Put on your inventor's caps (to protect from falling apples, of course) in Newton, the Italian area control and card game from Cranio Creations.

Welcome in, fellow gamers! Area control games are becoming increasingly common, with new entries like Blue Lagoon crossing swords with classics like Risk. By the same token, card collection games like Dominion are gaining surprising traction. However, few games combine the two seamlessly without losing what makes them great. Well, that's precisely what you get with Newton, the game of innovation from Cranio Creations.

In the heart of the Italian Renaissance, inventors are vying for glory by performing experiments and advancing science across Europe in Newton, the area control and card game from Cranio Creations.

Game Overview

Put on your inventor’s caps (to protect from falling apples, of course) in Newton, the Italian area control and card game.

Area control games are becoming increasingly common, with new entries like Blue Lagoon crossing swords with classics like Risk. By the same token, card collection games like Dominion are gaining surprising traction. However, few games combine the two seamlessly without losing what makes them great.

Well, that’s precisely what you get with Newton, the game of innovation from Cranio Creations.

What is Newton?

Newton is a combination card and control game for 1-4 players. Players take on the role of an up-and-coming genius, such as Galileo or Paracelsus. They must travel across Europe, performing experiments and breaking new ground in the scientific world. They do this by playing cards from their hand to undertake various actions on the board.

At the end of six rounds of play, the player with the most victory points takes the crown as the greatest mind of the 18th century.

Newton was created in 2018 by Simone Luciani and Nestore Mangone, with art by Klemens Franz. It was originally published in Italian but has since been translated into several other languages. Cranio Creations produces the English variant.

How Do You Play?

Board Setup

To begin playing, players must first set up the board. Place the three main board sections together to form a rectangle. Then, place the six round markers in order on the round track. Finally, randomly select four city cards and place them in the corresponding city slots on the board.

Player Setup

Next, each player selects one inventor and a starting card from the indicated piles. Place the inventor miniature in the starting city and take three coins and two food. The players also receive an open role card and a closed role card, which grant special abilities. Finally, shuffle the remaining cards and deal seven to each player to form their starting hand.

Rounds of Play

On a player’s turn, they can perform up to three actions, which can be any combination of the following:

Move: Move your miniature to an adjacent city.

Harvest: Take one food token from the food supply.

Rest: Discard one card from your hand to draw two new cards.

Experiment: Pay the indicated cost in coins and food to play a card from your hand to perform an experiment in the city where your miniature is located.

After performing their actions, players replenish their coins to three and pass the turn to the next player.

At the beginning of the game, players can only perform experiments in their starting city. However, once they visit another city, they can perform experiments there as well. To do so, they must pay an additional coin for each city they wish to perform experiments in. For example, if a player wants to perform an experiment in two cities, they must pay four coins total.

End of Round

When all players have had a turn, the round ends. To begin the next round, move the round marker to the next space on the round track and discard all cards from the discard pile. Then, draw seven new cards from the main deck and add them to the discard pile. Finally, players discard their hand down to five cards and pass the turn to the next player.

Scoring

At the end of six rounds, the player with the most Income points wins the game. If two or more players have the same number of points, the game ends in a tie.

The game is played over six rounds, and players score points at the end of each round. Players can score points in several ways, including:

Performing experiments

Collecting food

Visiting cities

Completing set collections

At the end of the sixth round, players also score points for any unspent coins and any remaining food tokens.

Expansions

Players can experience even more excitement in the Italy Grand Tour and New Horizon expansions. In addition, they can embody more modern great minds like Stephen Hawking and Robert Hooke with special promotional cards.