New Game Round-up: ABACUSSPIELE — China Begins a New Dynasty, Cities Finds New Boundaries & Players Need to Squeal

In Han, players use cards to place pieces (houses or emissaries) into the nine regions on the board. To place in a region, a player must play a card of that region's color or two cards of the same color as a joker; a player can place at most two pieces in a region on a turn, but only one piece if the region was unoccupied at the start of the turn. One side of the game board — titled "Grenzstreitigkeiten", or "Border Disputes", and made for 3-5 players — includes house sites that straddle two regions; to claim one of these locations, a player must discard two appropriately-colored cards. The number of emissaries in a region is limited to the number of houses of the same color in that same region.

When all house spaces in a region are filled (or at the end of the game), players score for that region. Whoever has the most houses in that region scores one point for each house in the region, whoever has the secondmost houses scores one point for each house of the player who has the most, and so on.

At game end, players also score for having majorities of emissaries in two adjacent regions, scoring as many points as the number of emissaries in both regions. Players also score for having four or more houses in an uninterrupted sequence along one of the roads on the board. On the "Grenzstreitigkeiten" game board, players also score majority points for the houses in the port cities located in multiple regions, these port cities effectively forming their own region. Whoever scores the most points wins.

"Grenzstreitigkeiten" has one variant. Each player starts with one fortification in addition to his other pieces. Once per game, a player can play two matching cards, then place his fortification on a house site, then top it with a house. Whenever this house scores — whether for the region majority, for being a port city, or for being part of a sequence — the house's owner scores double the points he normally would.

The other side of the game board — "Wege der Diplomatie", or "Ways of Diplomacy", which is made for 2-4 players — also has a variant, with each player receiving a marketplace. Once per game, a player can play two matching cards, then place the marketplace on a house site, then top it with an emissary (not a house). This allows a player to compete for emissary points in a region that is otherwise full.

Two thousand years ago on the borders of the Roman Empire, life goes on as might be expected — but barbarians lurk across the border, so not only must the players grow grain in the fields, catch fish, and chop wood, but they must also maintain watchmen in a clever network of watchtowers to keep a lookout for fires and barbarian attacks.

Limes is based on the designer's board game Cities, and while the game system is roughly the same, the scoring is completely different. In addition, the tiles in Limes have a different layout from those in Cities. Together they ensure that Limes has become an entirely new game.

Limes includes two sets of cards, one for each player, but if you combine copies of the game (and use uniquely marked figures), any number of people can play at the same time.

A limes was a border defense or delimiting system of Ancient Rome. It marked the boundaries of the Roman Empire.

The Latin noun limes had a number of different meanings: a path or balk delimiting fields, a boundary line or marker, any road or path, any channel, such as a stream channel, or any distinction or difference. In Latin, the plural form of limes is limites.

Oink! challenges players to make lightning-fast strikes when two similar animals appear on the table — but in addition to striking the table, they need to make the proper animal noise faster than anyone else, and whoever does so claims all of the available cards. Watch out, though, as the naughty pig imposes itself again and again between other animals with a loud "Oink!"