News & Events

Here Be Books & Games

Posted 3 hours ago

Look! A western cowboy-themed game without guns and shoot outs! I love it!

El Gaucho - Take on the role of a cattle baron sending your gauchos to the Pampa to collect as many and as stately cattle as possible.

In El Gaucho, your gauchos exercise their abilities at the dice rodeo. The better they do during training, the easier they catch cattle in the field. Be smart and get in your opponents' way with mean tricks by snatching the most valuable cattle from under their noses, or swing your lasso to abduct one of their animals.

At home, sort your cattle by breed and assemble them in herds only to sell them later for as many Pesos as possible.

Game Play:
The goal of El Gaucho is to collect sets of cattle tiles and sell them. Each cattle tile has a value and a breed. A set contains only tiles of the same breed, ordered in ascending or descending value. For each breed, your cattle tiles are arranged in a line. New cattle tiles are added to the end of the line. When you add a tile that doesn't match the ordering of the existing set, that ends the set and a new set is started.

Cattle are acquired via a worker placement system. Each player has seven Gauchos which can be placed on various action spaces. The most important of these is the Pampa, where Gauchos can catch cattle (which means the player gains a new cattle tile). Other actions include stealing cattle from other players and sorting your cattle (to optimize your sets).

Placing the Gauchos on an action space requires dice. Each action requires a specific value. These dice are taken from the Dice Rodeo. At the beginning of each round, the dice are rolled. During your turn, take two dice from the Dice Rodeo and use them to place your Gauchos.

At the end of the round, each completed set of cattle is sold. The game ends when the cattle tiles draw pile runs out. When this happens, one more round is played, and then all cattle tiles are sold. The player who made the most money wins the game.

I really enjoy El Gaucho: from the artwork, to the 3d dice corral. I even wrote a full review on The Glass Meeple with more details about game play. Check it out.

2 to 4 players, ages 10 and up, can play El Gaucho in about an hour.

In stock now at Here Be Books & Games.

#ElGaucho #HereBeBooksAndGames #boardgames #cardgames #gaming ... See MoreSee Less

Here Be Books & Games

Posted 1 day ago

Love Letter is a game of risk, deduction, and luck for 2 to 4 players. Your goal is to get your love letter into Princess Annette's hands while deflecting the letters from competing suitors.

Win the Heart of the Princess!

All of the eligible young men (and many of the not-so-young) seek to woo the princess of Tempest. Unfortunately, she has locked herself in the palace, and you must rely on others to bring your romantic letters to her. Will yours reach her first?

Love Letter is a game of risk, deduction, and luck for 2?4 players. Your goal is to get your love letter into Princess Annette's hands while deflecting the letters from competing suitors.

From a deck with only sixteen cards, each player starts with only one card in hand; one card is removed from play. On a turn, you draw one card, and play one card, trying to expose others and knock them from the game. Powerful cards lead to early gains, but make you a target. Rely on weaker cards for too long, however, and your letter may be tossed in the fire!

2 to 4 players, ages 10 and up can play Love Letter in about 20 minutes.

In stock now at Here Be Books & Games.

#LoveLetter #HereBeBooksAndGames #boardgames #cardgames #gaming ... See MoreSee Less

Here Be Books & Games

Posted 2 days ago

Gugong: China 1570, the country is under the reign of of the Longqing Emperor, of the Ming Dynasty. He is trying his best to eradicate the incessant corruption plaguing the country, but the officials working inside the walls of the Forbidden City (now called Gugong) have found a way to receive bribes without getting noticed; the exchange of gifts. The highest Officials of the Forbidden City would pretend to uphold the ban on corruption, by accepting gifts of petitioners, and returning one of seemingly lower value. Gùgōng uses this extraordinary gift exchange custom as its basis.

You take on the role of a prominent Chinese family trying to gain influence and power by exchanging gifts with Officials. The gift cards you offer as a player have to be of a higher value than the one you receive, forcing you to make strategic choices regarding which actions you want to take each turn.

You'll travel around China, sail down the Grand Canal, purchase precious jade, help construct the Great Wall, secure advantages through decrees, influence the game through intrigue, and ultimately, try to get an audience with the emperor. If only 1 player succeeds in doing so, he wins. If several players succeed, the player with the most VPs among those players securing an audience with the emperor wins the game.

Do you have what it takes to outsmart your rivals? Find out... in Gugong!

Gugong supports 1 to 5 players, ages 12 and up with a 90 minute playtime.

