Unboxed the Board Game Blog

Created by Jerry Hawthorne, the designer of Stuffed Fables and Mice and Mystics, Aftermath is the latest addition to the Adventure Book Game line. In a world where all humans have mysteriously vanished, take on the role of a heroic rodent working to protect and provide for their colony. Complete a wide variety of exciting actions while completing missions using dynamic card play. Move quickly for the ruins of humankind are full of predators and calamity may arise at any moment!

In Aquaretto, the players are managing the planning and selection of animals for their water themed zoo, in the hope of acquiring the most victory points. The players can expand the size of their water park and victory points can be earned in a number of ways. The most common way is to collect a large number of animals to your park in a variety of species.

Up to two thousand pounds in weight and over ten feet tall, the bear is considered the biggest and heaviest terrestrial carnivore in the world. Of course, there is not just "one bear;" on the contrary, there are plenty of subspecies that differ from each other in various aspects. For instance, only the Kodiak bear (ursus arctos middendorffi) weighs about 2,000 lbs. The polar bear (ursus maritimus) weighs "only" 1,100 lbs., but gets much bigger than the Kodiak bear, being as much as 11 ft. tall! Bärenpark takes you into the world of bears, challenging you to build your own bear park. Would you like another polar bear enclosure or rather a koala* house? The park visitors are sure to get hungry on their tour through the park, so build them places to eat! Whatever your choices are, make sure you get the next building permit and use your land wisely! (* No, koalas aren't bears but they're so cute, we couldn't leave them out of this game!) In more detail, each player in Bärenpark builds their own bear park, attempting to make it as beautiful as they can, while also using every square meter possible. The park is created by combining polyomino tiles onto a grid, with players scoring for animal houses, outdoor areas, completed construction, and more. The sooner you build it, the better! Cover icons to get new tiles and park sections. The game ends as soon as one player has finished expanding their park, then players tally their points to see who has won.

You cultivate the forest in front of your cavern and dig deeper into the mountain throughout the game. By furnishing rooms in your caverns you make space to grow your tribe and and create new goods from your resources. Deeper into the mountain you will find fountains as well as ore and gem mines. It's on you to decide how much ore and gems you want to mine, giving you the opportunity to forge weapons and go on adventures; a new way to do things in the game instead of using actions with your workers. Outside your cavern you can clear the forest, cultivate fields, fence pastures and grow crops or breed animals. All this in order to increase your wealth and become the strongest and best tribe leader of them all! The game includes a solo mode, giving you the opportunity to make yourself familiar with the 48 different room tiles which are available to furnish your caverns.

A cooperative version of the game Concept, adapted for play with children aged 4 and up. A game entirely dedicated to the animal kingdom! Get people to guess your favorite animals. But shh, there’s no talking here – words have been replaced with icons!

Use resources to build a village of critters and constructions in this woodland game. From Everfrost to Bellsong, many a peaceful year have passed in Everdell — but the time has come for new territories to be settled and new cities to be established. You will be the leader of a group of critters intent on just such a task. There are buildings to construct, lively characters to meet, events to host— you will have a busy year ahead of you! Will the sun shine brightest on your city before the winter moon rises?

In Evolution: The Origin of Species, players do the work of nature, putting animals into play and evolving them trait by trait to help them survive and thrive. Each player starts with a hand of six cards that feature an animal on the back and one or two traits on the front. Each round consists of four phases. During Development, players take turns playing one card from their hand either as an animal (face-down) or as a trait on one of their existing animals (face-up and tucked under the animal). Traits include Carnivorous, Camouflage, Sharp Vision, Swimming, Poisonous and Communication; if a card has two traits, the player chooses which trait the animal acquires, hiding the other trait under the animal. Once a player passes during this phase, he can no longer play cards.

Exploriana is an exciting game of exploration and discovery set towards the end of the 19th century. The players control the destiny of intrepid explorers setting out on expeditions to far off regions of the world. Fantastic animals, beautiful orchids, glittering treasures, lost explorers, maps and more all await discovery. However, fame and fortune will only come to those brave enough to trek into the untamed wilds. Exploriana is played over several rounds, each split into a number of phases. Each round, players recruit explorers, ranging from photographers and detectives to scholars, medics and more. They then decide which of three far flung regions of the world they wish to send their explorers; South America, Africa or The Far East. Those explorers then lead expeditions into the deep jungles, endless savannah and mist swathed mountains of these strange new lands. Exploration is a dangerous pursuit, perils lurk around every corner waiting to doom an expedition to failure! Explorers rely on their skills and wit to get them through, but if their expedition runs into too much trouble they could become lost, perhaps never to be seen again! The players must decide just how far to push their luck and see if fortune really does favour the bold!

Once upon a time there was a marvelous forest full of gorgeous fruits. These fruits came in vivid colors with the sweetest tastes. And the best part was the fruits could be squeezed and mixed into the most delicious juices. You are animals living in this forest, searching for the most savory fruits. You find them with the help of friendly forest-dwellers. They give you fruits, trade them with you or help you in other ways. It is most advantageous to be the first at these locations. If you are already at a location, you get a fruit from the animals arriving after you. You are greedy and thirsty. Who will be the first to satisfy their appetite for fabled juices?

Do you know where the panda lives? Do you know where the babirusa lives? Do you know what a babirusa is? In the game Fauna, you are not expected to know all the answers, simply gather your wits and make an educated guess. You are right on target? Great. You are close? That's good too, since you score partial points. The more you play the better you get. Playing Fauna involves some fun betting for points, but don't get cocky, as this may cost you your hide.

Fox's Party is a fast playing push your luck and memory game in one. Each player starts with a deck of twelve face-down cards, each card shows one of seven animals on it, but since those cards are face-down you don't know which animals you have, at least not at first. The remaining cards are placed face up in the center of the table so that everyone can see the critter on the top card; the face of each card also shows a "size chart" of how the animals relate to one another in size: the ant is the smallest, followed by the snail, the frog, the hedgehog, the fox, the deer and the bear. On a turn, you state whether you think the card on top your deck features an animal that's larger, smaller, or the same size as the animal on top of the deck, then you reveal that card. If you're wrong, you place the card face down on the bottom of your deck and end your turn. If you're correct, you can stop or decide to take another guess, but this time you'll compare the hidden animal on top of your deck with the animal that you just revealed. Anytime you're wrong, you bury all revealed cards in the same order face down under your deck. But if you stop after one or more correct answers, you then place all of those cards (in the order guessed) on top of the central deck. The first player to play all the cards in his deck wins.

Hey, That’s My Fish! is an engaging, award-winning board game of strategic fish hunting, in which two to four players control determined penguins hungry for their next meal on a bustling Antarctic ice floe. Do you have the mettle to grab more fishy meals than your feathered foes? Since Hey, That’s My Fish! was originally published in 2003, it has become widely popular as an engrossing and strategic board game for casual family and tactical play, and it was even recommended in 2006 for the Spiel des Jahres award. Now, Fantasy Flight Games is proud to publish this definitive edition of the game, which includes a new box, new penguin miniatures, and new artwork.