Your quick and easy guide to the rules, strategies, and etiquette of chess. Offers easily understood explanations of the game and its components, to provide a one-stop resource for improving your chess skills.

"Board games have been with us longer than even the written word. But what is it about this pastime that continues to captivate us well into the age of smartphones and instant gratification? In It's All a Game, British journalist and renowned games expert Tristan Donovan opens the box on the incredible and often surprising history and psychology of board games. He traces the evolution of the game across cultures, time periods, and continents, from...

"Hail Hydra is a game where each player has a secret role. Some players are S.H.I.E.L.D. and some are HYDRA, but you won't know which is which! There's lying, finger pointing, and persuasion as you deduce who is working with the team and who is not. Defeat the stack of perilous Villains and retrieve the Cosmic Cube from Red Skill before New York City is destroyed."--

"This book chronicles the evolution of tabletop hobby gaming, explores why hobbyists play eurogames, how players balance the structure of competitive play with the demands of an intimate social gathering, and to what extent the social context of the game encounter shapes the playing experience. This innovative work highlights a popular alternative trend in the gaming community"--

"Prepare for a DeLorean-fueled race against time to prevent Marty McFly's future from fading away! Players take on the roles of major characters from the blockbuster movie that launched the time traveling trilogy and helped define the 1980s. Players work together to defeat Biff and his trouble-making gang while ensuring Marty's parents fall in love and the DeLorean accelerates to 88 mph in time to blast Back to the Future. Filled with cinematic touchstones...

Checkers, backgammon, chess, and Go. Poker, Scrabble, and bridge. These seven games, ancient and modern, fascinate millions of people worldwide. In Seven Games, Oliver Roeder charts their origins and historical importance, the delightful arcana of their rules, and the ways their design makes them pleasurable. Roeder introduces thrilling competitors, such as evangelical minister Marion Tinsley, who across forty years lost only three games of checkers;...

"Paris, 1889. The Exposition Universelle was the perfect opportunity to amaze the world with the power of electricity. While Paris had already been known as the "city of lights" since the beginning of the 1800s thanks to its network of gas streetlights, the implementation of electric public lighting left the entire globe awestruck. In the role of one of the most important personalities of the city, you are keen on ensuring that your buildings are...

Distant islands, golden treasures--who hasn't dreamed of them?! You are in luck, because the treasure is in your hands. You are holding Silver and Gold: pure, addictive gold by Phil Walker-Harding. Players must rain Xs down, rapid fire, in the right configurations to close out island cards and hit the right bonuses before they can jump to the next card. Silver and Gold is a game of luck, bad luck, quick manipulation and exhilaration. You've found...

Alien Frontiers is a game of resource management, dice placement and area control set on the retro world of Planet Maxell. Deploy your fleet of dice and colonize the untamed planet by utilizing orbital facilities, discovering alien technology, and constructing colonies in strategic locations to stake your claim to this far-flung frontier.