Vendor: Zoch Verlag
Type: Board Games
Price:
21.95
Designer |
Torsten Landsvogt |
Publisher | Zoch Verlag |
Players | 3-6 |
Playtime | 30-30 mins |
Suggested Age | 10 and up |
Vendor: Zoch Verlag
Type: Board Games
Price:
15.36
Designer |
Torsten Landsvogt |
Publisher | Zoch Verlag |
Players | 3-6 |
Playtime | 30-30 mins |
Suggested Age | 10 and up |
Vendor: Helvetiq
Type: Board Games
Price:
2.95
Designer |
Torsten Landsvogt |
Publisher | Helvetiq |
Players | 2-5 |
Playing Time | 15 mins |
Suggested Age | 8 and up |
Vendor: Jolly Thinkers
Type: Board Games
Price:
17.21
Designer | Torsten Landsvogt |
Publisher | Jolly Thinkers |
Players | 2-5 |
Playtime | 20-30 mins |
Suggested Age | 8 and up |
Vendor: Z-Man Games
Type: Board Games
Price:
28.95
Designer | Torsten Landsvogt |
Publisher | Z-Man Games |
Players | 2-4 |
Playtime | 75 mins |
Suggested Age | 13 and up |
Welcome to the world of the Gnomes of Zavandor.
Like most gnomes, you have two great passions: sparkling gems and wondrous machines.
The sought-after gemstones can be found around the mining town of Diamantina. They can be bought and sold at the gem exchange, shady traders are always willing to engage in a little wheeling and dealing, and then you can use the gems to claim valuable mining rights, artifacts and jewellery. Who will become the most successful gem trading mogul?
Zavandor is a fantasy setting which revolves around a capitalist economy based on trading in gems - sapphires, rubies, mystical gems etc. Other games in the family include Mines of Zavandor, and The Scepter of Zavandor.
Gnomes of Zavandor features two central boards. The first is a grid with markers indicating the current price of each of the gem types, and also indicating whether the price is going to go up or down next turn. Gems can be bought (or sold) for cash in the first phase of each turn. Buying gems makes them more valuable in subsequent turns; selling them reduces their value, and this is reflected on the grid. These gems can be used to buy tiles from the second board, a star-shaped arena featuring "mining rights" tiles positioned randomly around it. The position on the board indicates the cost to purchase these mining rights; the cost will be a mixed selection of coloured gems. At the end of each turn, players gain new gems according to the mining rights they have acquired and this affects the central economy, generally reducing the value of the relevant gems when they are purchased for hard cash, in future rounds.
The initial phase of the turn involves buying gems, selling gems, taking gold, trading with the central supply, and purchasing cards and tokens (with gems rather than cash). The items available for purchase include equipment improving your efficiency, jewels providing victory points, and mining rights. The second phase of the turn involves mining for new gems. Each player takes the gems they are allowed according to their mining rights. At the end of each turn, the market values are adjusted according to the actions which have occurred; the price of the available equipment is discounted (this rule is optional); and another area of the star-shaped board becomes accessible with more mining-rights available to purchase in the next round.
The game continues until one player has reached a victory-point target, dependent on the number of players in the game. Victory points are achieved by purchasing mining-rights, equipment, and most significantly (but also most expensively) jewellery.
Vendor: Jolly Thinkers
Type: Board Games
Price:
11.95
Designer | Torsten Landsvogt |
Publisher | Jolly Thinkers |
Players | 1-5 |
Playtime | 15mins |
Suggested Age | 8 and up |
Similar to |
Pick-a-Pig Pick-a-Dog Pick-a-Polar Bear |
Pick-a-Seal features the same gameplay as Pick-a-Polar Bear, but without the two variants of Pick-a-Polar Bear. An individual game supports 2-5 players, while combined they support up to eight players.
Game Play
To set up the game, lay out 30 cards in a grid (49 cards with 6-8 players) and give one card face down to each player. Each card has five attributes, with each attribute having two states: large/small, with/without a raised arm, orange autumn/blue winter background, with/without goggles, and with/without canned fish. Someone shouts "Go!", then everyone looks at their card in hand. Players then start grabbing cards from the grid and stacking them in hand. The card grabbed must be identical to the top card in hand or differ from that top card in only one way. Thus, as you grab cards, the attributes of that top card will keep changing, forcing you to look for matches in new ways.
Once a player thinks he can't grab any more cards, he yells "Stop!" The round ends, and all players check their card stacks. If someone made a mistake when grabbing cards, that player keeps none of the cards gathered that round. If the player who stopped the round made no mistakes, he earns an extra card. If, however, he stopped the round when he could have collected more cards, then he loses all the cards he's collected during this round.
To set up for the next round, give each player a new face-down card and fill in the holes in the grid. When the deck runs out, complete that round, after which the game ends. Whoever has collected the most cards wins!
Vendor: Gryphon Games
Type: Board Games
Price:
11.95
Designer | Torsten Landsvogt |
Publisher | Gryphon Games |
Players | 1-5 |
Playtime | 15mins |
Suggested Age | 8 and up |
Similar to | Pick-a-Pig |
While Farmer Henry is enjoying red wine in his newly-built colossal basement, the piggies in the barn are also partying for fun! Impish as they are, they're really organized when it comes to forming groups for games. Recruit your team carefully, but not too slowly!
