Game of the Year Winners

In Granada, one of the most impressive building projects of the Middle Ages has begun: the construction of Alhambra. A palace, fortress, and a small city -- all-in-one -- Alhambra is made up of the world’s most beautiful gardens, pavilions, chambers and towers. The most prominent builders in all of Europe and Arabia want to demonstrate their skills in building Alhambra. Employ the most talented teams of builders to construct your Alhambra. Hire stonemasons from the north and gardeners from the south, who all want a fair wage and insist on being paid with their native currency. With their help, towers can be constructed, gardens designed, pavilions and mezzanines erected, and manors and royal chambers built. Compete against your opponents to build the greatest and most impressive Alhambra.

A clever tile-laying game. The southern French city of Carcassonne is famous for its unique Roman and Medieval fortifications. The players develop the area around Carcassonne and deploy their followers on the roads, in the cities, in the cloisters, and in the fields. The skill of the players to develop the area will determine who is victorious.
u8232 Special rules for the 12 river tiles: Remove the special starting tile from the game. Instead, begin the game by laying the spring that starts the river. Set aside the lake tile and schuffle the remaining 10 river tiles face down and draw from these before drawing from the tiles from the normal game. These tiles are played and followers may be played as in the normal game with one exception: a river tile may not be placed so that the river makes a "U" turn. Followers may not be placed on rivers. Once these 10 river tiles have been played, the next player plays the lake and then play continues with the normal tiles.

Players are recent immigrants to the newly populated island of Catan. Expand your colony through the building of settlements, roads, and villages by harvesting commodities from the land around you. Trade sheep, lumber, bricks and grain for a settlement, bricks and wood for a road, or try to complete other combinations for more advanced buildings, services and specials.
Trade with other players, or at local seaports to get resources you might lack. The first player to achieve 10 points from a combination of roads, settlements, and special cards wins.

The pictures are revealed…only one of them is the answer.

Each player at his turn plays the storyteller. He is given a single picture, while the other players get a hand of six pictures.

The storyteller says a sentence or a word connected to his picture, then each player chooses one of his pictures to bet upon. All pictures are showed face up, and every player has to bet upon what picture was the storyteller's.

You are a monarch, like your parents before you, a ruler of a small pleasant kingdom of rivers and evergreens. Unlike your parents, however, you have hopes and dreams! You want a bigger and more pleasant kingdom, with more rivers and a wider variety of trees. You want a Dominion!  In all directions lie fiefs, freeholds, and feodums. All are small bits of land, controlled by petty lords and verging on anarchy. You will bring civilization to these people, uniting them under your banner. 
But wait! It must be something in the air; several other monarchs have had the exact same idea. You must race to get as much of the unclaimed land as possible, fending them off along the way. To do this you will hire minions, construct buildings, spruce up your castle, and fill the coffers of your treasury. Your parents wouldn’t be proud, but your grandparents, would be delighted.


The players are the Grandes in old Spain. Each wants to increase his influence at the court and in the regions. Each turn, the players choose from 5 actions, different on each turn. But first choice goes to the player who plays the highest priority card and you have only 13 for the game. Choose your actions and priorities wisely to become the most powerful Grande and win the game! This Decennial version also contains the expansions previously known as Intrigue & the King, Grand Inquisitor & the Colonies, and Grandissimo.

In Elfenland, young elves have to pass a very special test before they are accepted as grown-ups. All elf girls and elf boys receive a map of Elfenland, and they have to visit as many famous towns in Elfenland as possible, using the common types of transportation: dragons, unicorns, giant pigs, elfcycles, troll wagons, magic clouds, ferries and rafts. These types of transportation, however, are available in limited numbers and can only be used in specific regions. Thus, an exciting race starts among the elves to find out who will make the best use of the available transportation. The one to visit the most towns will win the game.

Each player leads a five-member group of four adventurers and a researcher on the search for lost cities. To reach each city, the players must travel a separate path nine steps long. On a player‘s turn, he plays a card and  moves one of his adventurers or his researcher. The color of the card played determines which path the figure moves on. The player should try to play a card of low value, because when the player wants to move this adventurer again, he must play a card of equal or higher value. Each player must send his adventurers on different paths - no two from the same player on the same path. A player may send all his adventurers to search, but need not. T
he goal is it to get one‘s adventurers as far as possible along the paths they travel since the first steps of a path score minus points. Only the later steps on a path score positive points. At the end of the game, the winner is the player who earned the most points. Artifacts, which adventurers can collect along the way, also earn the player‘s points toward a possible victory. Also, the researcher (the larger figure) is more valuable than the adventurers: during the scoring at the end, the player doubles its points, making it imperative to move it as far along its path as possible.

Building boom in Manhattan! But not only there! Sky-scrapers are springing up all around the world. Players also have the opportunity to build sky-scrapers in Sydney, Frankfurt, Hongkong, Sao Paulo, and Cairo. The question each turn is whether to increase the height of one of your own buildings, or to build onto someone else’s building, making it your building. At the end of every six turns, players score for having the tallest building, the most buildings per city, and for each building that a player owns. After four rounds, the player with the most points is the winner!

In the wild rapids of the Niagara River, fearless canoers battle the water and each other to collect gems along the riverbank. Of course, the most valuable gems are found furthest down-river, close to the waterfall. Yes, there is a waterfall, and careless canoers can fall over the waterfall. Also, players must return collected gems to land in order to be counted. At the end, the player who collects the most value in gems is the winner. Players play on a 3D board, representing the Niagara River and the falls. Canoes float down the river as the river flows, but players can row their canoes up-river or down-river to collect gems, to return them to shore, and to avoid the waterfall. This game is great fun for the family, but is strategic and gives players the chance to plan and steal from one another.

