6 Nimmt (aka Slide 5, Take 6, Category 5, and several dozen other names in various languages) is a simple card game with cards numbered 1 to 104. Each turn all players simultaneously choose and reveal a card, and then they queue them to one of four columns, high number on low number. If you play the sixth card onto a column, or your card can’t go onto any column, you take the/a column and it’s points. Points are bad. Simple.

Now there’s a junior version: 6 Nimmt Junior. With the name “Junior”, you just know there has to be animals on the cards. Junior has the same basic game play, but you have to fit the animals into the sheds, each of which can only hold one of each type of animal. And points are good at the end of the game.

While checking out 6 Nimmt Junior, I noticed a series of other games in the “Kid’s games” section of the Alea site, all called “Wendy [title]“, e.g. Wendy Halli Galli. That refers to Wendy, a popular kid’s culture magazine in Germany. Go branding!

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Alea didn’t start the Eurogames movement, but it’s done a whole lot to make it the greatness it is today. Starting with 1999, Alea has put out some of the most revered titles in the game industry: Ra, Chinatown, Taj Mahal, Princes of Florence, Winner’s Circle, Traders of Genoa, Puerto Rico, Edel Stein & Reich, San Juan, Louis XIV, Notre Dame, and In the Year Of The Dragon, to name about half of their games. They produce games only in German; Rio Grande Games (or occasionally another publisher, such as Z-Man Games) imports them and translates them into English.

To celebrate their 10th anniversary, they’ve published “10 Jahre alea – Schatzkiste”, or “10 Years of Alea – Treasure Chest”. The box contains expansions to six of their best games. That’s right: six expansions in one box, some of them a long time coming and highly anticipated:

• Puerto Rico: new buildings and a new type of colonist – nobles – that change the functionality of some buildings.
• San Juan: new buildings (finally!) and event cards that get mixed into the deck.
• Notre Dame: nine variant person cards (3 for each stages A, B, and C)
• In the Year Of The Dragon: A new action sequence for building walls which gives various benefits, and a deck of ten super events, one of which takes place after round seven.
• Witch’s Brew: A 6th player, ‘magic abilities”, and amulets which prevent people from blocking roles you select.
• Louis XIV: A personal influence card for each player which has four options, one of which can be executed each round.

When will it be available in English? I just got an email from Jay Tummelson of Rio Grande Games who says he is finishing the translation now, so it should be available in about 10 weeks.

(source and info)

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