Pick-a-Dog (first published as Formissimo) features the same gameplay as Pick-a-Pig, with the only difference being that dog noses in one game are replaced with piggie snouts in the other. An individual game supports 2-5 players, while combined they support up to eight players.
To set up the game, lay out 30 cards in a grid (49 cards with 6-8 players) and give one card face down to each player. Each card has five attributes, with each attribute having two states: large/small, light/dark, one/two arms, with/without sunglasses, and with/without popcorn. (As noted above, combining the two games adds a sixth attribute: pig/dog nose.) Someone shouts "Go!", then everyone looks at their card in hand. Players then start grabbing cards from the grid and stacking them in hand. The card grabbed must be identical to the top card in hand or differ from that top card in only one way. Thus, as you grab cards, the attributes of that top card will keep changing, forcing you to look for matches in new ways.
Once a player thinks he can't grab any more cards, he yells "Stop!". The round ends, and all players check their card stacks. If someone made a mistake when grabbing cards, that player keeps none of the cards gathered that round. If the player who stopped the round made no mistakes, he earns an extra card (two cards when playing with 6-8). If, however, he stopped the round when he could have collected more cards, then he loses all the cards he's collected during this round.
Whoever has collected the most cards when the game ends wins!
Vendor: Gryphon Games
Type: Board Games
Price:
11.95
Designer | Torsten Landsvogt |
Publisher | Gryphon Games |
Players | 1-5 |
Playtime | 15mins |
Suggested Age | 8 and up |
Similar to | Pick-a-Dog |
While Farmer Henry is enjoying red wine in his newly-built colossal basement, the piggies in the barn are also partying for fun! Impish as they are, they're really organized when it comes to forming groups for games. Recruit your team carefully, but not too slowly!
Pick-a-Pig features the same gameplay as Pick-a-Dog, with the only difference being that piggie snouts in one game are replaced with dog noses in the other. An individual game supports 2-5 players, while combined they support up to eight players.
To set up the game, lay out 30 cards in a grid (49 cards with 6-8 players) and give one card face down to each player. Each card has five attributes, with each attribute having two states: large/small, light/dark, one/two arms, with/without sunglasses, and with/without popcorn. (As noted above, combining the two games adds a sixth attribute: pig/dog nose.) Someone shouts "Go!", then everyone looks at their card in hand. Players then start grabbing cards from the grid and stacking them in hand. The card grabbed must be identical to the top card in hand or differ from that top card in only one way. Thus, as you grab cards, the attributes of that top card will keep changing, forcing you to look for matches in new ways.
Once a player thinks he can't grab any more cards, he yells "Stop!". The round ends, and all players check their card stacks. If someone made a mistake when grabbing cards, that player keeps none of the cards gathered that round. If the player who stopped the round made no mistakes, he earns an extra card (two cards when playing with 6-8). If, however, he stopped the round when he could have collected more cards, then he loses all the cards he's collected during this round.
Whoever has collected the most cards when the game ends wins!
Vendor: Jolly Thinkers
Type: Board Games
Price:
11.95
Designer | Torsten Landsvogt |
Publisher | Jolly Thinkers |
Players | 1-5 |
Playtime | 15mins |
Suggested Age | 8 and up |
Similar to |
Pick-a-Pig Pick-a-Dog |
Pick-a-Polar Bear is a stand alone game
The nanuks are determined not to be sitting "bears" due to global warming. Sourcing a supply of canned fish may be a way to survive the diminishing sea ice — and if nothing else, it gives them a good reason to travel all the way from the North Pole to Germany to party down with their doggie friends there!
Pick-a-Polar Bear, first published as Formissimo, features the same gameplay as Pick-a-Dog but with two new variants! To set up the basic game, lay out 30 cards in a grid (49 cards with 6-8 players) and give one card face down to each player. Each card has five attributes, with each attribute having two states: large/small, with/without a raised arm, orange autumn/blue winter background, with/without goggles, and with/without canned fish. Someone shouts "Go!", then everyone looks at their card in hand. Players then start grabbing cards from the grid and stacking them in hand. The card grabbed must be identical to the top card in hand or differ from that top card in only one way. Thus, as you grab cards, the attributes of that top card will keep changing, forcing you to look for matches in new ways.
Once a player thinks he can't grab any more cards, he yells "Stop!" The round ends, and all players check their card stacks. If someone made a mistake when grabbing cards, that player keeps none of the cards gathered that round. If the player who stopped the round made no mistakes, he earns an extra card (two cards when playing with 6-8). If, however, he stopped the round when he could have collected more cards, then he loses all the cards he's collected during this round.
To set up for the next round, give each player a new face-down card and fill in the holes in the grid. When the deck runs out, complete that round, after which the game ends. Whoever has collected the most cards wins!
Pick-a-Polar Bear includes two game variants. In the first, the player who has obtained the most cards in the preceding round cannot grab a card that's identical to his top card in the current round. For the second variant, shuffle eight "bonus round" cards into the deck. If when laying out the cards in the grid, the dealer reveals the back of a bonus round card when at least ten cards are on the table, everyone prepares for the bonus round. The dealer reveals this card, which shows two card elements such as upraised arm and goggles, and everyone races to yell out how many cards in the grid feature these two elements. Whoever yells out the correct answer first receives the bonus round card, which is worth 2 points; whoever yells out the wrong answer takes a -2 point penalty card. The dealer then continues filling the grid. (If the grid contains fewer than ten cards when a bonus round card comes up in the deck, discard this card and continue to fill the grid.)