Board Games Collection

7 Wonders

3 to 7 players
Recommended Ages: 10+
Time to Play Game: 30 minutes
Type of Game: Strategy; Card Game; Civilization; City Building

Game Play: You are the leader of one of the 7 great cities of the Ancient World. Gather resources, develop commercial routes, and affirm your military supremacy. Build your city and erect an architectural wonder which will transcend future times.7 Wonders lasts three ages. In each age, players receive seven cards from a particular deck, choose one of those cards, and pass the remainder to an adjacent player. Players reveal their cards simultaneously, paying resources if needed or collecting resources or interacting with other players in various ways. (Players have individual boards with special powers on which to organize their cards, and the boards are double-sided). Each player then chooses another card from the deck they were passed, and the process repeats until players have six cards in play from that age. After three ages, the game ends.

Big Boggle

2 to 8 players
Recommended ages: 8+
Time to Play Game: 10 minutes
Type of Game: Family

Game Play: Big Boggle is a timed word game where players attempt to find as many connected words as possible from the face-up letters resting in a 25 cube grid. When the timer runs out, players compare their list of words and remove any shared words. Points are then awarded for remaining words, depending on how many letters are in the word.

Battle Line

2 players
Recommended Ages: 12+
Time to Play Game: 30 minutes
Type of Game: Card Game; Deduction

Game Play: : Two opponents face off across a 'battle line' and attempt to win the battle by taking 5 of 9 flags or 3 adjacent flags. Flags are decided by placing cards into 3 card poker-type hands on either side of the flag (similar to straight flush, 3 of a kind, straight, flush, etc). The side with the highest 'formation' of cards wins the flag

Carcassonne

2-5 Players
Recommend Ages: 8+
Time to Play Game: 35-40 minutes
Type of Game: City building; medieval

Game Play: : In Carcassonne, players build the area surrounding this impressive city, one tile at a time. They then place a follower on fields, cities, roads or monasteries in order to score as many points as possible. These followers will become knights, monks, farmers and thieves, depending on where they are placed. No matter their function, the player who will most cleverly use their followers will win the game. Entirely redesigned and modernized, this edition includes two expansions: the river and the abbot.

Coconuts

2 to 4 players
Recommended ages: 6+
Time to Play Game: 20 minutes
Type of Game: Dexterity

Game Play: Coconuts is a dexterity game based on the "Monkey King" character from Chinese mythology. In the game, players launch coconuts toward a field of cups in the middle of the playing area. Land in a cup, and you get to stack it on your player board; land in a cup on someone else's board, and you get to move it to yours. By playing special "Monkey King Magic" cards, you can force opponents to shoot blind, take long shots, or otherwise thwart their efforts to cup a coconut. Whoever first completes a pyramid of six cups on his player board wins!

Codenames

2 to 8 players
Recommended Ages: 14+
Time to Play Game: 15 minutes
Type of Game: Party Game

Game Play: Two rival spymasters know the secret identities of 25 agents. Their teammates know the agents only by their CODENAMES. In Codenames, two teams compete to see who can make contact with all of their agents first. Spymasters give one-word clues that can point to multiple words on the board. Their teammates try to guess words of the right color while avoiding those that belong to the opposing team. And everyone wants to avoid the assassin. Codenames: Win or lose, it is fun to figure out the clues.

Concept

4-12 Players
Recommended Ages: 10+
Time to Play Game: 40 minutes
Type of Game: Deduction; Party Games

Game Play: In Concept, your goal is to guess words through the association of icons. A team of two players – neighbors at the table – choose a word or phrase that the other players need to guess. Acting together, this team places pieces judiciously on the available icons on the game board.

To get others to guess "milk", for example, the team might place the question mark icon (which signifies the main concept) on the liquid icon, then cubes of this color on the icons for "food/drink" and "white". For a more complicated concept, such as "Leonardo DiCaprio", the team can use the main concept and its matching cubes to clue players into the hidden phrase being an actor or director, while then using sub-concept icons and their matching cubes to gives clues to particular movies in which DiCaprio starred, such as Titanic or Inception.

