New Game Round-up: Stronghold Preps Pictomania, Kermarrec Merges Bubbles with Bombs & Rosenberg Readies Beans for Youngsters

Mein erstes Bohnanza serves as both an introduction to Bohnanza and as a children's game in its own right, with the goal of the game being the same as its parent: Have the most Talers at the end of play.

As in the original Bohnanza, the game includes multiple types of beans, with each bean having a number on it to indicate how many copies are in the game as well as a "beanometer" at the bottom of the card to show you how many cards of this type you need to harvest in order to collect Talers. Mein erstes Bohnanza has simplified beanometers, with four types of beans having only a single exchange value — e.g., five Gemeine (common) beans get you one Taler — and six types of beans having two exchange values. Games with the youngest players (or newcomers to the Bohnanza universe) should use the single beanometer cards with the other cards forming a Taler stack.

To play, each player gets five cards, which they lay in a face-up row, and a beanfield tile that shows spots for two types of beans. On a turn, a player must plant the first (leftmost) card in one of her fields and she can choose to plant a second. Players try to group cards of the same type in the same field, but they can cover beans of different types, if needed. The player then reveals two cards from the deck and either keeps them or trades them (and cards from her hand, if desired) for cards held by other players; all traded cards must be planted. To end her turn, the player draws three cards and adds them to her row.

As soon as a player has the proper number of bean cards in order in one of her fields, she harvests them, placing these cards in the discard pile and collecting a Taler from the stack. If those cards covered beans of another type, she can then start building on those beans again. After going through the deck 1-3 times (depending on the number of players), the game ends and whoever has the most Talers wins.

Once players have played Mein erstes Bohnanza a few times, you can swap the single beanometer cards for the double beanometer cards, which now gives players a choice of when to harvest. Subsequently, you can combine the two decks, which introduces the rule about using one of the bean cards to serve as the Taler (which adjusts the quantity of that type of bean in the deck). With additional plays, you can add in the remaining rules of Bohnanza, such as needing to harvest for no Talers when planting, paying for a third beanfield, keeping your cards in hand, and not being able to harvest a field with only one card.

In Bubble Bomb, players use their bubbles to create bombs, or perhaps set bombs off — whatever the case might be, you need to get your bubbles in order to match target bombs and win.

To set up, each player takes seven double-sided chips from a bag, with each side of the chip showing a colored symbol; nine additional chips are placed in the center of the table. Nine double-sided bomb tiles are placed to the side, and each bomb tile shows either a color or a symbol, but not both.

Everyone plays simultaneously, with each player flipping her chips one by one, flipping chips in the center of the table one by one, and swapping one of her chips for one of the publicly available chips. As soon as all seven of a player's chips match one of the target bombs — say, by being all pink or all triangles or one of each color — that player yells "Boom!" She then identifies the matching bomb, places one of her chips aside as a one-point scoring marker, draws a new chip from the bag, then flips over that bomb before play resumes.

If a player matches two bombs simultaneously — e.g., all blue and one of each symbol — she sets aside two tokens instead of one. If a players matches the Bubble Bomb, which calls for one of each color and one of each symbol, she claims the Bubble Bomb (even if another player claimed it earlier), then swaps all of her chips for seven in the middle of the table before play resumes; the Bubble Bomb is worth three points at the end of the game.

With four players, the game ends when the final chip is drawn from the bag and the player with the most points wins; with 2-3 players, the first player to collect nine points wins.

Quanto uses gameplay similar to that of Scopa and Casino with players trying to use numbered cards in hand to claim cards available on the table, but the game includes a few twists.

To start, the deck includes 110 cards, nine copies each of cards numbered 1-12 (with one rainbow card of each number) as well as two jokers. Each player starts with a hand of four cards, and four cards are laid face up on the table. On a turn, a player takes one of three actions:

• Lay down one card, then collect all cards of the same number (including the one played) and two or more cards that sum to this number, placing all of these cards in a personal score pile.

• Create a "Quanto" by laying down a card, taking one other card from the display, placing them to your side, then taking the matching number tile to mark this Quanto; you can take two or more cards at the same time that sum to this value and place them in your Quanto. In the future, you can play a card of this value to possibly add more cards to the Quanto, then move all of these cards to your score pile.

• Discard a card to the face up display. If you discard a 1, each opponent must give you a card from her score pile; if you discard a 2, you play a second card from your hand, once again taking any of the three actions; if you discard a 3, you reveal three cards from the deck, use one to perform an action, then discard the other two.

After taking an action, you refill the face-up display to four cards and your hand to four cards. If you use a rainbow card for action 1, you can claim another face-up card of your choice; if you use one for action 3, then you add an additional card to the display.

When the deck runs out and all players have emptied their hands, the game ends and whoever has the most cards wins.

Quanto includes partnership rules that allow partners to add to (but not claim) one another's Quantos and to swap cards with one another during play.