A Quartet of Games from Rebel Publishing for Spiel 2012: The Cave, Slavika, Mercurius & Amber

In The Cave, players take on the role of a speleologist team tasked with exploring a newly discovered cave. Players start from a base and explore a cave, tunnel after tunnel, effectively building the board (the cave). They have to overcome steep descents, underground lakes, and tight squeezes. They will be given a chance to admire the wonders of the underground, like halls full of stalactites. To make it all possible they must take the right supplies with them, like ropes, oxygen and batteries.

Each turn players have five action points to use for moving, discovering new cave tiles, exploring them, and packing their backpacks when they go back to the starting base. They need ropes for descents, oxygen to explore underwater parts, and a camera to photograph underground wonders. Planning what to take with them is one of the most important things in the game. Each turn that their pawn is not in the starting base, players must use (i.e., throw out) one basic supply from their backpack; these costs, along with the expenditure of other supplies during exploration, forces them to return to the starting base a few times during the game. To keep them from having to carry everything, though, players can raise a camp somewhere in the tunnels where they can store some of the equipment.

The cave differs every game, so players have to be prepared for everything or they will lose time. Players earn points for exploring different tiles: underwater, wondrous, descents, and so on – but to win they'll need to acquire bonus prizes for exploring the most tiles of each type. This make decision-making during trips very difficult.

When the cave is fully explored, the player who made the biggest effort in the most spectacular way wins the game.

A dark shadow has fallen upon the Slavic lands. The powerful amulet of Slavika, which has protected the inhabitants since the death of the prince, is now powerless. The ruler's only child, his daughter, is still too young to bind herself with the amulet and take on the family burden. A few months remain until the day of the ritual – and until the daughter of the prince fills the amulet with her lifeforce, the ruling families themselves must protect the population against the evil creeping out of the swamps and caves. The family which best performs this task will gain the privilege of marrying one of their sons to the young princess, who will soon be bound to the amulet and will possess the tremendous power of Slavika.

In Slavika, players are the heads of powerful families in the fantastic world of Slavika. Each player has six heroes, who will be sent to different regions, where they will fight monsters threatening the villagers. The more a player's heroes help defeat the monsters, the more glory is won for their family. The game lasts several months, until the princess is able to complete the ritual and renew the power of the amulet. At that time the family with the most glory points earns the right to the hand of the princess and wins the game.

The East India Company grows quickly through the delivery of exotic goods from New World and Far East – but to operate on such a large scale, the company needs money, so the first world stock market is opened in Amsterdam. Rich citizens see the opportunity to acquire even more riches, so they invest in the stock market, while also wanting to take part in even more opportunities to make profit. Thus, much wanted exotic goods can be bought and sold, too, and with no secure routes a player can make even better profits by trading them.

In Mercurius players take on the role of rich citizens in Holland in the 17th century. They invest their money in stocks of different branches of the East India Company or try to earn much more profit through risky trade in exotic goods. Players have their own information about activities in the far lands and about events which can influence prices at the market, but each of them sees only part of the picture, so they have to look at what other players are doing and which prices are influenced by them.

Players have starting cash at the beginning of the game, along with five "changing prices" cards and four cards which allow them to take special actions during play. The game board shows prices for stocks of six branches of the East India Company and for six goods those branches trade. On a turn, a player can make up to three purchases or sales of stocks or goods as he wishes. He then plays one "changing prices" card from his hand. Each card changes the price of one stock and one good. Each card changes the prices three times, once on the turn it's played and on two consecutive turns. The tricky part is that cards move the value of goods twice as much as the value of stocks, so players can earn more by trading goods – but doing so is far more risky.

Who will become the richest citizen of Holland and win the game?

The kingdom has taken over a coastal region and given the land to new barons who quickly realized that the true wealth of this new region is amber, for which caravans come from the farthest corners of the world. Peasants from nearby villages collect amber, which is bought by merchants from distant lands. The barons know that the one who profits the most from the amber trade will become the most powerful ruler of the new lands.

In Amber, players take the role of the barons, and their goal is to build trade routes which connect their castles to the villages where the amber is collected, and to the other barons' castles where it is traded. To this end, players build roads through the wilderness – placing one tile each turn in the shared playing area – which will allow their buyers to reach the sources of the amber. Since all buyers can use the roads, however, it's important to have suitable connections with the road networks built by others. The baron whose castle is connected with the greatest number of villages and castles will become the richest and most respected Lord of the new land.