In stock now at Here Be Books & Games.

#Gugong #HereBeBooksAndGames #gaming #boardgames #strategygames ... See MoreSee Less

Here Be Books & Games

Posted 3 days ago

Aton is an Egyptian-themed abstract strategy game for two players. I’m not usually a fan of abstract strategy games, but for this one, I make an exception. With four ways to win, you have to watch your opponent with a hawk’s eye, while also trying to further your own strategy.

There are four ways to win in Aton:
* Fill a temple completely with your stones.
* Place your stones on all of the green spaces on the board.
* Fill all of the yellow spaces with your stones.
* Score 40 points.

The game ends immediately when any one of the winning conditions is met.

Aton’s components are very nice and of good quality. The Egyptian-themed artwork is lovely – it’s what drew me to the game to begin with. Even the box interior is lavishly illustrated. The cards seem quite durable: we’ve played the game a lot and they still look good even though we didn’t sleeve them. The board is quite sturdy. It’s sort of a jigsaw puzzle to put together, but there are only a few pieces so it doesn’t take long. The “stones” are made of wood; their color hasn’t worn off at all despite repeated plays.The only downside is the rulebook, which can be a bit confusing. Tim and I can help you with the rules, though - just ask us.

All in all Aton is a very fun and beautiful game. It’s very interactive in that you have to constantly watch what your opponent is doing and respond accordingly. Timing matters, too. In a critical situation, you may have to sacrifice a stone to make sure you go first, in order to prevent your opponent from winning.

I highly recommend Aton. It is one of my favorite two-player games. Aton supports two players ages 8 and up and plays in about 30 minutes.

In stock now at Here Be Books & Games.

#Aton #2playerGames #boardgames #gaming #HereBeBooksAndGames ... See MoreSee Less

Here Be Books & Games

Posted 5 days ago

Here's a really fun cooperative game, I think you'll love! AND we have plenty in stock! You can even get curb-side pickup when you order from our online store or by phone.

Hanabi, named for the Japanese word for “fireworks”, is a cooperative game in which players try to create the perfect fireworks show by playing cards of each color (white, red, blue, yellow and green) in ascending order. The deck consists of five different colored suits of cards, numbered 1-5 in each color. For each color, there are three 1s; two 2s, 3s and 4s; and one 5.

The catch is that players can’t see their own cards: you have to hold your cards so that they’re visible only to other players. To assist other players in playing a card, you can give them hints regarding either the numbers they hold or the colors of their cards. For example, you could point to a card and tell a player, “This is a one” or “This card is blue.” However, when you give a clue, you have to tell them all of the cards that match that property. So if the player has three 1’s, you have to point out all three of them, even if you really only want to tell them about one of them. You only have eight clues at your disposal, so use them wisely.

To recover used clue tokens, you’ll have to discard a card from your hand instead of giving a clue or playing a card – your other two options on your turn. When you complete a stack by playing the 5, you also recover a clue.

To win Hanabi – and it’s certainly not as easy as it sounds – you must work as a team to build the fireworks display with the numbers 1 to 5 – in ascending order for each color – before the deck runs out. If you make three mistakes, you lose.

Hanabi is an awesome cooperative card game for 2 to 5 players ages 8 and up. Play time is about 30 minutes, but don’t be surprised if you immediately want to play again.

I personally prefer the German version published by AbacusSpiele. I think the cardstock, artwork and tokens are nicer. Luckily we - Here Be Books & Games - still have some in stock. We'll, of course, provide an English copy of the rules.

Order now and choose pick up at Here Be Books & Games. Call us when you get to our parking lot and we'll bring it down. We're open Tues & Wed from 1pm to 7pm and Fri & Sat from 11am to 7pm.

Stay safe everyone. ... See MoreSee Less

Here Be Books & Games

Posted 7 days ago

New Arrival: In the Hall of the Mountain King. In stock now.

In the Hall of the Mountain King. Territory denial. Cascading production. Magic & muscle. An innovative game for 2-5 trolls that is easy to learn and hides rich depths.

The war was generations ago. Driven from our ancestral home beneath the mountain, we have been scratching out survival in the cold and the dirt. But now something has happened; we feel it in our bones. Without the soul of our people to sustain it, the mountain has collapsed, taking our revenge for us. Our enemies have fled, and the rubble of our ancient halls calls out for we trolls to come home. By claw and by hammer we will return to our home and our home will return to us!