The first player to discover the word or phrase receives 2 victory points, the team receives points as well, and the player who ends up with the most points wins.

Escape: The Curse of the Temple

1 to 5 players
Recommended Ages: 8+
Time to play the game: real time game play
Type of Game: Co-operative Adventure

Game Play: Escape: The Curse of the Temple is a cooperative game in which players must escape (yes...) from a temple (yes...) which is cursed (yes...) before the temple collapses and kills one or more explorers, thereby causing everyone to lose.

Forbidden Island

2-4 Players
Recommended Ages: 10+
Time to Play Game: 30 minutes
Type of Game: Family; Adventure; Card Game; Fantasy

Game Play: Forbidden Island is a visually stunning cooperative board game. Instead of winning by competing with other players like most games, everyone must work together to win the game. Players take turns moving their pawns around the 'island', which is built by arranging the many beautifully screen-printed tiles before play begins. As the game progresses, more and more island tiles sink, becoming unavailable, and the pace increases. Players use strategies to keep the island from sinking, while trying to collect treasures and items. As the water level rises, it gets more difficult- sacrifices must be made.

Game of Thrones Board Game

3-6 Players
Recommended Ages: 14+
Time to Play Game: 120-240 minutes
Type of Game: Strategy; Fantasy; Political; War Game

Game Play: King Robert Baratheon is dead, and the lands of Westeros brace for battle.

In the second edition of A Game of Thrones: The Board Game, three to six players take on the roles of the great Houses of the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros, as they vie for control of the Iron Throne through the use of diplomacy and warfare. Based on the best-selling A Song of Ice and Fire series of fantasy novels by George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones is an epic board game in which it will take more than military might to win. Will you take power through force, use honeyed words to coerce your way onto the throne, or rally the townsfolk to your side? Through strategic planning, masterful diplomacy, and clever card play, spread your influence over Westeros!

Happy Salmon

3-6 Players
Recommended Ages: 6+
Time to Play Game: 2 minutes
Type of Game: Family; Party game

Game Play: Happy Salmon is a simple, ultra-fast, very silly card game.

There are no turns. Players call out the action shown on their cards as fast as they can. When two players have a match, they celebrate by performing the action. Actions include the classic "High 5", the unifying "Pound It", the frantic "Switcheroo", and the delightful and bizarre "Happy Salmon".

Each time a player celebrates a match, they quickly discard a card. The first person to get rid of all their cards wins.

Incan Gold

3 to 8 players
Recommended Ages: 10+
Time to Play the Game: 15-30 minutes
Type of Game: Adventure, bluffing, exploration

Game Play: Incan Gold is a quick, fun and tense game in which you and other adventurers explore an old Incan temple in search of gold and treasure. In each of the five rounds, you secretly choose if you want to continue exploring the temple in search of more treasure or retreat to the safety of your camp with your share of the treasure that has been discovered so far. Each time that an explorer braves new territory, more treasure or a danger appears. When a second card of the same type of danger is turned over, all exposed treasure is buried, leaving the remaining adventurers with nothing. Do you flee the dangerous temple with your portion of the treasure that has been uncovered so far or do you venture into the exciting temple in search of more hidden valuables? After five rounds of exploration, whoever has the most treasure is the ultimate explorer and winner!

King of Tokyo

2-6 Players
Recommended Ages: 8+
Time to Play Game: 30 minutes
Type of Game: Family; dice; Science Fiction

Game Play: In King of Tokyo, you play mutant monsters, gigantic robots, and strange aliens—all of whom are destroying Tokyo and whacking each other in order to become the one and only King of Tokyo.

At the start of each turn, you roll six dice, which show the following six symbols: 1, 2, or 3 Victory Points, Energy, Heal, and Attack. Over three successive throws, choose whether to keep or discard each die in order to win victory points, gain energy, restore health, or attack other players into understanding that Tokyo is YOUR territory.

The fiercest player will occupy Tokyo, and earn extra victory points, but that player can't heal and must face all the other monsters alone!

