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!
The flippin' frogs are coming! Help your brightly coloured frogs take control of your little corner of the rainforest!
Cleverly place frogs on the game board to flip adjacent tiles, hiding some frogs and revealing others. Each player is given a secret Frog Token at the beginning of the game, determining what colour frogs they are trying to get on to the board. After dealing three tiles to each player, the game begins. Tiles can be placed on any empty space on the 4x4 board, or on the back of any face down tile. Frogs may NOT be placed on top of face up tiles.
When placed, the arrows on the tile which surround the frog tell the player which nearby tiles should be flipped. If a tile is stacked on another, both tiles are flipped together. Only the newly placed tile causes other tiles to flip.
Also included are four Snake Tiles which remove any one face up Frog Tile from the game. Both the Frog and Snake are discarded, freeing up a space for a new tile to be played.
Players keep playing a tile and drawing back up to a hand of three until either no more tiles can be played or the board has sixteen face up frogs on show. This triggers the end of the game, and the player with the most frogs face up is the winner.
Plan ahead, watch out for snakes, and flip your way to victory!
A Column of Fire is an adaptation of the third novel in Ken Follett's "Kingsbridge" series following The Pillars of the Earth and World Without End. (The novel is titled A Column of Fire in English, and Das Fundament der Ewigkeit ("The Foundation of Eternity") in German.)
In the game, set in Europe during the time of Elizabeth I, Catholics and Protestants compete for power and influence in England, France, Spain, and the Netherlands. In this politically unstable environment, resourceful operatives and courageous secret agents plot to secure power for their rulers. The balance of power shifts back and forth amidst foiled assassinations, successful rebellions, and futile invasions — and not infrequently, those who sympathize with the weak are expelled from the country.
The real enemies, then as now, are not the rival religions. The true battle pits those who believe in tolerance and compromise against the tyrants who would impose their ideas on everyone else — no matter what the cost. Who will best exploit the changing power conditions in Europe to win the game?
It all started when the Imperium seized control of Earth and declared martial law, sentencing those who opposed their will to immediate death or worse fates. It seemed as if all hope was lost, but before their edict could be carried out, a group of defectors managed to wrest control of the Ridback, a Class–II jumpship, and flee with as many of the condemned as they could save.
It has been close to seven years that these refugees from Earth have called the Ridback home, and finally the crew has found a planet with promise. They have managed to establish outposts around it, and now the great burden falls on you to expand these small “alphas” into a full-fledged Beta Colony. Success will mean that your people will be able to begin life anew on exoplanet 14 Bos c, or, as they have renamed it, "Victus" — Latin for "way of life".
In Beta Colony, you play as one of five Directors working to create prosperous colonies. If you earn the most Confidence Points (CP), you will be elected as the first leader of Victus. Players will collect the needed building materials to produce and erect colonization pods – Defense Stations, Science and Tech Towers, Living Quarters, Agriculture Pods, and Water Treatment Centers – on the varied terrain of Victus.
Using a unique "rolldell" mechanism (dice + rondel), Beta Colony is a mid-weight strategic game for players of all levels. Each round, the start player rolls their set of four colored dice. All other players duplicate that roll with their own dice. Players take two actions each round, one action at a time in turn order, with each action using two dice. Players will use one die to move and one die to activate the location to which they moved. Die color and value affect how each of the seven unique locations are used. Players will build colonization pods at each of three colonies to gain the confidence of the settlers and lead them to glory!
—description from the publisher