—Recruitment Phase: Players compete in two rounds of offers to add dogs to their kennels. Offers are made with players' reputation (victory points), so must be placed wisely.
—Selection Phase: Players decide which dogs to place on their lead to walk this round.
—Walking Phase: Players journey through the dog park with their fellow walkers, collecting resources, earning reputation, and interacting with other walkers.
—Home Time Phase: Players earn reputation for their walked dogs, and lose reputation for any unwalked dogs in their kennel.
Players must choose their routes and dogs carefully to earn the best reputation and prove they are the most accomplished walker of them all. At the end of the game, the player with the most reputation wins.
• German publisher Ravensburger has a new twist on "escape room" games with a trilogy of designs from Dave Neale and Matthew Dunstan that bear the name "echoes". Here's an overview of how to play these designs:
In more detail, your task is to assemble the 24 parts of the story in the right order; each part is represented by an object — either a game board or a card — and its associated echo. The entire story is divided into six chapters, with each chapter being represented by a game board. By scanning the objects with the app, you'll hear the echo connected with each object, and by using conversations and noises in the echo, you try to figure out which three object cards are associated with a chapter and in which order they should be placed. If you're not correct, the app will inform you which cards are incorrect or in the wrong place; if you are correct, you can listen to the entire chapter all at once — and you should since new, additional hints can then be heard.
The objects themselves also provide you with clues from time to time, so neglect no details.
—The New York underworld makes dark plans in an illegal bar, and the echoes of the past hide the identity of its leader. You need to discover that identity in echoes: Der Cocktail.
—The ghost of a young girl is haunting a Scottish manor, and the echoes of the past hide the secret of her death. See whether you can unravel this secret in echoes: Die Tänzerin.
—In the far future, civilization is lying in ruins, and the echoes of the past hide the tragic story of its downfall. See whether you can uncover the truth in echoes: Der Mikrochip.
• Speaking of "escape room" games, Exit: The Game designers Inka and Markus Brand have a new design from Ravensburger that seems to fall in the same ballpark — Mystery Games: Der verfluchte Geburtstag (The Cursed Birthday). Here's a short overview of the title, which hits the German market on September 1, 2021:
In Mystery Games: Der verfluchte Geburtstag, you must work together to find the key to the drawer in which the ghost is hiding inside this three-story villa. When you have mastered all the challenges presented over the six rounds, which includes information from guests and employees via a supported app, a final test awaits...
What's in the Hampton Mansion rooms?!
However, the game includes a desk calendar with three flippable stacks of cards: two for the numerals in the date and one for the month. Each combination of cards corresponds to a different day of the year, giving you 366 game variants — or even more should you wish to play on March 38...