pattern building

Rauha

After millennia of sterility, life has sprung again on Rauha. As a venerable Shaman, one of its five worlds has been entrusted to you. Your powers are divine and allow you to shape the environment in order to turn this world into a cradle of life energy, keeper of serenity and harmony for the centuries to come.

Obtain the most victory points, represented as Life Energy, to win the game. You have 2 Ages to turn your world into an energetic core of Rauha. In Age 1, vegetation, terrain, and wildlife will appear. In Age 2, civilizations will thrive.

The game takes place over 4 rounds, each divided into 3 turns followed by a scoring phase. Each turn, you will follow 5 steps:
1. Simultaneously take all Biome cards from the satellite whose symbol matches the one beneath your Avatar on your Player board (moon or star).
2. Choose one card to place on any square of your Player board or discard to the Black Hole.
3. Receive a Divine Entity if you create a row or column of matching symbols on your Player board.
4. Activate your Avatar, plus any Divine Entities in the same row or column as your Avatar.
5. Finally move your Avatar one notch clockwise along the edge of your Player board, changing the row or column that will be activated on the next turn.

During the Scoring Phase, you will activate all your Biomes with Spore tokens and any Divine Entities you may have, gaining crystals and points as shown on the components.

-description from publisher

Enchanted Plumes

In Enchanted Plumes, players strive to complete magical peacocks by assembling plumes in sparkling rows from top to bottom.

Skillfully placing feather cards of the same color from row to row is key, as the top row value will count against your score, while all lower rows count as positive values.

Once the peahen card is revealed, the player with the most valuable plumes wins the game and is bestowed with the luck of the peacock!

—description from the publisher

Northwest

Northwest a 2-to-4-player tableau-building game with unique point salad scoring and shared movement mechanics. It can be taught in 3 minutes or less and has the right balance of luck and strategy to make it accessible to anyone.

Each turn, the player drafts a memento cube from the main exploration board by moving the shared exploration token onto the cube and adding it to their tableau. The previously captured memento cube sets the next player's available move:

Bees/Honey: next player must move in the L-Shape similar to the Knights from the Chess.
Mushrooms: next player must move into a space in any of the 8 surrounding spaces.
Ferns: next player must move into 1 of 4 orthogonal spaces.
Maples: next player must move into 1 of 4 diagonal spaces.
Bigfoot: next player may move into any space in the same column or row.

In Northwest, your journey is represented by a 4x4 tableau in which you will track memento cubes drafted from the exploration board. Each memento cube scores victory points (VPs) in a unique way. The game ends when a player cannot make a legal move in the exploration board or all players have their personal tableau filled. The player with the most VP wins!

Can you spot bees, mushrooms, foliage, or the ever-elusive Bigfoot? Your next adventure in the Northwest awaits.

—description from the designer.

Azul Duel

Decorate the magnificent ceilings of the palace. Will the vaults look more beautiful by day or by night? Azul Duel invites you to play with light and pit opposites against each other.

This competitive strategic game for two players retains the purity and elegance of the original Azul while adding an extra tactical dimension in which you determine the pattern in which tiles will be placed, in addition to drafting tiles to complete that pattern.

Rivages

In Rivages, players explore the legendary islands of Myr, searching for remains of its long-forgotten wisdom.

Each player starts with their own map of an island that's divided into several colored areas. Every turn, they strike out the available symbols from one of the two cards in their hand, check matching fields on their map, then pass the cards along to their neighbor. By exploring certain areas, achieving goals on the island, looting treasures, and progressing on their own wisdom tree, they gather valuable parchments. Reaching a boat allows them to move to a new island full of new opportunities.

Whoever has the most parchments at the end of the game wins.

—description from the publisher