Meow at the Maharaja as You Leave the Mystery House to Create Golems

Meow at the Maharaja as You Leave the Mystery House to Create Golems
Board Game Publisher: Cranio Creations
Let's check out the 2020 offerings of Cranio Creations, another publisher we'll be looking at in more detail when we attend the Spielwarenmesse 2020 trade fair, which takes place Jan. 29-Feb. 2.

• We'll begin with MEKHANE, a 3-8 player game from Roberto Grasso that plays in 30 minutes and that will likely benefit from a video overview that demonstrates in more detail what's being described insufficiently in words below:
Quote:
In MEKHANE, fate and gods tell a story involving the available characters, using the tale cards. The story is divided in rounds called chapters, and at the end of each chapter, fate decides which character will die based on how the story has developed — and that story develops through destiny cards that tell each god (player) which characters should survive (with the numbers on the destiny card referring to the position of the character cards).

Board Game: Mekhane

At the end of the game, one of the gods wins the game if their favorite character has survived.
Hmm, more details needed, which is what the video overview is for...

Board Game: MEOW
MEOW is a 2-6 player card game from Reiner Knizia that doesn't sound like it has much going on — which reminds me of Knizia's LAMA, which also sounds like nothing but which was indeed something. Here's what we know about the game for now:
Quote:
MEOW is a card game in which smart cats fight for food. A player must be wise and try to collect the best bowls, avoiding fishbones while trying not to break vases!

Each game is divided into three rounds, and each round is divided into nine turns. On a turn, each player plays one cat card, then the player who played the most valuable card wins one award token. Keep in mind that not all awards are positive! At the end of the game, the player who collected the most points wins.
Board Game: MEOW

Board Game: Maharaja: The Game of Palace Building in India
• At Spielwarenmesse 2019, BGG recorded a teaser video with Cranio Creations about a new edition of Wolfgang Kramer and Michael Kiesling's 2004 game Maharaja. This edition is now moving toward publication in 2020, with new graphics, new components, and other changes:
Quote:
In Maharaja, you build statues of your God of choice to please the Maharaja during their visit and score victory points at the end of the game depending on the majority you reach.

During the game, players take the role of priests who travel to different cities in India, building statues and shrines dedicated to their favorite Gods to expand their worship. To do so, they are assisted by several characters with different abilities. Every year, the Maharaja, the great king of India, will change his residence and players will receive rewards according to their Gods' worship value. At the beginning of each year, players plan their actions in a secret phase to be played simultaneously.

At the end of the seventh year or when a player builds their seventh statue, the game ends, then the player with most prestige wins.

Aside from the new graphics and components and from players now building statues instead of palaces, this new edition of Maharaja includes new characters to use during the turn that change turn order, additional ways to earn victory points, an additional bonus each time you score a city after the Maharaja's visit depending on the assistant you chose, and additional modular rules that can be added during the game and in the final scoring.
Board Game: Maharaja

Board Game: Mystery House: Adventures in a Box – Back to Tombstone
• The 2019 title Mystery House: Adventures in a Box from designer Antonio Tinto will receive an expansion in 2020 with Back to Tombstone:
Quote:
A fearless and furious Indian tribe, fast and smoking guns, a gloomy mystery under the Western hot sun — all of this awaits in Back to Tombstone, a Western-themed adventure for Mystery House. Solve all the riddles, and escape alive from the wild wild west.
• As with Maharaja, at Spielwarenmesse 2019 we recorded an overview of the real-time, sliding-puzzle game Pakal from Luca Bellini and Luca Borsa.

• Other titles coming from Cranio Creations in 2020 include Machination, a design from Matthew Dunstan and Phil Walker-Harding in which you occupy a vehicle-dismantling depot and need to chose the right cars to pile up in your warehouse. Try to be the fastest player to fulfill common objectives to receive the best bonuses, while respecting your stock requirement.

• Finally, we come to Golem from Flaminia Brasini, Virginio Gigli, and Simone Luciani, with the publisher noting that Gigli and Luciani's Grand Austria Hotel inspired some of the mechanisms in Golem. Here's a quick take on it:
Quote:
The game is based on the 16th-century legend of the Golem, an anthropomorphic creature that rabbi Loew animated starting from a clay statue to protect his people. In the game, players take the role of rabbis who create and grow these powerful and magical creatures — but if a golem becomes too powerful, it will destroy everything it encounters on its way!
From gallery of elsademi
Yes, the publisher knows that the forehead text needs correcting...

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