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| Designers | Richard Breese |
|---|---|
| Publishers | Z-Man Games |
| Players | 2–4 |
| Setup time | 5 minutes |
| Playing time | 90 minutes |
| Chance | Low |
| Age range | 12+ |
| Skills | Strategic thought |
Reef Encounter is a German-style board game first published in 2004.
The game is played on 2, 3, or 4 separate boards depending on the number of players in which the players attempt to grow corals to feed to their parrotfish. Board space is limited, so the players' corals compete with one another for space. Corals are grown by placing polyp tiles on the board. The corals come in five different colors, and each color is weak or strong relative to each of the other colors. For example, red corals may be stronger than orange. Strong corals may overgrow weak ones, allowing the player who placed the tiles to consume the overgrown tiles. Consumed polyp tiles are strategically important, as they are required to perform certain actions and can allow a player to grow corals faster than would be possible otherwise. This hierarchy changes throughout the course of the game. All polyp tiles in a coral must be the same color.
Each player starts the game with four shrimp. When placed on a coral, the shrimp claims the coral for that player and protects adjacent tiles (but not necessarily the entire coral) from being overgrown. Shrimp may be moved freely around the boards during a player's turn.
There are a variety of actions which a player may take during their turn, including:
At the beginning of a turn, a player may have their parrotfish eat one shrimp and the coral it is on. Players who have eaten at least one shrimp may "lock" elements of the dominance hierarchy so they cannot be changed by other players. This is important strategically, as the more dominant colors are worth more points. The game typically ends when one player's parrotfish has eaten all four shrimp, or all elements of the dominance hierarchy have been locked.
Players' scores are based on the polyp tiles eaten by the parrotfish. Each tile is worth between 1 and 5 points, depending on where the tile is in the dominance hierarchy. For example, suppose the hierarchy at the end of the game is the following:
In this case, grey tiles are worth five points (one point, plus one point for each of four dominated colors). Pink, orange, and white are each worth three points (one point, plus one point for each of two dominated colors). Yellow tiles, which do not dominate any other colors, are worth one point each. The player with the most points wins.
Anthozoa is a class of marine invertebrates which includes the sea anemones, stony corals and soft corals. Adult anthozoans are almost all attached to the seabed, while their larvae can disperse as part of the plankton. The basic unit of the adult is the polyp; this consists of a cylindrical column topped by a disc with a central mouth surrounded by tentacles. Sea anemones are mostly solitary, but the majority of corals are colonial, being formed by the budding of new polyps from an original, founding individual. Colonies are strengthened by calcium carbonate and other materials and take various massive, plate-like, bushy or leafy forms.
Parrotfish are a group of fish species traditionally regarded as a family (Scaridae), but now often treated as a subfamily (Scarinae) or tribe (Scarini) of the wrasses (Labridae). With roughly 95 species, this group's largest species richness is in the Indo-Pacific. They are found in coral reefs, rocky coasts, and seagrass beds, and can play a significant role in bioerosion.
Rummikub is a tile-based game for 2 to 4 players, combining elements of the card game rummy and mahjong. There are 106 tiles in the game, including 104 numbered tiles and two jokers. Players have 14 or 16 tiles initially and take turns putting down tiles from their racks into sets of at least three, drawing a tile if they cannot play. In the Sabra version, the first player to use all their tiles scores a positive score based on the total of the other players' hands, while the losers get negative scores. Variations of the game contain four jokers. An important feature of the game is that players can move and reuse the tiles that have already been placed on the table.
Crustose is a habit of some types of algae and lichens in which the organism grows tightly appressed to a substrate, forming a biological layer. Crustose adheres very closely to the substrates at all points. Crustose is found on rocks and tree bark. Some species of marine algae of the Rhodophyta, in particular members of the order Corallinales, family Corallinaceae, subfamily Melobesioideae with cell walls containing calcium carbonate grow to great depths in the intertidal zone, forming crusts on various substrates. The substrate can be rocks throughout the intertidal zone, or, as in the case of the Corallinales, reef-building corals, and other living organisms including plants, such as mangroves and animals such as shelled molluscs. The coralline red algae are major members of coral reef communities, cementing the corals together with their crusts. Among the brown algae, the order Ralfsiales comprises two families of crustose algae.