Play as trolls rebuilding your abandoned kingdom under the mountain in In the Hall of the Mountain King. With muscle and magic, you'll unearth riches, dig out collapsed tunnels, and carve out great halls as you raise the toppled statues of your ancestors to their places of honor at the heart of the mountain.

Gameplay is driven by the innovative cascading production system. Timing and tactics are key as you work to restore your home to its former glory and win the crown!

Game Play
Working on the same game board with the other players (but beginning at your own entrance), you'll dig a competing network of tunnels by spending increasingly valuable materials to lay polyomino tiles onto the map. You want to extend your tunnels to connect with buried gold and materials, with workshop locations that can transform resources, and especially with toppled statues. Statues are key to scoring, and you'll spend carts to move them through the tunnels to prime scoring locations near the heart of the mountain.

A major aspect of In the Hall of the Mountain King is the cascading production. You begin with a line of four trolls, and every troll shows a combination of resources — gold, stone, iron, marble, carts, runes, and hammers — that it produces. When a new troll is hired, place it above two other trolls, forming a pyramid. The new troll activates, gaining its resources, and any trolls beneath it ALSO activate, gaining any resources that they have room to carry. In this way as you hire more trolls, you gain bigger and bigger windfalls of resources as the end of the game nears. The timing of your hiring turns versus your building turns is important as you try to maximize your cascades while making sure you get the trolls you want from the shared market and also stay competitive on the map.

The game ends shortly after the last player hires his sixth troll, then the player with the most honor (earned for digging tunnels of increasing quality, for excavating great halls, and for moving statues closer to the heart of the mountain, especially onto matching pedestals) is crowned the Mountain King and wins!

In stock now at Here Be Books & Games. Order online now for free curb-side pick up. Call us from the parking lot during regular store hours and we'll bring your order down to you.

#boardgames #InTheHallOfTheMountainKing ... See MoreSee Less

Here Be Books & Games

Posted 1 week ago

So while you were home yesterday, did you play any games? If so, what?

We were at the store, providing curb-side pickup, but managed to get a game of Taverns of Tiefenthal in. I liked it. It’s got an interesting deckbuilding mechanic. Only the cards you acquire go on the top of your deck, so you’re guaranteed to draw them on your next turn. Also, instead of having a hand of cards, you draw and play cards one at a time from the top of your deck until all of the tables in your tavern are full. In the meantime, you might have drawn:
* one or more servers that grant you an extra die for the dice rolling and drafting phase
* dishwashers which let you add one to a die roll
* brewers which make any dice assigned to your tavern brewer produce one more beer
* barbacks that provide one beer each
* tables - more places for customers

After everyone has filled their tables, there’s a dice drafting phase. Servers grant you 1 to 3 dice of your own color. So you roll those and put them below your Tavern board. You also get to roll 4 white dice to put on your coaster. On your turn you’ll choose one. After everyone’s chosen a die from their coaster, the coasters are passed clockwise. Rinse and repeat til everyone has 4 white dice. Most of us assigned our dice to various places on our player boards as we acquired them. You’re free to change their assignment when you use them in the next phase.

In turn order each player executes the actions on her tavern board that she’s assigned dice to. You can use
* any coins generated to acquire more barbacks, dishwashers, servers, tables and brewers or upgrade part of your tavern
* any beer produced to recruit a customer and/or one or more nobles.
* any dice assigned to the monk to move up the monastery track to earn a variety of bonuses.

It was a really fun game. We only played the first module. I look forward to trying some more.

So what’d you play?

#gaming #HereBeBooksAndGames #boardgames #TavernsOfTiefenthal ... See MoreSee Less

Here Be Books & Games

Posted 3 weeks ago

Stone Age is a classic worker-placement game that I never tire of. It’s wonderful.In Stone Age, you lead a clan of stone-age hunter-gatherers with the goal of surviving and prospering - that is, earn the most victory points.

Game play is straight forward. Each round consists of three phases:
Phase 1: You and your fellow players take turns sending a group of one or more of your people to work at one of the places on the board. (They won’t perform the action there until Phase 2). You can send them to work at:
• the hunting grounds to gather food.
• the forest to gather wood.
• the clay pit to make bricks.
• the quarry to acquire stone.
• the river to look for gold.
• the farm to till a field which provides ongoing food.
• the tool shed to fashion a tool.
• the love shack to make a baby.
• an unbuilt hut to build it.
• a canoe to take a journey for an immediate benefit and an end-game scoring multiplier.

