digital companion, allowing for faster game set-up and a near-infinite range of puzzles.

—description from the publisher

Note: some copies have a delta clue booklet with misprints in eight clues:

2,#9,#13,#64 states cougar, should be bear
3,#63,#72,#95 states bear, should be cougar

The official website with an online tool to randomly generate more clues is http://playcryptid.com/