The organ pipe coral is an alcyonarian octocoral native to the waters of the Indian Ocean and the central and western regions of the Pacific Ocean. It is the only known species of the genus Tubipora. This species is a soft coral but with a unique, hard skeleton of calcium carbonate that contains many organ pipe-like tubes. On each tube is a series of polyps which each have eight feather-like tentacles. These tentacles are usually extended during the day, but will swiftly withdraw with any sort of disturbance. The skeleton is a bright red color, but is typically obscured by numerous polyps. Because of this, living colonies are typically green, blue, or purple due to the color of the expanded polyps. Colonies are typically dome-shaped and can reach up to 3 meters across, while the individual polyps are typically less than 3 mm wide and a few mm long. They are close relatives to other soft coral and sea fans. This species is a popular aquarium coral due to its ease to maintain, as well as higher tolerance compared to most true corals. However, its popularity presents a problem: along with its potential as an aquarium coral, the species' coloration makes it a popular commodity for tourists, leading to a variety of threats to the population.
Montipora is a genus of Scleractinian corals in the phylum Cnidaria. Members of the genus Montipora may exhibit many different growth morphologies. With eighty five known species, Montipora is the second most species rich coral genus after Acropora.
The princess parrotfish is a species of marine ray-finned fish, a parrotfish, in the family Scaridae. It is typically 20 to 25 centimetres long, found in the Caribbean, South Florida, the Bahamas, and Bermuda. Its behavior, similar to other parrotfishes, is to swim about the reef and sandy patches during the day, at depths between 3 and 25 metres, scraping algae on which it feeds.
Qwirkle is a tile-based game for two to four players, designed by Susan McKinley Ross and published by MindWare. Qwirkle shares some characteristics with the games Rummikub and Scrabble. It is distributed in Canada by game and puzzle company Outset Media. Qwirkle is considered by MindWare to be its most awarded game of all time. In 2011, Qwirkle won the Spiel des Jahres. A sequel, Qwirkle Cubes, was released by Mindware in 2009.
Coral reef fish are fish which live amongst or in close relation to coral reefs. Coral reefs form complex ecosystems with tremendous biodiversity. Among the myriad inhabitants, the fish stand out as colourful and interesting to watch. Hundreds of species can exist in a small area of a healthy reef, many of them hidden or well camouflaged. Reef fish have developed many ingenious specialisations adapted to survival on the reefs.
Tubastraea, also known as sun coral or sun polyps, is a genus of coral in the phylum Cnidaria. It is a cup coral in the family Dendrophylliidae.
Leptogorgia hebes, commonly known as the regal sea fan or false sea fan, is a species of soft coral in the family Gorgoniidae. It was formerly included in the genus Lophogorgia but that genus has been dismantled.
Eusmilia is a genus of stony coral in the family Meandrinidae. It is a monotypic genus represented by the species Eusmilia fastigiata, commonly known as the smooth flower coral. It is found on reefs in the Caribbean Sea.
Lords of Waterdeep is a German-style board game designed by Peter Lee and Rodney Thompson and published by Wizards of the Coast in 2012. The game is set in Waterdeep, a fictional city in the Forgotten Realms campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game. Players take the roles of the masked rulers of Waterdeep, deploying agents and hiring adventurers to complete quests and increase their influence over the city.
Dichocoenia is a monotypic genus of stony coral in the family Meandrinidae. It is represented by a single species, Dichocoenia stokesii, which is commonly known as pineapple coral, elliptical star coral, or pancake star coral. It is mostly found in the Caribbean Sea and the western Atlantic Ocean. Dichocoenia stokesii has irregular calyces and its form can be either a massive, hemispherical hump or a flat, platform-like structure.
Seriatopora hystrix is a species of colonial stony coral in the family Pocilloporidae. It forms a branching clump and is commonly known as thin birdsnest coral. It grows in shallow water on fore-reef slopes or in sheltered lagoons, the type locality being the Red Sea. It is native to East Africa, the Red Sea and the western Indo-Pacific region. It is a common species and the International Union for Conservation of Nature has assessed its conservation status as being of "least concern".
Splash and Bubbles is an American animated children's television series created by John Tartaglia. The series debuted on PBS Kids on November 23, 2016, after Wild Kratts: Creatures of the Deep Sea. It is produced using motion capture that blends with animatronic interfaces which enables the crew to make animation.
Cetoscarus ocellatus, common name Spotted parrotfish, is a species of parrotfish belonging to the family Scaridae.
Tubastraea faulkneri, common name Orange sun coral, is a species of large-polyp stony corals belonging to the family Dendrophylliidae. Other common names of this coral are Orange Cup Coral, Sun Coral, Orange Polyp Coral, Rose Sun Coral, Golden Cup Coral, Sun Flower Coral, and Tube Coral.
Scarus zelindae is a species of fish of the Scaridae family in the order Perciformes. This species of Parrotfish can be brown, blue, green, yellow, and purple and can change their colors several times throughout their lifetime. They live for about 5–7 years and can be found in the southwestern Atlantic Ocean, primarily in Brazilian waters.