Top this off with special cards purchased with energy that have a permanent or temporary effect, such as the growing of a second head which grants you an additional die, body armor, nova death ray, and more.... and it's one of the most explosive games of the year!

In order to win the game, one must either destroy Tokyo by accumulating 20 victory points, or be the only surviving monster once the fighting has ended.

Letters from Whitechapel

2-6 players
Recommended Ages: 13+
Time to Play Game: 120 minutes
Type of Game: Bluffing/deduction; Murder/mystery

Game Play: Get ready to enter the poor and dreary Whitechapel district in London 1888 – the scene of the mysterious Jack the Ripper murders – with its crowded and smelly alleys, hawkers, shouting merchants, dirty children covered in rags who run through the crowd and beg for money, and prostitutes – called "the wretched" – on every street corner.

The board game Letters from Whitechapel, which plays in 90-150 minutes, takes the players right there. One player plays Jack the Ripper, and his goal is to take five victims before being caught. The other players are police detectives who must cooperate to catch Jack the Ripper before the end of the game. The game board represents the Whitechapel area at the time of Jack the Ripper and is marked with 199 numbered circles linked together by dotted lines. During play, Jack the Ripper, the Policemen, and the Wretched are moved along the dotted lines that represent Whitechapel's streets. Jack the Ripper moves stealthily between numbered circles, while policemen move on their patrols between crossings, and the Wretched wander alone between the numbered circles.

Monopoly Empire

2-4 players
Recommended Ages: 8+
Time to Play Game: 45 minutes
Type of Game: Family; strategy; co-operative play

Game Play: With Monopoly Empire, you can own some of the biggest brands in the world as every space on the game board is an iconic brand, including Xbox, Coca-Cola, McDonald's and Samsung. As in the original Monopoly game, players start with cash in hand, roll dice, and move a token around the game board while hoping to purchase properties. Each property is represented by one or more billboards, with the more valuable properties having larger billboards. When you purchase a property, you place a billboard into your personal plastic tower; when you pass "Go!" on the game board, you earn income based on the height of your tower. Reach a value of $800 on your tower, and you win.

One Night Ultimate Werewolf

3-10 players
Recommended Ages: 8+
Time to Play Game: 10 minutes
Type of Game: Bluffing; Card Game; Party Game

Game Play: No moderator, no elimination, ten-minute games.

One Night Ultimate Werewolf is a fast game for 3-10 players in which everyone gets a role: One of the dastardly Werewolves, the tricky Troublemaker, the helpful Seer, or one of a dozen different characters, each with a special ability. In the course of a single morning, your village will decide who is a werewolf...because all it takes is lynching one werewolf to win!

Because One Night Ultimate Werewolf is so fast, fun, and engaging, you'll want to play it again and again, and no two games are ever the same.

Pandemic

2 to 4 players
Recommended Age: 8+
Time to Play Game: 30 minutes
Type of Game: Board Game

Game Play: In Pandemic, several virulent diseases have broken out simultaneously all over the world! The players are disease-fighting specialists whose mission is to treat disease hotspots while researching cures for each of four plagues before they get out of hand..

The game board depicts several major population centers on Earth. On each turn, a player can use up to four actions to travel between cities, treat infected populaces, discover a cure, or build a research station. A deck of cards provides the players with these abilities, but sprinkled throughout this deck are Epidemic! cards that accelerate and intensify the diseases' activity. A second, separate deck of cards controls the "normal" spread of the infections.

Taking a unique role within the team, players must plan their strategy to mesh with their specialists' strengths in order to conquer the diseases. For example, the Operations Expert can build research stations which are needed to find cures for the diseases and which allow for greater mobility between cities; the Scientist needs only four cards of a particular disease to cure it instead of the normal five—but the diseases are spreading quickly and time is running out. If one or more diseases spreads beyond recovery or if too much time elapses, the players all lose. If they cure the four diseases, they all win!

