pattern building

Along cracks in the ocean floor, plumes of black and white superheated water pump relentlessly into the depths. They provide precious heat to the near freezing abyssal waters of the deep as well as a bounty of minerals. Microscopic archaea and other extremophiles live off the heat and minerals to form the base of a unique food chain that hosts a variety of exotic deep sea creatures.

In Deep Vents, players each control their own hydrothermal ecosystem to which they add new life and geological features each turn, competing to survive in the unforgiving depths by being efficient and preying on nearby systems with a host of strange and deadly predators.

Start each turn by drafting a tile from the five on display — placing one archaeon, the currency of the game — on each tile you skip. Place this tile adjacent to each other tile in your ecosystem, then either grow or trigger each tile in your ecosystem, moving through them from top to bottom, left to right, and growing or triggering them individually as you like. When you grow a tile, you place archaea on it, whether a set amount or a varying number depending on other tiles in your ecosystem; when you trigger a tile, you remove archaea from it to carry out its unique effect: attacking opponents, gaining shells to defend against attacks, moving archaea to your personal supply, and decimating tiles, which leaves them as nothing but a heat source for the remainder of the game.

If you ever need to discard archaea due to an attack and cannot do so, you must take a shortfall token and ten archaea, then discard archaea as needed. On your turn, you can pay ten archaea to remove a shortfall token — which you want to do because as long as you have one, you can draft only the first tile on display. If you end your turn with two shortfall tokens, you're out of the game.

The game ends if only one player remains in play (with that player winning) or after eight rounds, with players scoring points for archaea and shells in reserve and archaea on tiles. In this case, whoever has the highest score wins.

—description from the publisher

Flash 8 is a fast-paced sliding-tile game where 1-4 players race to move their colourful electron tokens around their city board (their 'tablet') to re-create combinations and score points, all in real time.

The competitive version (2-4 players) has players racing against one another to be the first to claim the cards in the center of the table by sliding their multicoloured electron tokens into the empty space in their city grid tablet in an attempt to re-create the colour combinations on the cards. Every time a combination is completed, the successful player yells "Flash!" and they collect that card while the game keeps going. The game ends when all cards are claimed, and the player with the most cards wins!

The solo version of Flash 8 asks you to re-create, using the same sliding-tile mechanism, any combination shown on the grid of electrons laid out in front of you. Be careful, though, because every success comes with a price: every time you complete a combination, the grid changes, and if you don't manage your cards correctly, you could end up stuck!

—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

To rebuild the Eternal City, the Roman Emperor summoned the most talented builders of antiquity. Each of them is trying to draft the best city — but talent is not enough. Only those who know how to please the Emperor, cleverly exert their influence, and invest at the right time will succeed in City of Rome.

In more detail, the game lasts fourteen rounds, and in each round, players draft one of the building cards in play and add it to their hand. The drafting order depends on how closely you stand to the emperor. At the start of a round, you reveal a new "action strip" that has three bricks and two cogs in some order, then players take turns placing their figure on one of these five spaces; the closer you are to the emperor, the earlier you draft, but the fewer resources (bricks and cogs) you receive. (With only two players in the game, each player places two figures on the action strip and takes two complete turns each round.)

After drafting, you can take one build action and one produce action. To build, you must pay the cost in bricks — paying two coins for each missing brick — then place the card you're building adjacent to another card of yours already in play. You start with two building cards in play, so you'll have at most sixteen cards at game's end. These cards must fit in a 4x4 square, so plan carefully since you'll want to place some buildings next to other ones to earn the most points and to get the most out of a produce action. Some buildings give you a special action or influence tokens when you build them.

To produce, you must have two cogs — paying one coin for each missing cog — then use the production action of each building in your city once.

Every few rounds, an influence card is revealed, and whoever has the most influence tokens at the end of that round collects the card, then discards their tokens.

At the end of fourteen rounds, players score points for their residential buildings, temples, aqueducts, coins, and influence cards and tokens. whoever has the most points wins!

In Sunny Day, players place tiles to complete as many pictures as possible. When the tile deck runs out, the game ends, then players collect the tiles used in completed pictures and the tiles in front of them, scoring points for each tile and for each completed picture. Points can be earned more efficiently by completing ice cream and sun pictures. Whoever has the most points at the end of the game wins.