Tile Placement

Space Gate Odyssey

The future of humanity awaits you in Space Gate Odyssey. A system of viable exoplanets has been recently discovered and the Confederations are flocking into space to colonize it. In this 2 to 4-player development and flow-management board game, you play the leader of one of these Confederations and play your influence in the Odyssey command station to send as many of your settlers as you can on these exoplanets.

After decades of research and technological development, humanity is preparing to leave the Earth to colonize this discovered system. To get there, only one possible means of transport exists: space gates. For reasons related to physics and other quantum aspects, these gates can be built only in space. The Confederations have therefore embarked on the construction of their own station in orbit, equipped with space gates.

At the beginning of the colonizing era, these portals make it possible to go on one of the first three discovered planets. As soon as an entire contingent of settlers has joined the gate of a space station, it is teleported to the corresponding exoplanet. The landing conditions vary according to the planets and the choice of colonized spots quickly becomes strategic.

As soon as one of the three exoplanets is fully colonized, each Confederation gains influence according to its placement, then access to one of the two later discovered exoplanets becomes possible. At the end of the colonization of the five exoplanets, the stations are teleported to the Hawking planet and the influence of each Confederation is assessed. The leader of the most influential Confederation will be promoted to the rank of Governor of this new system.

One of the biggest challenges in Space Gate Odyssey is your ability to quickly develop and intelligently arrange your space station. The better you optimize the flow of your settlers to your station, then to the exoplanets, the more of them you can send to the favorable spots and thus gain influence.

The choice of the modules, their arrangement, and the distance between the airlocks and the gates are therefore essential elements — especially since, at the end of the game, the domains of the modules you used to build your station will bring you additional influence points if they are in line with the position of the domains on the Hawking planet Predominance.

Finally, you must be careful not to leave too many open corridors on the space void as this represents a real danger for your settlers and could therefore damage your reputation.

Your most amazing quest starts with Space Gate Odyssey. Will you be able to take over your opponents in order to take control of the new system, or will you stay at the dock?

—description from the publisher

Renature

Renature is a majority game with dominoes for 2-4 players.

Each player gets a board with large pieces of wood in the form of turf, bushes, pines and oaks. These plants are used for the majorities on the large valley board and are available in a neutral color and in the respective player color. In addition, each player gets a stack of dominoes with two out of ten animal motifs on each of them.

On your turn, place one of the three dominoes in your hand on two brook spaces of the valley board. Of course, the domino must be adjacent to another domino that shows the same animal. If the placed domino borders a free space of a brown area, you can decide whether a tuft of grass or any other of your plants should be placed on that space. Tufts of turf have a value of 1, bushes of 2, pines of 3 and oaks of 4. After placing the plant, you score points for it and every plant piece that is already in this brown area and has the same or a lower value.

Once a brown area is framed with dominoes, the majority is scored and the player with the highest total plant value in the area gets the points that are printed as a large number on that area's flower token. Whoever has the second highest value gets the lower number. Two things make this especially tricky: The neutral pieces count as their own color and not among the majority of the player who has used them. Also, if colors are tied, they a treated as though they are not present at all in the area. After the area has been scored, the player who framed the area receives its flower token, which will give them extra points at game end.

In the course of the game, you may run out of plants, but these can be bought back from the game board with clouds. Clouds can also be used to buy another turn and to appoint a new joker animal. This animal then counts as all animals and makes it easier to put on. At the end of a player's turn, a domino is drawn and it is the next player's turn.

Once all players have run out of dominoes, the game ends with a final scoring.

Goblin Vaults

In the dark corners of Kulbak Prison, away from the prying eyes of the construct guards, inmates play a game of Goblin Vaults in secret...

Goblin Vaults is a strategy card game for 1-5 players featuring bidding, card placement, and scoring patterns. In the game, you wager cards to win loot from the central cell block, then stash that loot wisely in your vault, earning gears based on the position of cards within that vault. You can also gain gears from scoring objectives that change each game.

With cunning and clever scheming, make your bid to be feared amongst your peers! You'll need wits and luck to play your cards right as you fill your vault and influence the warden in your favor. After nine rounds, whoever has the most gears wins!

—description from the publisher

Rolling Heights

Roll Your Meeples, Build the City.

It's the 1920's and your career as a general contractor is about to take off. You have just started your business in a rapidly expanding city.

In Rolling Heights, players roll workers in the form of meeples. Standing meeples work hard that day and provide special actions and building materials, while face-down meeples provide nothing. You can always push your luck for better rolls, but you might lose valuable materials you need to construct new buildings. Completing buildings gains you prestige, as well as new workers to help you construct even larger buildings, including skyscrapers.

Will you construct the next famous landmark?

—description from the publisher

Isle of Skye: Big Box

Get the full load of the modern classic tile-laying game with the Isle of Skye Big Box! The Big Box contains the award-winning Isle of Skye base game (Kennerspiel des Jahres 2016), the Druids expansion, and additional scoring and tunnel tiles. A new addition is the mini-expansion Randgebiete.

In the game, you embody one leader of each of the five traditional Scottish clans. You create your own small empire in order to gain the necessary victory points. But in each game only four of the included 24 score cards are in play. This makes each game different and requires different tactics and strategies.

In each round you can buy one of the tiles of a fellow player. Face down, all players simultaneously set the prices of the pieces they offer. A high price can lead to prosperity and much needed money. However, if no buyer can be found, the seller must add the tile to his empire himself and give up the money he has invested. In the end, the player who has scored the most victory points wins.

—description from the publisher (translated)

The "Randgebiete"/ borderland-expansion is a module, that can be added to any game, alone or together with the expansions.

Every player starts with the same 6 borderland tiles in their supply. There are two tiles each of water, mountain and land.
Each of them has only two sides for connections and two already closed borders.
In each round, when you place your other tiles, you may also place one borderland tile connected to at least one other tile. If its connected to other tiles on both sides, it gets flipped to the better side with more scoring symbols (like cows, sheep) on it.
No tile may be placed touching one of the other two sides with closed borders.