Parcheesi

2 to 6 players
Recommended Ages: 5+
Time to Play Game: 30 minutes
Type of Game: Board Game

Game Play: Pachisi, the national game of India, dates back to 4 AD and remains popular today. Each player has a set of pawns that start in his or her corner of the board. The goal is to move the pawns around the board to the "home" section. Movement is controlled by dice. All players move around the same board, so they may capture each other’s pawns. Captured pawns are returned to their player's corner and must start their journey over. The winner is the first player to move all pawns "home". Parcheesi is the westernized version.

Patchwork

2 players
Recommended Ages: 8+
Time to Play Game: 15-30 minutes
Type of Game: Abstract Strategy; Puzzle

Game Play: In Patchwork, two players compete to build the most aesthetic (and high-scoring) patchwork quilt on a personal 9x9 game board. To start play, lay out all of the patches at random in a circle and place a marker directly clockwise of the 2-1 patch. Each player takes five buttons — the currency/points in the game — and someone is chosen as the start player.

On a turn, a player either purchases one of the three patches standing clockwise of the spool or passes. To purchase a patch, you pay the cost in buttons shown on the patch, move the spool to that patch's location in the circle, add the patch to your game board, then advance your time token on the time track a number of spaces equal to the time shown on the patch. You're free to place the patch anywhere on your board that doesn't overlap other patches, but you probably want to fit things together as tightly as possible. If your time token is behind or on top of the other player's time token, then you take another turn; otherwise the opponent now goes. Instead of purchasing a patch, you can choose to pass; to do this, you move your time token to the space immediately in front of the opponent's time token, then take one button from the bank for each space you moved.

Qwirkle

2 to 4 players
Recommended Ages: 6+
Time to Play Game: 45 Minutes
Type of Game: abstract; family; pattern building; tile placement

Game Play: The abstract game of Qwirkle consists of 108 wooden blocks with six different shapes in six different colors. There is no board; players simply use an available flat surface. Players begin the game with six blocks. The start player places blocks of a single matching attribute (color or shape but not both) on the table. Thereafter, a player adds blocks adjacent to at least one previously played block. The blocks must all be played in a line and match, without duplicates, either the color or shape of the previous block. Players score one point for each block played plus all blocks adjacent. It is possible for a block to score in more than one direction. If a player completes a line containing all six shapes or colors, an additional six points are scored. The player then refills his hand to six blocks. The game ends when the draw bag is depleted and one player plays all of his remaining blocks, earning a six point bonus. The player with the high score wins.

Risk

2-6 players
Recommended Ages: 10+
Time to Play Game: 120 minutes
Type of Game: War Games; Negotiation; Territory Building

Game Play: Possibly the most popular, mass market war game. The goal is conquest of the world.

Each player's turn consists of:

• gaining reinforcements through number of territories held, control of every territory on each continent, and turning sets of bonus cards.
• Attacking other players using a simple combat rule of comparing the highest dice rolled for each side. Players may attack as often as desired. If one enemy territory is successfully taken, the player is awarded with a bonus card.
• Moving a group of armies to another adjacent territory.

Risk Star Wars

2-4 players
Recommended Ages: 10+
Time to Play Game: 30-45 minutes
Type of Game: Dice; Science Fiction; War Game

Game Play: This Risk: Star Wars Edition game lets players re-create the dramatic final moments of Star Wars: Return of the Jedi. Featuring gameplay for 2 or 4 players across a TIE fighter-shaped gameboard, players can determine the fate of the Star Wars universe through 3 concurrent (yet distinct) battles. Choose to play as either the Rebel Alliance or the Galactic Empire, and use the classic Risk dice to control characters and ships. The object of the game is to defend or destroy the Death Star. Which side will win: the Galactic Empire or the Rebel Alliance?

Scrabble

2 to 4 players
Recommended Ages: 10+
Time to Play: 90 minutes
Type of Game: Word Game/Family

Game Play: In this classic word game, players use their seven drawn letter-tiles to form words on the game board. Each word laid out earns points based on the commonality of the letters used, with certain board spaces giving bonuses.

