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number of campaign points becomes the new mayor – at least until the next game starts with different factions. -sd/sbw
Huch (Paper Plane Games)
In Uwe Rosenberg’s Fairy Trails, one player takes on the role of the elves, the other one plays the gnomes. Players con- nect square tiles, thus forming a road network in the colors of the two players. Once one road is completed, its owner may place a stone on each of the huts along the way. The first player to accrue all 19 stones wins. Fairy Trails makes do with extremely few rules; there is even space enough in the instruction booklet for pointing out how you can rain on your opponent’s parade. Plus, as usual in a Rosenberg game, there is also a soli- taire version included, where you have to always place a stone within three turns in order not to lose. The fewer tiles you have laid out for placing all stones, the higher your score. -sd/sbw
Huch (Sylex)
In Dreamscape, players collect so-called Dreamshards and use them to fulfill chal- lenges presented on Dreamcards. To this end, you move across the Dreamworld board and then create your individ- ual landscape, called Dreamscape. The player who gets the most peaceful sleep, that is to say, scores the most Slumber points, wins. Speaking prosaically, the game is about the action-point-based hunt for disks in five different colors that you can find in six locations on the game board. The Dreamcards provide concrete requirements of what has to lie where, and whether next to each other or on top of each other. Possibilities of exchanging and discarding cards allow you a certain level of control over your placement, and a Sleeper walking over Dreamshards can generate additional points, provided he is allowed to move. If your complete display matches a Dreamcard, you get points. In addition, there are general challenges on display: Dream Purpose tiles that are available to all players. If you find this too sedate (or sleep-induc- ing), you can include Nightmare shards to the play; they disturb you and are harder to exchange. Plus, you can use Mr. Nightmare (similar to the robber in Catan, back in the days) who disables the special action on one of the six locations on the board. -sd/sbw
MY CITY: Designed for 24 episodes
Kosmos
Up to now, almost all Legacy games have been something for experts. Reiner Kni- zia has set himself the task of inventing an edition of the trendy campaign-game principle for a wider audience. The result goes by the name of My City and takes 30 minutes per episode. The entire game consists of 24 episodes, divided into eight chapters. As in Take it easy, construction cards specify what building tile you have to place. Each player has an identical set of tiles. Buildings are placed orthogo- nally, but not on the river, on mountains or in the forest. If possible, you should not build on spaces showing trees; how- ever, you should t y to cover spaces with boulders. In the end, you get minus points for spaces you haven’t built on. You keep playing until you voluntarily exit the epi- sode. If you continue and can no longer lay out a building tile, you’ll immediately lose one point – which you might want to accept deliberately, though. But since the problem can come up repeatedly, everybody starts with a few points on his track. At the scoring, players receive more points, and a player’s rank determines whether he may mark advancements on his own board.
The game comes also with eight large envelopes each of which contains sce- narios for three episodes with new tasks and scorings. Successful planners also get stickers for marking their board. If you don’t want other players to continue your city in case you won’t participate, you can choose the back of your board that shows a standard “permanent map” that you can use repeatedly.
Aqualin excels with particularly brief and easy rules. The two players try to put a reef in order, and to this end, they sort
the 36 sea creatures – but each is required to adapt a different way of order than the other. One sorts according to the six colors, whereas the other sorts according to the six species. On your turn, you simply place one tile on one of the 36 spaces. You can choose from the six sea creatures on display. The objective is to form flocks of the same color or species by connect- ing the tiles orthogonally. The larger the group, the more points you score as soon as all spaces on the reef are occupied. So far, it might sound surprising that author Marcello Bertocchi was awarded second prize for this game at the Premio Archi- mede authors competition, but I haven’t yet mentioned the special knack: Before placing a new tile, you may move another tile already on the board orthogonally and any number of spaces up until it meets the edge of the reef or another sea creature. The game provides almost twenty minutes of thinking fun. -sd/sbw
Moses
Klaus Kreowski’s “explosive” dice game Big Boom Bang generates suspense because of the reduction to its essential core. In turn, players roll the five six-sided dice, each of which shows four different symbols. Different from usual, you don’t collect combinations but just try to sur- vive. As in the paragon game Yahtzee, you may re-roll twice. Bombs, however, have to stay put, unless you have rolled scissors that help to defuse them; that means you are in this case allowed to re-roll any pair of bomb-and-scissors. At the end of your turn, you have to reveal one of the disks from the middle of the table for each bomb. Most of these disks indicate that the fuse is still burning; but if you uncov- ered a “Boom,” you’ll lose one life (i.e.,
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