Luxor

I thought I’d seen every possible way to use cards. Keep them in your hand. Put them on the table. Facing you. Facing everyone else at the table. Turning them every which way to change what they do. And then along comes Luxor, a Spiel des Jahres nominee by Rüdiger Dorn, with a way to use cards that is all new, and yet super simple.

There isn’t much of a story to Luxor. Each player controls a group of adventurers as they make their way through the legendary temple of Luxor to the pharaoh’s burial chamber. It’s not so much what you’re doing or why that makes Luxor interesting. It’s the how.

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Istanbul: Mocha & Baksheesh

Istanbul: Mocha & Baksheesh

Being a merchant in the bazaar of Istanbul is a demanding job, and some days you just can’t do it without some chemical stimulation. With the new expansion to Mocha & Baksheesh, you can finally have your coffee in Rüdiger Dorn’s Istanbul. But it’s not for you to drink and gain energy for additional actions, it’s another commodity for you to trade in on your quest for rubies. But does coffee really make everything better?

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Istanbul

The second nominee for this year’s Kennerspiel des Jahres, Istanbul makes you run around the bazaar district of the titular city in a desperate search for rubies. Why rubies, you ask? No idea, to be honest, but as the game progresses it turns into a frantic search for your lost assistants, anyway. Leaving your assitants behind to work, then gathering them up again and leaving them somewhere else, that’s the core of Istanbul.

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