River Dragons

Description

--- **Dragon Delta** (2012 edition: *River Dragons*) is a chaotic, competitive bridge-building game using simultaneous action selection, where players construct paths, advance pawns, and sabotage rivals to cross the board first. Key mechanics include: - *Simultaneous action selection* Players secretly choose five action cards from nine available options and play them in sequence, with turns resolved card-by-card. - *Bridge construction* Actions enable placing plank foundations (stones on rock piles in original) and planks to form paths across the board. - *Pawn movement* Players advance their own pawns over the developing bridge system toward the opposite side. - *Sabotage elements* Actions allow canceling other players' actions or removing planks and foundation stones. - *Board variants* River Dragons edition features a double-sided board: one side with predefined rock piles (as in Dragon Delta), the other a featureless river for free stone placement. Dragon Delta challenges players to cooperatively build a bridge-like system of planks to move their pawns across the board, but competitive individualism leads to chaos. Each turn, players simultaneously select and order five action cards from nine possibilities—placing foundations or planks, moving pawns, canceling rivals' actions, or dismantling structures—which resolve sequentially. The 2012 *River Dragons* edition introduces a double-sided board: one mimicking the original's rock piles for stone placement, the other allowing unrestricted stone positioning on a blank river, enhancing variability while preserving the core tension of selfish path-making and interference. ---