Tile Placement

Warsaw is a unique city. It is said that it "survived its own death", and there is truth in this. Poland's capital was largely destroyed during the Second World War, and its reconstruction was an exceptional urban development process. Warsaw is a combination of elegant buildings from Saxon times, architecture from between the World Wars, socialist blocks, and modern buildings. Walking through the streets of Warsaw's Wola district, one can see this diversity at a glance. Modern glass office buildings stand next to pre-war automotive garages, and concrete block buildings touch elegant older houses, which show the signs of time's decay. Some call it a spatial mess, while others see in it the residents' determination. Both views are right because that's how Warsaw is. Maybe not the most beautiful, but strong and determined. Nothing reflects the city's character more than its diverse buildings.

In Capital, players jointly build Warsaw over six epochs, from when Warsaw first became the capital at the end of the 16th century through modern times. Each player creates their own district of the city. At the end of each of the six epochs, districts give income and victory points to their owners. After six rounds, whoever has the most points wins.

In more detail, each epoch consists of a construction phase and an income phase, with wars at the end of the third and fourth epochs. During the construction phase of an epoch, players shuffle the city tiles with the current epoch's number, then deal several tiles to each player. Each player chooses one of the tiles, then places it face down onto the table. All players simultaneously reveal their selected tiles, and each player chooses one of two possible actions:

Discard their tile to the box and take three coins from the bank.
Pay the tile's cost in coins and build the tile in their district.

Instead of placing a tile on an empty space, a player may choose to build on top of an existing tile. Simply place the new tile directly onto an existing tile, covering it completely. As a result, the new tile's price is reduced by the price of the older tile that it covers. A player's district can never be larger than a 3×4 or 4×3 rectangle of tiles. Each city tile is divided into four quarters, and each quarter has its own type of building, so a tile can have 1-4 different kinds of buildings. Public buildings and milestones are always separate individual areas, even if they are adjacent to each other. They also occupy an entire tile.

During the income phase, milestones are placed, and players receive coins and victory points.

Daring sailors explore the oceans and make a gigantic discovery: Newfoundland. The newly found land. A huge island off the coast of North America — and right away a competition among nations breaks out. As so often happens, everyone wants the biggest piece of land. In Race to the New Found Land, you must skillfully use your fleet to consistently present achievements to your royal house. Are you quick to set sail and populate the first known lands? Do you first explore new areas? Or do you trade and build your fleet first? Find out in this exciting race to Newfoundland!

Based on iconic seasonal flowers found in Japan, Kuzushi Seasons pits 2, 3 or 4 players against each other in a unique game of positional influence and control. Simple rules lead to beautiful complexities in this abstract area control tile placement card game. It's smart, fun, approachable and addictive.

Card placement and area control is all resolved orthogonally to other cards. So up, down, left and right only. Players try to control more of the board through influence from the base cards they play on each turn. Then they check up, down, left and right of the base they place to see what player (if any) has a majority of base cards around it. If no one has more bases than anyone else around it, that square is uncontrolled, and any flag there is returned to its owner, which they can again either as a base or a flag as required.

This makes for a dynamic board that gets built out into a square as play continues (6x6 for 2 players, 7x7 for 3 players, or 8x8 for 4 players). Once the boundaries are established, play continues until all the board is filled. The winner is the player who has the most cards of their color on the board. If there's a tie, the player with the largest "island" of their color cards touching is the winner.

—description of the publisher

Description from the publisher:

In the tile-laying game Ancestree, players get to build their personal family trees! During each of three rounds, every player begins with a hand of six ancestor tiles. They choose one and pass the remaining tiles to the next player. The chosen ancestor is then added to the family tree, connected by leaves or hearts. Once five ancestor tiles have been added to the tree, the round ends. Players compare their family tree to those of their neighbors and gain points for the longest connected generations and for coin icons in their tree.

After three rounds, players gain bonus points for all the marriages they have created. The player with the highest score wins!

Arboretum is a strategy card game for 2-4 players, aged 10 and up, that combines set collection, tile-laying and hand management while playing in about 25 minutes. Players try to have the most points at the end of the game by creating beautiful garden paths for their visitors.

The deck has 80 cards in ten different colors, with each color featuring a different species of tree; each color has cards numbered 1 through 8, and the number of colors used depends on the number of players. Players start with a hand of seven cards. On each turn, a player draws two cards (from the deck or one or more of the discard piles), lays a card on the table as part of her arboretum, then discards a card to her personal discard pile.

When the deck is exhausted, players compare the cards that remain in their hands to determine who can score each color. For each color, the player with the highest value of cards in hand of that color scores for a path of trees in her arboretum that begins and ends with that color; a path is a orthogonally adjacent chain of cards with increasing values. For each card in a path that scores, the player earns one point; if the path consists solely of trees of the color being scored, the player scores two points per card. If a player doesn't have the most value for a color, she scores zero points for a path that begins and ends with that color. Whoever has the most points wins.