In Unboxed, you and your friends take on the role of archeology interns under the direction of Dr. Ramos. At the dig site, the team has uncovered ten caches of ancient board games and they need your help to figure out how they were played. The centuries have not been kind to the rulebooks, so you’ll have to infer the rules based on each game’s symbology, components, and your own experience and intuition. Hopefully you’ve been attending board game night regularly…
EXAMINE Each of the ten dig-sites will grant you a specific set of components and a few questions to help guide your “research”.
EVALUATE Figure out how the components work together.
PLAY Once you’ve successfully recreated the rules, you’ll have a fully functional game!
Unboxed brings board game lovers and aspiring game designers a unique puzzle experience, which features a playful spin on the one-box mystery and many satisfying surprises! Dr. Ramos will be there to provide hints as you theorize and test your designs for all ten of the provided scenarios. So, what are you waiting for? Put your sleuthing skills to the test and get these ancient games UNBOXED!
Trio is a card game in which players are looking for three of a kind. The deck consists of 36 cards, numbered 1-12 three times. Players receive some cards in hand, which they are required to sort from low to high, and the remaining cards are placed face down on the table.
On your turn, choose any single card to reveal, either the low or high card from a player’s hand (including your own) or any face-down card from the table. Then, do this again. If the two cards show the same number, continue your turn; if they do not, return the cards to where they came from and end your turn.
If you reveal three cards showing the same number, take these cards as a set in front of you. If you are the first player to collect three sets, you win — except that a player wins immediately if they collect the set of 7s or two sets that add or subtract to 7, e.g., 4s and 11s.
“21 New Hand Games for Everyone! If you like hand games but are tired of Rock Paper Scissors, these games are for you!
Here are 21 new hand games to play with your pals. Flip to any page, read the rules and you’re ready to go. Featuring fresh takes on classics as well as totally new designs, these games are a cinch to learn, play and teach, and they work great just about anywhere. Let’s play some hand games!
What is a hand game?
I bet you’ve played a hand game. At least Rock Paper Scissors, right? Players throw hand signs in the air, cancel each other out and the last player remaining wins. Easy! So, there’s one.
In Odin, you want to empty your hand as quickly as possible, sending all your Vikings out into the world.
The game lasts several hands, with each hand consisting of one or more rounds. The deck contains cards in six suits, each numbered 1-9, and each player starts with a hand of nine cards.
Burned is a new game from Stone Circle Games. Burned is designed by Jon Moffat, who also designed “Horrible Hex”, “Traders, Raiders & Runners”, and “Pirate Kings”. Burned bills itself as a two-player asymmetrical game of cat and mouse that plays in 20 minutes. The cat and mouse part cannot be understated.
Each player’s goal is to eliminate their adversary. One player plays as a Burned Asset that is using equipment and stealth movements to evade capture while targeting and laying traps to kill the Director of the Agency. Across the table, the Agency employs a host of agents to try to flush out and kill the Burned Asset.
When Tokyo Highway debuted in 2016 it was an instant must have. It was one of the coolest looking games I had ever seen.
The little cars and the road construction were fantastic. Of course it was quite a challenge to play without causing a total disaster as it was super easy to knock everything down. In addition, there wasn’t that much game to be honest.
On a turn you build columns from your limited pillars and place roads. If your road crosses another player’s road either above or below you place a car. The first player to place all their cars won.
Forward to 2023 and Itten has released a new and improved version! Released domestically in Japan in 2023 and now on the crowdfunding platform Kickstarter for wider international release in 2024, Tokyo Highway Rainbow City has several improvements whilst keeping the same stylish components. To start, the cars are now made of rubber. The old cars were wood, which I tend to prefer, but they could slide easily off roads, especially steep inclines. The new rubber cars grip the roads a bit better which brings us to the second improvement. The roads now have little rubber ends on one side which let them stay better on the wood columns. The new version also comes with the all new tower, rainbow and municipal buildings as well as development plots for the previous buildings.
In addition and more importantly, there have been improvements to the game play. The advanced games provide Mission Rules. Mission Rules add just enough direction to your building to make the game more interesting. For example if you encircle a building with your highway, have the tallest column or build under the rainbow you earn extra points.
Overall I find the new version of Tokyo Highway much more to my liking. It still has a tremendous tabletop presence. The addition of the rubber feet for the roads and the rubber cars mean you also spend less time rebuilding the city or at least for those of with less dexterous abilities. I love the addition of the Mission Rules. It adds an increased level of competition for prime spots within the city and also a little more strategic planning. Trying to go get an off ramp at the airport of go through the rainbow is so much fun! Definitely worth the upgrade for a game already owned.
Thoughts From Other Opinionated Gamers:
Mark Jackson (1 play): It’s really satisfying to see and make a move that threads through the various roads whilst scoring you points. Additionally, Lorna is correct that the rubber feet & cars make the game much easier to play.
Love it: Lorna Like it: Mark Jackson, John P Neutral Not for Me
