Tile Placement

Indigo

Indigo is a tile-laying game along the lines of Metro, Tsuro and Linie 1 in which players build paths bit by bit, with no player owning the individual paths and everyone trying to exploit the paths already present. Unlike those earlier games, however, your goal is to move gemstones from their starting locations on the board to your designated goals, with the player who scores the most points winning the game.

To set up the game board, place the central hex tile, then add five green and one indigo gems to it. Place six "u-turn" tiles at their designated locations on the outer edge of the game board, then place a yellow gem on each such tile. Each player places goal markers on goals between these u-turn tiles on the edge of the game board: in a two-player game, the players alternate goals; in a three-player game, each player has one goal to herself, while sharing two others; and in a four-player game, each player shares a goal with every other player.

On a turn, a player places a tile on any space on the game board, with the only restriction being that a player cannot create a route directly from one goal to another. Each tile has three route segments on it, connecting one pair of edges. If a player places a tile next to a gemstone, that gemstone "moves" as far as possible along the route so that all players can see where to place tiles to next move that gemstone. (Thus players avoid the mental gymnastics required in Metro and Linie 1 in which nothing moves until a route is complete.) When connecting to the central tile, the green gems move off first, with the indigo gem moving only with the sixth connection.

If a player places a tile so that one gem would run into another, both gems are removed from the game!

When a gem is moved to a goal owned by only one player, that player keeps the gem. If two players own the goal, then both players collect a gem of that color, taking the extra gem needed from the reserve. Once all the gems have been claimed, the game ends, with players earning 3 points for an indigo gem, 2 for green and 1 for yellow. The player with the most points wins.

Acquire

This Sid Sackson classic has taken many different forms over the years depending on the publisher. Each player strategically invests in businesses, trying to retain a majority of stock. As the businesses grow with tile placements, they also start merging, giving the majority stockholders of the acquired business sizable bonuses, which can then be used to reinvest into other chains. All of the investors in the acquired company can then cash in their stocks for current value or trade them 2-for-1 for shares of the newer, larger business. The game is a race to acquire the greatest wealth.

Some versions of the 3M bookshelf edition included rules for a 2-player variant.

The original version is part of the 3M Bookshelf Series.

Carcassonne: Hunters and Gatherers

Carcassonne: Hunters and Gatherers is a standalone game in the Carcassonne series set in the stone age.

As in other Carcassonne games, players take turns placing tiles to create the landscape and placing meeples to score points from the map they're creating. The player with the most points at the end of the game wins.

Instead of cities, roads, and farms, Carcassonne: Hunters and Gatherers has forests, rivers, lakes, and meadows. Players' meeples can represent hunters (when placed in the meadows), gatherers (in a forest), or fishermen (on a river segment). They also have huts, which can be placed on rivers or lakes to get fish from the entire river system.

It includes many of the familiar mechanics from Carcassonne with a few new rules, including:
- A player who completes a forest with a gold nugget in it gets to immediately draw and place a tile.
- A meadow is worth 2 points for every animal in it, except tigers, which negate certain other animals.
- A river segment is worth the number of tiles in the segment plus the number of fish in the lakes at each end.
- A fishing hut scores at the end of the game and is worth the number of fish in all the lakes connected by rivers.

The Devir edition includes (the relevant part of) the Carcassonne: King & Scout expansion.

Carcassonne: The Discovery

The Discovery is a new stand-alone Carcassonne game.

The inhabitants of Carcassonne have discovered a new region far away from their homeland - one that consists of meadows, mountains and seas. The followers, of which each player only has four (with a fifth for the scoring track) get placed as robbers (in the mountains), seafarers (on the seas) or explorers (on the meadows). On a player's turn, he must place a tile and may then place a follower on it.

As in the original game, tiles may only be placed so that identical landscape types match up. A follower may only be placed when no other follower has been placed there yet. When the follower is removed, however, then the size of the region in which the follower is located brings points - regardless of whether the region has been closed off or not, although closed off regions score considerably more points. There's also an additional rule that lets mountainous regions increase in value, even if they've already been completed.

This is a distinctly simpler version of Carcassonne than the original. This was the goal during the development of the game. It should have simpler rules, but offer greater strategic depth. What is interesting about the game is that regions aren't scored automatically any more (when they are closed off), this is a decision left to the player (the removing of the follower). Since the regions can only get more valuable, this ensures many agonizing decisions.

(From Gamewire and Spielbox)

This game is part of the Carcassonne series.

Rumis

In the game Rumis, the players construct an Inca building with their stones. All players receive three-dimensional pieces made of wood, which they will try to position adjacent to their already placed pieces of their own color. All of their own pieces are of different shapes, which is a challenge to the three-dimensional imagination.

Cubic, wedge-shaped, or pyramidal volumes are different building limitations, which are imposed by the various building scenarios. Playing RUMIS, you will find that no game is similar to any previous one. Once your mind has mastered the puzzling shapes of the RUMIS pieces, you will explore the depth of tactical and strategic possibilities offered.

The rebrand by Educational Insights is labelled 1 to 4 players on the box, adding solitaire puzzles such as building a 3x3 cube with one color and building the various shapes using all the colors, following the rules of the multiplayer games while leaving no gaps in the structure.

Expanded by:

Rumis+