Settlers of Catan

3-4 players
Recommended Ages: 10+
Time to Play Game: 60 minutes
Type of Game: Strategy, deduction, civilization, negotiation

Game Play: Your adventurous settlers seek to tame the remote but rich isle of Catan. Start by revealing Catan’s many harbors and regions: pastures, fields, mountains, hills, forests, and desert. The random mix creates a different board virtually every game. Guide your settlers to victory by clever trading and cunning development. Use resource combinations— grain, wool, ore, brick, and lumber—to buy handy development cards and build roads, settlements, and cities. Acquire your resources through trades, cards, or lucky dice (even outside your turn). Catan (aka The Settlers of Catan) has been awarded with “Game of the Year,” “Hall of Fame,” and even “Game of the Century” honors in Germany, the United States, and a host of other countries worldwide. An international favorite, it’s been called the “Perfect Social Game.”

Sleeping Queens

2-5 Players
Recommended Ages: 8+
Time to Play Game: 10 minutes
Type of Game: Card Game; Family; Bluffing; Deduction

Game Play: In Sleeping Queens, players need to use strategy, quick thinking, and a little luck to rouse these napping nobles from their royal slumbers. The twelve queen cards lie face-down on the table. On a turn, you take one action from the cards in your hand: play a king to awaken and claim a sleeping queen, play a knight to steal someone else's queen (unless she has a dragon for protection), play a wand to send a queen to sleep once again, use a jester to try our luck with the top of the deck, or discard one or more number cards to draw more cards. Each queen card has a point value on it, and whenever all the queen have been awakened or one player hits the point threshold, the game ends and whoever has the most points wins.

Timeline American History

2-8 players
Recommended Ages: 8+
Time to Play Game: 15 minutes
Type of Game: Family; Card Game; Trivia

Game Play: TWhich happened first: the Salem Witch Trials or the foundation of Harvard College? Was Watergate before Woodstock? Sure, it's easy to know whether the discovery of America came before the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, but how well can you remember everything that happened in between?

In Timeline: American History, players have hands of cards and take turns attempting to place the cards correctly into the growing timeline. Easy at first, but rapidly growing more difficult, Timeline: American History tests your knowledge and helps you learn the history of the nation.

Timeline Historical Events

2-8 players
Recommended Ages: 8+
Time to Play Game: 15 minutes
Type of Game: Family; Card Game; Trivia

Game Play: Timeline: Events is a card game played using 110 cards. Each card depicts a historical event on both sides, with the year in which that event occurred on only one side. Players take turns placing a card from their hand in a row on the table. After placing the card, the player reveals the date on it. If the card was placed correctly with the date in chronological order with all other cards on the table, the card stays in place; otherwise the card is removed from play and the player takes another card from the deck.

The first player to get rid of all his cards by placing them correctly wins. If multiple players go out in the same round, then everyone else is eliminated from play and each of those players are dealt one more card for another round of play. If only one player has no cards after a bonus round, he wins; otherwise play continues until a single player goes out.

Tsuro

2-8 Players
Recommended Ages: 8+
Time to Play Game: 15 minutes
Type of Game: Family; Abstract Strategy; Fantasy

Game Play: A beautiful and beautifully simple game of laying a tile before your own token to continue its path on each turn. The goal is to keep your token on the board longer than anyone else's, but as the board fills up this becomes harder because there are fewer empty spaces left... and another player's tile may also extend your own path in a direction you'd rather not go. Easy to introduce to new players, Tsuro lasts a mere 15 minutes and actually does work for any number from 2 to 8.

The game consists of tiles with twisting lines on them, a 6x6 grid on which to lay these tiles and a token for each player. Each player has a hand of tiles. On your turn you do two things: place a tile from your hand onto the board next to your token and move your token as far as it can go along the line it is currently on, until it is stopped by an empty space with no tile in (yet), the edge of the board or colliding with another player's token. If your token reaches the edge of the board or collides with another player's token, you are out of the game. The aim of the game is to be the last player left with a token on the board. Strategy therefore consists of trying to drive your opponents either into each other or off the board whilst extending your own route in directions that will make it difficult for your opponents to do the same.

