Tile Placement

Diatoms is a puzzly tile-placement and pattern-making game where players create their own microscopic mosaic, based on an obscure Victorian art form.

Hidden in the water all around us are tiny lifeforms known as “diatoms.” These microscopic algae cells come in a variety of exquisite geometric shapes and patterns. Their outer layer is made with silica, giving them a glass-like quality. Here at the Society for the Microscopic Arts, we collect these diatoms and delicately arrange them on slides into beautiful, tiny mosaics. As part of your induction into the Society, you will each create your own entry for today’s Exhibition of Microscopic Mosaics.

In Diatoms, you compete with your fellow players to collect and place diatom shapes into a mosaic form. You take turns placing tiles representing algae colonies. From that placement you earn diatoms of different colors and shapes. You then strategically place these diatoms on your personal board, taking care to consider how your arrangement will be scored at the end of the game. In the base scoring, you'll want to achieve matching colors, shape variety, and symmetry along your mosaic's central lines. Each time you play, you may also have a "guest" judge card that brings a unique scoring criteria to the game.

Diatoms also includes a solo variant where you collect diatom tiles as in the main game while trying to create a mosaic that fulfills specific requirements from mosaic commission prompts.

—description from publisher

Lead an ancient China kingdom dreaming of imperial power, establish new states, build pagodas, strive for influence – and battle to unite the country under your glorious dynasty! HUANG is set in the Warring States period (475-221 BC), a time of endless wars between seven rival states: Qin, Chu, Qi, Yan, Han, Wei, and Zhao.

HUANG is a 2 to 4 player game set in ancient China, during the time of the Warring States. You take control of one of the Warring States, battling to unite the country under your dynasty. Each player has five different leaders: Governor, Soldier, Farmer, Trader, and Artisan.

Clever placement of these leaders and their corresponding tiles on the board is key, allowing you to build pagodas to score points, trigger or avoid wars, and instigate peasant revolts that bring down your enemies. Play is fast and addictive, lasting around 90 minutes, with a very short teaching time reflecting the elegance of the ruleset.

Monopoly Scrabble combines elements of both Monopoly and Scrabble, with players using letter tiles to build words, then moving around the game board based on their score. Build a word on a premium space, and you immediately claim a property. Custom Community Chest and Chance cards keep things moving at a fast pace.

When the final letter tile has been played, whoever has the highest total of cash and property value wins.

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.

PROVE YOUR WORTH AND EARN THE MOST ⭐️ POSSIBLE by traveling the mountain and assembling as many landscape tiles as possible, meeting the forest spirits and lighting fires on the peaks creating a path through the valley.

The tile capture mechanics are taken from the hanafuda mechanics. Collect a tile according to the column or row then place them in your landscape. The goal of the game will be to reconstruct a landscape by combining its tiles to score as many points as possible. You will have to be careful not to leave tiles to your opponent while optimizing your landscape according to your opponent's choices. Also, create tile squares to collect spirits that will help you during or at the end of the game.
The experience is... zen and very quick to set up! For adults and children!

—description from the publisher