pattern building

ALDR: The High Sage

Long before sages battled in the arena, Aldr, the first High Sage, mastered the elements and passed his teachings on to his students. However, even the most powerful cannot train every day. Aldr himself created this game of strategy to reinforce sharpen their minds and reinforce is hard-won lessons.

ALDR: The High Sage is a card game unlike any other. Tactically place drafted cards to build the four elemental patterns before your opponents can. Place your sages strategically to restrict the options of other players, and move Aldr himself to further thwart your opponents. Be the first to place your four sages and claim victory in this unique card game of area control.

Although ALDR: The High Sage is a standalone game, rules are included to use ALDR as an expansion to Element!

—description from the designer

Calico

Calico is a puzzly tile-laying game of quilts and cats.
In Calico, players compete to sew the coziest quilt as they collect and place patches of different colors and patterns. Each quilt has a particular pattern that must be followed, and players are also trying to create color and pattern combinations that are not only aesthetically pleasing, but also able to attract the cuddliest cats!

Turns are simple. Select a single patch tile from your hand and sew it into your quilt, then draw another patch into your hand from the three available. If you are able to create a color group, you may sew a button onto your quilt. If you are able to create a pattern combination that is attractive to any of the cats, it will come over and curl up on your quilt! At the end of the game, you score points for buttons, cats, and how well you were able to complete your unique quilt pattern.

—description from the publisher

Catacombs Cubes

Set in the world of Catacombs, in Catacombs Cubes players draft various "Tetris-like" wooden shapes from the quarry to race to build structures from blueprints. These completed buildings are added to the growing town of Stormtryne. The player who successfully builds the most structures wins. The game features a novel "cube-building mechanism".

The game features:

Solo Mode included
Enough components to support four players with the base game
Features characters and places from the world of Catacombs
Plenty of theme (not an abstract title)
Different game modes (competitive vs passive)
Two resources drafting mechanics included in the box (dice vs tiles)

—description from the designer

Queenz: To bee or not to bee

Players are beekeepers, trying to bloom their fields in order to attract bees and to produce the most valuable honey of the country.

On your turn, you have 2 choices:
1) Taking new flower tokens from the garden and keeping them in your warehouse.

1 any or 2 of a kind or 3 different colors.

2) Blooming one field

Select 1 field from the pool (expanding your own field) and fill the field with flower tokens in your stock and your hive token.
Get 1 VP for each flower of this field.
Fill your personal track with the honey jar of corresponding color.

When a player blooms his 5th field, every players has one last turn. Then, each player will get some extra points for their hives:

Each Hive gives 1 VP for each bee present on the 8 spaces surrounding this Hive.
Player takes his VP for each of it’s Hive token.

The player who has the highest score wins.

—description from the publisher