Which game would you rather play?

You are battling in the category: Abstracts

Pearladöra

In Nuggets (2003), players try to surround the "gold mines" (numbered cylinders) on an 8x5 grid board. On a turn, a player either places a numbered tile face down or places two fence sections on the board; these fences determine the borders of each claim, and each claim must be at least four spaces large. At the end of the game, all tiles are revealed, and each gold mine is awarded to the player whose tiles in that claim have the largest sum, with ties resulting in an equal division of points. Whoever collects the most mine points wins. Armadöra (2013) uses the same gameplay as Nuggets for the base game, albeit with the players themed as orcs, elves, mages, and goblins on the hunt for dwarven gold. Armodöra also adds advanced rules to the game, with each player receiving one reinforcement token and 1-2 special power tokens. Instead of placing a warrior or erecting palisades (fences), a player can place a reinforcement token on one of their warriors in a territory that's already filled, boosting the strength of that warrior by one. A player can use their special power before taking one of the three normal actions, with the elf shooting an opposing warrior in an unfilled territory (lowering his strength by one), the orc placing an additional palisade that turn, the goblin placing a second warrior (with this one being face-up), and the mage looking at the value of an already placed opponent's warrior. Pearladöra (2022) moves the gameplay to the water, with players now placing two pontoons or one diver on a turn in order to fence off parts of the sea, then use the strength of your divers to claim pearls. This version of the design includes the advanced rules, with slight tweaks to the previous powers from Armadöra. ... SHOW LESS

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Ada's Library

Your goal in Ada's Library — first published as Phoenix — is to arrange all of the books in your personal display in an order that matches the books in the "master display". The game includes larger "master" book cards in a six colors, as well as smaller books in these six colors. To set up, each player draws ten books from the bag, then places them in a row in front of themselves in the order drawn. Shuffle the six master cards, then lay them out in a row, e.g., red, light blue, gray, brown, yellow, dark blue. Shuffle the deck of action cards, with each player getting a hand of five cards. On a turn, either discard a card from your hand (ignoring its effect) or play a card from your hand. Cards will: Swap the position of two books in your display, with the number of spaces between these books being specified. Move a book in your display a specified number of spaces either left or right, but never past the end of your display. Move a book to either end of your display. Swap the books on the ends of your display. Swap a book of your choice with the book in the opponent's display directly opposite. Move a book in the master display 1 or 2 spaces to the left or right. Draw a replacement card to end your turn. As soon as the ten books in your display match the order of the books in the master display — regardless of whether all the colors are present — you win. Ada's Library differs from Phoenix in two ways. First, it includes only four books of each color whereas Phoenix had five pawns of each color. Second, in Phoenix, a complete game lasted three rounds, and players scored points at the end of each round based on whether they went out, had a pawn of each color, and had 3-5 pawns of a color in a row on their display. Whoever had the most points after three rounds won. ... SHOW LESS