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In Noé the flood is at hand, and to save as many species as possible, Noah will need your help – with only the most deserving of players being saved from the waters!

Each round, players start with eight animal cards in hand; five ferries are laid out in a circle, with one animal placed on board from the top of the deck. Noah himself stands on one ferry. On a turn, a player plays one card from hand onto the ferry where Noah is located, following two rules: (1) the total weight of all animals on board cannot exceed 21 and (2) animals on a ferry must be placed either in alternating gender order or must be all of the same gender. After placing an animal, the player moves Noah to a different ferry; if he played a female animal, Noah goes to either adjacent ferry, while if he played a male, Noah goes to either ferry on the other side of the circle.

If a player can't legally play an animal, he must first take in hand ''all'' the animals on the ferry where Noah is located, then play an animal.

In addition to moving Noah to a nearly full ferry, players have two other ways to benefit themselves or mess with other players. If a player plays an animal identical to the one last played on that ferry, he moves Noah, then takes another turn. If a player brings the weight of a ferry to exactly 21, that ferry launches from shore to meet the ark located in distant waters, a new ferry becomes available for loading, and the player distributes 1-4 cards from the deck among his opponents. finally, some cards have special animals, such as the giraffe that lets you peek at an opponent's hand and the woodpecker, which stupidly pokes holes in the ferry and reduces its maximum weight to 13. Bad woodpecker, bad!

The round ends when a player runs out of cards in hand or a fourth ferry launches. Players receive penalty points for cards still in hand, scored according to the number of tears on each card, those tears representing Noah's sadness at the animal being left behind. Then players shuffle all the animal cards and begin a new round. The player with the fewest points after three rounds wins!

This year is the first time I have ever felt fundamental disquiet about the broad direction in which things are heading, at least from the point of view of the sorts of games I like. I think there are a few reasons.

First, obviously, is the slow exit of Reiner Knizia, Klaus Teuber, and Wolfgang Kramer from the scene.... In a hobby dominated by a cult of amateurism, these three seasoned professionals have been the go-to guys for good games that push the state-of-the-art for almost twenty years, and nobody as yet is stepping up to fill their shoes.

Secondly is the apparent implosion of Fantasy Flight, the most significant publisher of hobby board games designed and sold in America.... Their output is of course rather large – 2011 releases fill two pages of search results on BoardGameGeek – but everything I played this year was completely derivative and dire, well beyond even my jaded expectations of mediocrity.... [Editor's note: Yikes!]

Thirdly is the maturation of Kickstarter.... Kickstarter can fill an important role, mitigating the risk of publishing narrow-audience or avant-guard games or helping establish companies that have a clear but untested vision. But we are already a boutique market that I believe cannot afford the pressures of a thriving vanity segment – a segment that was probably already too large before Kickstarter. The stuff that Kickstarter has funded so far has not been novel or risky. To the contrary, it's been entirely derivative, conservative, and well-served by existing publishers, a veritable cornucopia of vanity projects. To the extent that Kickstarter is used to fund endless new worker placement or deck-building games, its sole function will be to offload risk from publishers to customers, and the primary risk being offloaded is that the publisher won't do its job properly.

Aeroplanes: Aviation Ascendant explores the dawn of commercial aviation, an exciting era between 1919 and 1939. Experience the difficulties and triumphs of commercial airlines in Europe, pioneering airports and service in continental Europe and around the world!

Aviation spurred the growth of intercontinental travel, and airlines struggled to dominate the regions of the globe that they served.

Rapid technological advances in planes play a vital role in this development as you compete to purchase newer more efficient aeroplanes, build airports, and move passengers around the globe. Earn bonuses and prestige for being the first to fly to North or South America, and win by maintaining the most airports around the world and by running your airline profitably.

Can you balance your investment in aeroplanes, customer service, and routes well enough to become the premier airline of the era? The fate and future of air travel lies within your hands!

Strange noises are heard from the Mad Mansion of Doctor Doom. Clouds of all colors come out of the chimney, and people tell weird stories about crazy creatures seen in the forest around the mansion. Help Doctor Doom finish his extravagant experiments to create the world's wackiest and craziest creatures ever seen!

In Crazy Creatures of Dr. Doom, all players try to get rid of their cards as cards in hand score penalty points at the end of a round. The player with the fewest penalty points at the end of the game wins and becomes Doctor Doom's new apprentice!

Olympicards has the player athletes compete in nine different events, with competition taking place via card play. Each sport has its own rules for playing cards, so sometimes you'll want to sit out an event to conserve your strength, while other times you'll push yourself to the limit to win the gold.

Each player starts the game with six cards, each card having a number and color. On a turn, you'll play one or two cards until you cannot – or don't want to – play any more cards. The first player to drop from the event receives more cards for next time, while whoever remains in the event until the end wins the gold medal (i.e. points).

Whoever has the most points after nine events wins!

Beneath the mountain called Goblins' Rock, the goblins have been mining for centuries. They have dug deeper and deeper. Their precious ore is running out and the taskmasters are getting BORED!

So in order to pass the time, the taskmasters have taken to racing their underlings into a...PIT OF FIRE! (Underlings are expendable, after all.) It is agreed that secretly choosing their favorites would be best and the race would end when the "winner" falls into the pit. Oh, and there should be gambling. You know, just to keep it interesting!

Go Goblin, Go! is a light, standalone racing and gambling board game. You secretly pick three of the racing goblins and you get points based on where they finish. You manipulate their movement, so you have some control over where they finish. Just don't be first. The first goblin to fall into the pit "wins", but they don't get any points.