pattern building

At the turn of the 16th Century, King Manuel I commissioned Portugal's greatest artisans to construct grandiose buildings. After completing the Palaces of Evora and Sintra, the king sought to build a summer pavilion to honor the most famous members of the royal family. This construction was intended for the most talented artisans — whose skills meet the splendor that the royal family deserves. Sadly, King Manuel I died before construction ever began.

In Azul: Summer Pavilion, players return to Portugal to accomplish the task that never began. As a master artisan, you must use the finest materials to create the summer pavilion while carefully avoiding wasting supplies. Only the best will rise to the challenge to honor the Portuguese royal family.

Azul: Summer Pavilion lasts six rounds, and in each round players draft tiles, then place them on their individual player board to score points. Each of the six colors of tiles is wild during one of the rounds.

At the start of each round, draw tiles at random from the bag to refill each of the five, seven, or nine factories with four tiles each. Draw tiles as needed to refill the ten supply spaces on the central scoring board. Players then take turns drafting tiles. You can choose to take all of the tiles of a non-wild color on a factory and place them next to your board; if any wild tiles are on this factory, you must take one of them. Place all remaining tiles in the center of the table. Alternatively, you can take all tiles of a non-wild color from the center of play; you must also take one wild tile, if present.

After all tiles have been claimed, players then take turns placing tiles on their individual boards. Each board depicts seven stars that would be composed of six tiles; each space on a star shows a number from 1-6, and six of the stars are for tiles of a single color while the seventh will be composed of one tile of each color. To place a tile on the blue 5, for example, you must discard five blue or wild tiles from next to your player board (with at least one blue being required), placing one blue tile in the blue 5 space and the rest in the discard tower. You score 1 point for this tile and 1 point for each tile within this star connected to the newly placed tile.

If you completely surround a pillar, statue, or window on your game board with tiles, you get an immediate bonus, taking 1-3 tiles from the central supply spaces and placing them next to your board. At the end of the round, you can carry over at most four tiles to the next round; discard any others, losing 1 point for each such tile.

After six rounds, you score a bonus for each of the seven stars that you've filled completely. Additionally, you score a bonus for having covered all seven spaces of value 1, 2, 3 or 4. You lose 1 point for each remaining tile unused, then whoever has the most points wins.

—description from the publisher

It's time to for vacation! How quickly can you pack your bags? The quickest one to pack their bags wins!

Get Packing is a puzzle game that will send your neurons on vacation. Take all the items named on the card and place them inside the suitcase. The goal is simple: Be the fastest to complete your card and close your suitcase correctly!

Get Packing contains four suitcases, 52 plastic items that you pack, and 30 illustrated cards featuring several difficulty levels.

—description from the publisher

In the Inuit language, "tukilik" is used to define an object that carries a message, and the northern landscapes are densely populated with such objects. The most well known of these are the inukshuk, that is, structures of rough stones traditionally used by Inuit people as a landmark or commemorative sign, with the stones often being stacked in the form of a human figure.

During each turn in Tuki, you attempt to construct an inukshuk based on the die face rolled using your stones and blocks of snow. Players have only a limited number of pieces with which to construct the inukshuk, so you'll need to be creative and use the three-dimensional pieces in multiple ways, such as to counterbalance other pieces or even build on top of existing pieces. A solution always exists — you just need to discover it!

You can choose from two levels of difficulty when playing Tuki to level the playing ground between newcomers and experts. Be swift, yet precise, and transform your stones into messengers of the north...

Stellium is a game in which players are architects of the universe just after its creation. They have to draw celestial bodies from a bag (represented by marbles with different textures, so they can try to pick the one they are looking for) and place them on the universe to complete contracts. Each type of celestial body has an effect on the universe, e.g., the comet takes the place of another one and "pushes them in line".

—description from the publisher

Mental Blocks is a game of puzzling perspectives, with players trying to complete a puzzle using oversized foam blocks, despite seeing only one perspective of the design. You have to co-operate to complete the puzzle as a team, but you have a time limit, so don't just sit around staring at the pieces. In addition to the time pressure, players have other challenges, such as not being able to talk or to touch certain color blocks.

Mental Blocks features sixty puzzles: thirty "family mode" puzzles and thirty "challenge mode" puzzles that ramp in difficulty. For an even wilder game, you can add a traitor to the table to block your block-building...