Jumbo Sequence

2-12 players
Recommended Ages: 7+
Time to Play Game: varies (long and short)
Type of Game: strategy

Game Play: The players compete to create rows, columns or diagonals of 5 connected checkers placed on the cards that the player has laid down. Two-eyed Jacks are wild, while one-eyed Jacks allow an opponent's checker to be removed. The game ends when someone has reached a specified number of connections.

Sheriff of Nottingham

3-5 players
Recommended Ages: 14+
Time to Play Game: 45-60 minutes
Type of Game: Strategy; deduction

Game Play:Each player will take turns being the Sheriff of Nottingham, whose job it is to either inspect or let pass the shipments submitted by the other players. If the Sheriff inspects a shipment with contraband, the submitting player receives a penalty.

Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective: The Thames Murders & Other Cases

1-8 Players
Recommended Ages: 10+
Time to Play Game: 60-120 minutes
Type of Game: Deduction; Co-operative play; murder/mystery

Game Play:Have you ever had the desire to walk the streets of Victorian London with Sherlock Holmes in search of Professor Moriarty? To search the docks for the giant rat of Sumatra? To walk up Baker Street as the fog is rolling in and hear Holmes cry out, "Come, Watson, come! The game is afoot!"? Now you can! You can enter the opium den beneath the Bar of Gold, but beware, that may be Colonel Sebastian Moran lurking around the corner. You can capture the mystery and excitement of Holmes' London in this challenging and informative game. You, the player, will match your deductive abilities against your opponents and the master sleuth himself, Sherlock Holmes.

In Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective, you are presented with a mystery to solve, and it is then up to you to trace the threads of evidence through the byways and mansions of nineteenth century London. You will interview suspects, search the newspapers for clues, and put together the facts to reach a solution.

Shiba Inu House

1-5 Players
Recommended Ages: 6+
Time to Play Game: 15-30 Minutes
Type of Game: Family; Bluffing; Card Game; Science Fiction

Game Play:Shiba Inu loves sitting on the roof, staring at the sea, imagining that his master will make him a new dog house, imagining that there will be pork chops for lunch. Wait! Did someone just say pork chops? Shiba Inu is now drooling and jumping up and down on his roof...

In Shiba Inu House, players race to place cards properly in order to create doghouses for the shiba inu that match the patterns shown on their goal cards. After eight rounds, the player with the highest score wins.

Star Wars Empire vs. Rebellion

2 players
Recommended Ages: 10+
Time to Play Game: 60 minutes
Type of Game: Board

Game Play: Claim victory in the Galactic Civil War in Star Wars: Empire vs. Rebellion, a fast-paced card game for two players. In every game, you and your opponent match wits and resources over key events. If you can thwart your opponent, you claim the event, bringing you closer to victory. Whether you seek to triumph through military might, or use diplomacy to achieve your ends, the fate of the galaxy rests in your hands.

Star Wars X-Wing

2 players
Recommended Ages: 14+
Time to Play Game: 30-45 minutes
Type of Game: War Games; Bluffing

Game Play: Star Wars: X-Wing Miniatures Game is a tactical ship-to-ship combat game in which players take control of powerful Rebel X-wings and nimble Imperial TIE fighters, facing them against each other in fast-paced space combat. Featuring stunningly detailed and painted miniatures, the X-Wing Miniatures Game recreates exciting Star Wars space combat throughout its several included scenarios. Select your crew, plan your maneuvers, and complete your mission!

Ticket to Ride

2 to 5 players
Recommended Ages: 8+
Time to Play Game: 30-60 minutes
Type of Game: Board

Game Play: The Ticket To Ride Board Game is a cross-country train adventure that celebrates Fogg's impetuous and lucrative gamble to travel "Around the World in 80 Days" by proposing a new wager. The stake is a $1 million prize in this winner-takes-all competition. The objective of this train board game is to see who can travel by rail to the most cities in North America in just seven days. This Ticket To Ride game can be played by two to five players. There are 225 colored train cars and players have to collect cards that allow them to use the different railway routes connecting the cities across the USA. This Ticket To Ride Board Game comes complete with a detailed board, game cards, help cards, rules, train miniatures and more.

