Abstract Strategy

Evermore have they walked the world of Iwari. Evermore have they embodied its spirit and shaped its lands. They are stewards of the earth. Five Titans that make the cosmos breath. On Iwari, there are no teeming masses, no continent-wide civilizations. Humanity is in its infancy, living in scattered tribes in forest, tundra, and desert.

Now we have left our ancestral homelands to explore the vast uncharted regions, encountering other fellow tribes and exchanging knowledge, culture and wisdom. In our journey, we all live in harmony with the Titans, and though distant to us, they decide our fate. And yet only we don't know if they created us, or we created them.

Iwari is an abstract-like Eurogame in which players represent different tribes looking for their identity by traveling around far lands and expanding their settlements into five different regions on the board. In the game, players use cards for two different actions:

1) Place tents and expand their settlements into five different regions on the board in a majority game that scores on each territory.
2) Construct nature totems to bond with the Titans by placing them on regions and score points based on the totem majorities in adjacent territories.

During the game, players can complete missions that grant small perks and score points by having the majority of tents in each territory after the end of the first card cycle. At game end, the majority of tents will be scored again, along with the majorities of nature totems in two adjacent regions and settlements that players have created (i.e., four or more tents in an uninterrupted sequence along one of the roads on the board).

Iwari reimagines the award-winning game Web of Power by Michael Schacht by adding new layers of strategy, tribe player boards, different maps with their own set of rules, modules that can be added to the game, and unique co-operative and solo modes.

The Neo-Babylonian empire, especially under the reign of Nebuchadnezzar II (605-562 B.C.), was a period of rebirth for southern Mesopotamia. Irrigation systems improved and expanded, increasing agricultural production. Urban life flourished with the creation of new cities, monuments and temples, and the consequent increase in trade.

In Babylonia, you try to make your clan prosper under the peace and imperial power of that era. You have to place your nobles, priests, and craftsmen tokens on the map to make your relations with the cities as profitable as possible. Properly placing these counters next to the court also allows you to gain the special power of some rulers. Finally, the good use of your peasants in the fertile areas gives more value to your crops. The player who gets the most points through all these actions wins.

—description from the publisher

The city is growing every day, with new buildings popping up on every vacant lot. You’ve been hired as a contractor to help develop a skyscraper that will reshape the city’s skyline. If you work hard and plan smart, you can earn the title of Master Builder and be immortalized as part of the city’s rich history.

LOTS is a 3 dimensional puzzle game for 1 to 4 players where contractors are competitively working to build the same tower on a vacant Lot. Players will have to use spatial recognition, color coordination, and just a hint of dexterity to score the most points before the games end.

—description from the designer

In Topiary, players try to position their visitors on the outer edge of a beautiful topiary garden in order to give them the best view possible. Visitors can see the closest topiary sculpture to them and any behind that, in the same sight line, that are larger. You can score bonus points for visitors who see multiple topiary sculptures of the same type. Players slowly fill in the garden by adding tiles until everyone has placed all their visitors.

In Ctrl, players try to dominate a cube by crawling over it with their colored bricks, preferably covering other players' bricks along the way.

In more detail, you start with a 3×3×3 cube that has one block of each player color stuck into one of the cube's holes. (In a two-player game, each player controls two colors, but at the start of play they secretly choose one of those colors to be their scoring color, with the other color serving only as a blocking mechanism.) Each player has a matching colored flag that sticks out of their block.

On a turn, a player removes their flag from its current location, adds one cube of their color to the side of any of their blocks (where such a move can be made), then they "grow" their color by adding two blocks in a straight line from the block they just added, crawling around corners and covering other players' blocks if needed. To end your turn, plant your flag in one of your final blocks, ideally blocking where someone else might like to play while also preserving future ground in which you can play.

Once all the blocks have been placed, you calculate your score by looking at the structure from all four surrounding sides, as well as from the top, and counting each unblocked square of your color that is visible. Thus, if you plant a block high up on the cube, you can possibly score 5 points for it since it would be seen from all sides and the top. Climb high, and block others from blocking you!