After all dice have been rolled, the active player adds the total number of lanterns from his villagers. If the total is equal to or greater than one of the explore numbers associated with his choice, he succeeds. If he does not have a sufficient number of lanterns, he may then choose to Exert one or more of his villagers to gain extra lanterns. At the end of the game, the player with the most reputation gains 5 extra village points. The player with the second-most reputation gains 3 extra village points. The player with the third-most reputation gains 2 extra village points. If playing with two players, only the player with the most reputation gets the bonus: he gains 3 points (this is why there is a person symbol with the number "2" in this village point symbol). One of my measures with games that feature money is how end-round income works. You begin a game of Above and Below with seven coins, more if you are not the first player. But your starting income is only four coins. That means in round two, probably round three, you are going to have less money than you begin play with, especially if you do something silly like, I don’t know, buy any buildings or train any additional villagers. It’s 1926, and the speakeasies are filled with laughter and the smooth sounds of upbeat jazz. But there’s a threat looming over the unsuspecting people of Arkham that only the bravest group of heroes can eliminate. That being said, Above and Below is beautifully presented, the artwork has a dichotomy of light and dark, quirky and gloomy; the colour palette is vibrant for above and muted for below. The writing throughout the encounter book is excellent, sometimes funny, and sometimes very dark and the choices players are presented with are usually interesting if somewhat limited. Final Thoughts

In any given paragraph, a player is presented with a problem, a character or a physical barrier and then a choice of what action to take. For example, your party may come across a massive wooden treasure chest. Do you attempt to open it (explore 7) or continue on your way (explore 3) (explore 4)? Each worker tile has dice and lanterns depicted on it; the numerical value on each die is the number you must roll to acquire the number of lanterns shown below it. The “explore 7” condition is the number of lanterns needed to (in this case) successfully open the chest, when the player would gain rewards. You must declare which of the options you are rolling for as well as which worker and if you fail you either get nothing or if there is a lower lantern condition, gain the rewards for that. Above and Below makes getting additional cash extremely difficult. You can take the Labor action to take one coin for each villager you exhaust on a turn, but that won’t pay the bills AND it uses up valuable resources used to take the game’s other actions. You could try to sell some of the goods you harvest to another player (this will net a minimum of three coins), but what if none of the other players bite?OBJECTIVE OF ABOVE AND BELOW: The objective of Above and Below is to be the player with the most Village Points. NUMBER OF PLAYERS: 2 to 4 Players MATERIALS: 1 Reputation Board, 4 Player Boards, 4 Cubes, 36 Villagers, 1 Round Marker, 20 Potion Tokens, 10 Cider Tokens, 7 Dice, 25 Cave Cards, 9 Key House Cards, 6 Star House Cards, 1 Starting Player Card, 24 Outpost Cards, 81 Goods Tokens, 4 Starting House Cards, 25 House Cards, and Instructions TYPE OF GAME : Area Control Board Game AUDIENCE: Ages 13 and Up When a player is done taking actions, he declares "I pass". He may not take any more actions or free actions in this round.

All of the scenarios are short reads, so this isn’t Clank! Acquisitions Inc. territory, where you have to read three minutes of flavor text 20 times a game. The writing in Above and Below is excellent, and it’s even better because it is so brief. At the end of a short blurb, the active player is offered a choice, and then dice determine a success or a failure. The story telling element in Above and Below is, for the most part, great; the only issue I have with it is that the resolution of any given encounter has no flavor, you either gain rewards or you don’t, which to me is a little half-hearted. Maybe Tales of the Arabian Nights has just spoiled me. Whatever your reason is, it’s up to you to kill him before any of your fellow players get the chance. We’ve compiled a few of the best collaborative games like Betrayal at House on the Hill guaranteed to have you playing them over and over again! Mansions Of Madness Board Game

Villagers, Exhausted

Remember: each of these cards also gives 1 village point in addition to bonus points, because they are buildings. Compare Total Each action you can take in Above and Below has its own advantages. For example, several building cards available have a set amount of resource tokens (such as fish, ore, rope or parchment), which you can harvest from the card by using the harvest action. Other buildings have a recurring resource, meaning when you harvest that resource it will refresh at the end of the round. Houses, key houses, star houses, and outposts give the player a special ability, increased income, and/or other benefits. After the player has finished placing his new card, if he built a house or outpost, he then must draw a new card so that there are four available choices for the next player. Harvest A player may remove the good that is for sale, or replace it with something else, only on his turn. Refresh Building Row

Knowing all of this, I was excited to get Above and Below to the table. It’s a dinosaur in game years—eight years old!! It’s tough to get some of my friends to play games that were released even a year ago, so an eight-year-old game took some selling. But I coerced enough people to the table over the last few weeks to get some plays in, and I cobbled together some thoughts on the game below.Long term replayability can be a bit of a worry with anything story-based, but having played a few times now we've only come across a repeat story a couple of times and the gaps between plays have been long enough that no-one could remember what options were chosen last time anyway. Perhaps if you played the game intensively over a short period then repeat encounters could become a problem, but as one game among many this won't be an issue in a lot of people's collections. Above and Belowis a mashup of town-building and storytelling where you and up to three friends compete to build the best village above and below ground. In the game, you send your villagers to perform jobs like exploring the cave, harvesting resources, and constructing houses. Each villager has unique skills and abilities, and you must decide how to best use them. You have your own personal village board, and you slide the villagers on this board to various areas to indicate that they’ve been given jobs to do. Will you send Hanna along on the expedition to the cave? Or should she instead spend her time teaching important skills to one of the young villagers? Place a cider on the cider icon on the reputation board if it does not already have one. New Villagers There are six special villagers in the base game. They are the Liquid Woman, Glogo, Cave Cat (two of these), and Metal Man (two of these) villagers. At the start of the game, place these villagers face up near the play area. They can only be obtained through specific encounters in the explore book. Each of these villagers has special rules.

Then you found it! The perfect place to make your new home. But as soon as you had the first hut built, you discovered a vast network of caverns underground, brimming with shiny treasures, rare resources, and untold adventure. How could you limit your new village to the surface? You immediately start organizing expeditions and building houses underground as well as on the surface.First, the player slides one of his villagers from the ready area of his player board to the exhausted area of his player board. The villager must have a hammer symbol.