Abstract Strategy

Astra

You and your fellow players are eager and curious astronomers, determined to explore and understand the constellations of the mysterious night sky. You are willing to assist each other and share your discoveries, but in the end, only one of you will become famous enough to be remembered throughout history.

Astra is a clever mix of tactics and strategy, with a streamlined and intuitive rule set that makes it easy to pick up and quick to play. A game of Astra consists of continuous player turns until a certain number of Constellation cards are taken, when, after an endgame scoring, the player with the most Fame points wins.

On your player turn, you may choose to either Observe or Rest.

The Observe action allows you to spend Stardust to discover stars on the Constellation cards using your dry erase marker. You may only mark stars in a straight continuous line, but you may spend Telescope tokens to start new observations. As soon as you mark the last star in a Constellation, you take the card from the Night Sky, granting you a powerful reusable ability for the rest of the game. But other players also benefit from the discovery: based on how many stars they marked, they may choose one of the card’s instant benefits (Boons) at the time it is discovered.

The Rest action allows you to not only refill your Stardust up to your capacity, but also to reactivate all of your card abilities that match the currently active Sphere. Your card abilities are very powerful and strategy-enabling, so a well-timed Rest action can give you a huge advantage.

—description from the publisher

Chickapig

Break your flock of chickapigs free while dodging opponents, hay bales, and an unruly pooping cow in this strategic board game.

The first player to get their six chickapigs off the board wins. You must coordinate your chickapigs, hay bales, and the cow to help your chickapigs escape through their goal. At the same time, play defense against your opponents with your pieces, or use the cow to drop a poop in their way. Whenever someone goes over a poop, they must take a poop card which are always bad. There are also daisy cards, which are always good.

Chickapig is an abstract game with enough chance to keep everyone competitive.

Azul: Master Chocolatier

In the game Azul, players take turns drafting colored tiles from suppliers to their player board. Later in the round, players score points based on how they've placed their tiles to decorate the palace. Extra points are scored for specific patterns and completing sets; wasted supplies harm the player's score. The player with the most points at the end of the game wins.

Azul: Master Chocolatier includes double-sided factory boards, with these tiles being placed on these boards at the start of each round. One side of the factories is blank, and when using this side the game plays exactly like Azul. The other side of each factory tile has a special effect on it that modifies play in one way or another, putting a twist on the normal game. Additionally, the tiles are modeled to look like chocolates and other treats, despite remaining as inedible as the tiles in the original game.

Framework

Framework consists of 120 tiles, with each player starting with 22 tokens. On a turn, the lead player draws and reveals one more tile than the number of players. Each player in turn selects a tile, with the lead player being forced to take the final tile.

When you take a tile, place it adjacent to at least one other tile in your display, then see whether you complete any tasks on your tiles; each time you do, cover that task with a token. Tiles contain 0-3 frames and 0-3 tasks, with each of these coming in four colors. A task might be, for example, a green 3, and to complete the task, the tile bearing this task must be part of a set of three tiles that have green frames, whether directly or via an orthogonal chain of connection with tiles that have green frames.
Tasks might be two colors, e.g., red and brown, which means that both frame colors can be used to satisfy the task. Alternatively, a task might be 4 yellow or 4 brown. Also, conditional tasks exist in which you must first complete one task before you can complete the second one.

Whoever first places all of their tokens wins. Framework also includes a solo game in which you attempt to place all of your tokens in an area of tiles that is as close to a 5x5 grid as possible.

60 Second City

Team-up, work together, and strategize to build your city. You have 60 seconds… GO! Both players draw tiles & quickly place them on the game board at the same time. Work together to complete building goals while protecting your city from space-blocking pollution. The clock is ticking… Win together or lose together in this collaborative strategy game. If you can complete all the building goals after 5 rounds of play, you both win. This addictive game takes quick thinking, exceptional communication, strategic collaboration, and fast action to build the ultimate city!