Qwirkle is as basic as matching colors and shapes! Well-planned strategy is the key to victory. Qwirkle consists of 108 wooden tiles with 6 shapes in 6 colors. Each tile is worth 1 point. Players score points by building lines of tiles that share a common color or shape. Score a “Qwirkle” by completing a line of 6 and receive double points for each tile in that line! The player with the highest score at the end of the game wins!

• Awards:

Mensa Select,

Major Fun,

Parents’ Choice Gold,

Creative Child Magazine Preferred Choice,

The National Parenting Center Seal of Approval ,

2011 Spiel des Jahres

• Contents:

108 thick wooden tiles,

cloth drawstring bag,

instructions

Qwirkle is as basic as matching colors and shapes! Well-planned strategy is the key to victory. Qwirkle consists of 108 wooden tiles with 6 shapes in 6 colors. Each tile is worth 1 point. Players score points by building lines of tiles that share a common color or shape. Score a “Qwirkle” by completing a line of 6 and receive double points for each tile in that line! The player with the highest score at the end of the game wins!

• Awards:

Mensa Select,

Major Fun,

Parents’ Choice Gold,

Creative Child Magazine Preferred Choice,

The National Parenting Center Seal of Approval ,

2011 Spiel des Jahres

• Contents:

108 thick 3/4 inch tiles,

zippered carrying bag,

instructions

In 1490, Kaiser Maximilian I awarded Franz von Taxis the contract to deliver mail between the Kaiser’s residences in Innsbruck and Brussels.He did such a good job, that postal services in the country continue to be connected with the name Thurn and Taxis. With the introduction of postal carriages in the middle of the 17th century, members of the family were raised to Count status and given the hereditary title of Postmaster General. The game begins at this point in history. Can you emulate the achievements of this family and build a successful postal network? Do you have the talent to connect the right cities to create an effective network and not lose sight of the need to acquire new carriages when they are needed? Plan your moves carefully and watch your opponents’ moves carefully, so you are prepared to respond to them. The game takes you back in time and gives you challenges that will bring you back to the game over and over.

Ticket to Ride is a cross-country train adventure in which players collect and play matching train cards to claim railway routes connecting cities throughout North America.
The longer the routes, the more points they earn.
Additional points come to those who can fulfill their Destination Tickets by connecting two distant cities, and to the player who builds the longest continuous railway.
The object of the game is to score the highest number of total points. Points can be scored by:
Claiming a Route between two cities on the map;
Successfully completing a Continuous Path of routes between two cities listed on your Destination Ticket(s);
Or by completing the Longest Continuous Path of routes.
Points are lost if you do not successfully complete the route given on your Destination Ticket(s).

Each player is the director of an expedition intent on exploring Tikal in search of the secret paths that lead to the temples and precious treasures that have remained hidden for over 1000 years. A player receives points during four scoring rounds for each recovered treasure and for each temple that he controls. But, both temples and treasures can change hands. The expedition that earns the most points exploring Tikal wins the game.

A series of devastating tornadoes, unleashed by enemy mages in the recent war has left all the king’s castles in ruin. Only the foundations of these once magnificent monuments remain. He has charged his sons with rebuilding his castles and promised the throne to the one who can rebuild the tallest and largest castles. Each prince has 6 knights to supervise the building. Two or more princes may work together on a castle with their knights competing to control the highest towers of the castle. Once each year, the king will tour the castles, to judge the progress of each son. After he finishes the third tour, he will choose his successor and the winner!

Just south of nowhere, there's the junction of the Mayfair & Rossdorf RR and the Turvy Trunk Line. Springing up from the desert like a tumbleweed lies the eccentric little town of Rossdorf. Like most western towns, Rossdorf has a Land Agent: Guy Dough, the brother of that wicked varmint Black Benny. A shrewd opportunist, Guy's done sold all the town land ('ceptin' the outhouses) four times over! Every acre in town that ain't got an outhouse on it is owned by the miners, the railroads, AND the fort captain. Just about a year ago, miners digging in the shadow of Fort Rossdorf struck the mother lode! But it wasn't gold, and it wasn't silver. No, my friend, it was just a little spring. Not any ordinary spring, though! It was a torrent of that mind-marbling drink the locals call "Wacky Water!"

Now that water's done what the sun and the wind couldn't do: it's made those landholders brave enough to take matters into their own hands. Now they'll use whatever means they can to bowl over the competition and lay claim to the only fertile spots left in town! Now the only thing stoppin' 'em is the Town Charter Amendment #5, which states: "no landholder may move, remove, or detonate any outhouse without a majority vote of the Town Citizens..." Now one thing's for sure: something’s gonna stink in Rossdorf, purty darn soon.....

In Wacky Wacky West you and your fellow townfolk place track tiles, street tiles, and river tiles hoping to destroy your rivals' buildings. Every time someone tries to build over a precious outhouse, the town votes! You try to enlist your supporters (represented by cards) to vote with you to stop or encourage the play of certain tiles-perhaps saving some of your buildings or taking out those of your dastardly opponents.

Components

• 1 game board
• 4 work gang figures
• 6 goal cards
• 32 vote cards
• 60 tiles (streets, rails, and rivers)
• 24 single tiles
• 24 double tiles
• 12 triple tiles
• rules

Each player uses small, large, wild and exotic animals and their young to try and attract as many visitors as possible to their zoo. But be careful - the zoo must be carefully planned. Before you know it, you have too many animals and no more room for them. That brings minus points! Luckily, your zoo can expand. A zoo of a family game in which less is sometimes more ...