Ticket to Ride Europe

2 to 5 players
Recommended Ages: 8+
Time to Play Game: 30-60 minutes
Type of Game: Family; Trains; Travel

Game Play: Ticket to Ride: Europe takes you on a new train adventure across Europe. From Edinburgh to Constantinople and from Lisbon to Moscow, you'll visit great cities of turn-of-the-century Europe. Like the original Ticket to Ride, the game remains elegantly simple, can be learned in 5 minutes, and appeals to both families and experienced gamers. Ticket to Ride: Europe is a complete, new game and does not require the original version.

More than just a new map, Ticket to Ride: Europe features brand new gameplay elements. Tunnels may require you to pay extra cards to build on them, Ferries require locomotive cards in order to claim them, and Stations allow you to sacrifice a few points in order to use an opponent's route to connect yours. The game also includes larger format cards and Train Station game pieces.

The overall goal remains the same: collect and play train cards in order to place your pieces on the board, attempting to connect cities on your ticket cards. Points are earned both from placing trains and completing tickets but uncompleted tickets lose you points. The player who has the most points at the end of the game wins.

Ticket to Ride Rails and Sails

2 to 5 players
Recommended Ages: 10+
Time to Play Game: 60-120 minutes
Type of Game: Trails; Travel; Route/Network Building

Game Play: Ticket to Ride: Rails & Sails takes the familiar gameplay of Ticket to Ride and expands it across the globe — which means that you'll be moving across water, of course, and that's where the sails come in.

As in other Ticket to Ride games, in Ticket to Ride: Rails & Sails players start with tickets in hand that show two cities, and over the course of the game they try to collect colored cards, then claim routes on the game board with their colored train and ship tokens, scoring points while doing so. When any player has six or fewer tokens in their supply, each player takes two more turns, then the game ends. At that point, if they've created a continuous path between the two cities on a ticket, then they score the points on that ticket; if not, then they lose points instead.

Timeline: Inventions

2 to 8 players
Recommended Ages: 8+
Time to Play Game: 15 minutes
Type of Game: Trivia

Game Play: Was the light bulb invented after or before glasses? With Timeline, learn the answer to this question and thousands of others by comparing your knowledge or hunches to historic reality. At the beginning of the game, players all get the same number of cards representing monuments, inventions, etc. On the back of each card is a date. To begin, one card is randomly drawn from those not given to players. This card is placed in the middle of the table, date-side up and is the starting point of a chronological line which will slowly be built by the players. The first player then chooses one of their cards. If the player thinks that the invention on their card came before that of the initial card, the player places their card to the left of the initial card. If they feel that the invention on their card was created after, it is placed to the right of the initial card. The player's card is then turned date-side up. If the player was right, it remains on the table. Otherwise, the card is discarded and a new one must be drawn to replace it. Play proceeds clockwise. The more cards which are correctly played, the harder it is to correctly place new ones. The first player to get rid of their cards wins.

Zoowaboo

2-4 Players
Recommended Ages: 5+
Time to Play Game: 20-30 minutes
Type of Game: Children’s; Action/Dexterity; Animals

Game Play: Every year, the animals go on a rafting tour on the wild river, and nobody wants to miss out on the fun — but will there be enough room for all?

At the start of each round in Zoowaboo, players lay out ten animal tokens around the one raft. One animal card is then drawn to represent the first animal that boards the raft. Each player has two chits — Yes and No — and they secretly vote on whether they think all animals revealed so far will fit on the raft. If all players say "Yes", then reveal the next animal card and vote again. If some players vote "Yes" while others vote "No", then those players who voted "Yes" flip over the sand timer and work as a team to try to fit all of the animals on the raft. The players of whichever team guessed correctly wins points depending on the round, and whoever has the most points after six rounds wins.