Phase 2: Beginning with the start player, bring all of your people home, one group at a time, in whatever order you desire, performing their actions as you do so. For example, if you sent one of your people to fashion a tool and several others to gather wood, you could bring home the toolmaker first, then use the tool he produced – should it be needed – when the others gather wood.

Phase 3: Finally, feed your people and reset the board. You need one food for each member of your clan. Each field you have feeds one worker. To reset the board, slide any leftover canoe cards to the right filling in any holes with new cards, then turn up the top hut of each stack as necessary. Pass the start player token clockwise to the next player and you’re ready for the next round.

One of the things I love about Stone Age is how the game’s mechanics reflect the theme. For example, were you to go out hunting-gathering during the stone age, sometimes you’d be successful, maybe even super successful, and other times not so much. In the game, this luck aspect of hunting-gathering is emulated with dice. Ultimately, you’ll use the resources you acquire to build huts, make journeys by canoe (in game terms, acquire civilization cards), or eat if you get really desperate and didn’t find enough food that round.

Canoe cards are important. Not only do they provide an immediate benefit shown at the top of the card, they also provide some type of end-game scoring shown at the bottom of the card. The immediate benefit could be food, resources, a field, a permanent or temporary tool, etc. During end game scoring, you’ll score points equal to the square of the number of different cultural improvement canoe cards you’ve acquired.
You’ll also score points for the fields, people, huts, and tools you’ve acquired, each multiplied by the number of canoe card multipliers you have of that type. So, a good strategy if you’re making lots of babies is to acquire as many canoe cards with people multipliers as you can. Building a lot of huts? Make sure you grab those hut multipliers.

Stone Age has that perfect, magical combination of traits that makes a game a classic: it’s accessible and easy to teach, provides multiple paths to victory, requires both strategy and tactics, has a well-implemented theme and quality components.

Stone Age supports 2 to 4 players, ages 10 and up, and plays in 1 to 1 1/2 hours.

Drop by this Saturday, March 14 and we'll teach you how to play! We also have The Expansion if you're interested in learning/playing that as well!!

You can review a more detailed review at The Glass Meeple. ... See MoreSee Less

Here Be Books & Games

Posted 3 weeks ago

Ticket to Ride: Japan & Italy is Volume 7 in the Ticket to Ride Map Collection. It includes a long, double-sided game board that features Japan on one side and Italy on the other, providing two new Ticket to Ride games to play.

What’s different on the Japan map is that some of the routes are reserved for the Bullet Train network. Once claimed, the routes on the Bullet Train network can be freely used by all players to complete destination tickets. When claiming a route that’s part of the Bullet Train, you’ll still discard a number of same-color cards equal to the length of the route. However, instead of placing your trains on a Bullet Train network route and scoring points on the regular score track, you’ll place a single Bullet Train miniature on the route and advance your marker on the Bullet Train track as many spaces as the length of the route. At the end of the game, the player who contributed the most to Bullet Train Network receives a bonus, and the player who contributed the least is penalized.

The Japan game board also features a small inlay for the Tokyo subway system, so you’ll all effectively be working on two networks at once. For example, you might have a ticket that lists a city outside Tokyo and a station within Tokyo. In which case you’ll need to complete a route from the outside city to Tokyo, then from the central Tokyo station to that particular subway station.

The Italy side of the game board is divided into regions. Here you’ll score bonus points based on how many regions you connect with your network. Three of the regions - Sardegna, Sicilia, and Puglia - count as two regions for bonus scoring purposes. If you have separate networks, then you score each one separately.

The Italy board also introduces a new type of ferry route. Actually, all of the gray routes on the Italy board are ferry routes that include 1 to 4 spaces marked with a wave symbol. To cover a wave symbol, you must play a locomotive or a ferry card from your hand in addition to the other cards needed to claim this route. Ferry cards are a new special type of card that can be drafted on your turn. Each ferry card has two wave symbols, so it can be used to cover two wave symbols on a ferry route.

Ticket to Ride: Japan & Italy supports 2 to 5 players, ages 8 and up, with a 30 to 60 minute playtime. The player trains and train cards from Ticket to Ride or Ticket to Ride: Europe are required to play the Ticket to Ride: Japan & Italy expansion.

I’m really excited to learn and teach this new Ticket to Ride game! So drop Saturday, March 14 and we’ll teach you how to play! ... See MoreSee Less