pattern building

The abstract game of Qwirkle consists of 108 wooden blocks with six different shapes in six different colors. There is no board, players simply use an available flat surface.

Players begin the game with six blocks. The start player places blocks of a single matching attribute (color or shape but not both) on the table. Thereafter, a player adds blocks adjacent to at least one previously played block. The blocks must all be played in a line and match, without duplicates, either the color or shape of the previous block.

Players score one point for each block played plus all blocks adjacent. It is possible for a block to score in more than one direction. If a player completes a line containing all six shapes or colors, an additional six points are scored. The player then refills his hand to six blocks.

The game ends when the draw bag is depleted and one player plays all of his remaining blocks, earning a six point bonus. The player with the high score wins.

Qwirkle Big Box includes both the Qwirkle base game and two expansions: Qwirkle Select and Qwirkle Connect. These expansions can be used individually or together.

Qwirkle Select adds an extra element of strategy to Qwirkle with powerful star tokens that allow you to take a tile off the board and add it to your hand.

Qwirkle Connect adds bonus point opportunities to Qwirkle. You will need a keen eye – and the right tiles – to get the bonuses and maximize your score.

In CrossWays players want to be the first to build a path of their pieces from one side of the game board to the opposite side, but to build they need to use the cards they draw and have in hand.

On a turn, a player can lay down a single card (e.g., a red 9) and place one of their pieces on this space on the game board; she can also lay down a pair of cards with the same value and place two of her pieces in a stack on any space, including the white ones that are otherwise off-limits. If a player has two pieces in a row on a stack, no one else can play on top of that stack – but by playing a suited run of cards, a player can remove pieces already on the board, putting those spaces into play once again.

In The Staufer Dynasty, the players are nobles in the 12th century, accompanying Henry VI on his tour of the areas of Europe brought under control by the Staufer family, an area that included much of modern day Germany, went from the Baltic Sea in the North to Sicily in South. You're eager to improve your own lot in the land by placing envoys and nobles in positions of power in the six regions represented in this game.

The game lasts five rounds with each player having three actions per round. Players take action in order of their family members on the action board from top to bottom, and on a turn you either take a supply action (moving to one side of the action board) or a move/deploy action (moving to the other side).

For a supply action, you pick one of the spaces on the supply table, move the indicated number of envoys and nobles from the province to your personal court, then claim any chests underneath that space. The treasure chests come in different colors, with each color having a different function in the game: the brown treasure chests score points based on how many you collect, the orange ones provide immediate points or figures, the blue ones provide a one-shot bonus, and the purple ones let you collect one of the privilege cards on display. The privilege cards often modify other actions or give you a bonus for doing a particular thing.

For a move/deploy action, you decide which office seat you want to occupy in a particular region. If this seat isn't in the region where the king is located, you need to spend one envoy as you move clockwise away from the king, placing each envoy in the top part of those regions, until you reach the region that you want to occupy. You then pay the cost of the office seat, placing one figure — possibly a noble if the seat demands it — in that seat and all the other figures in clockwise order, one per region. When you occupy a seat, you claim the chest underneath it.

After everyone has finished their actions, you score for the round — but you score only in the region indicated in the current row of scoring tiles (Aachen, Nijmegen, Palermo, etc.) and the region that best meets the condition laid out in a separate part of the current row of scoring tiles (fewest chests, most occupants, where the king is located, etc.) If these two regions turn out to be the same one, you score that region only once. Players score points for having the most office seats in a region (or the second- or thirdmost most office seats) based on the point tile placed in the region at the start of the game. Each region also has a printed bonus that players receive, such as bonus chests or additional envoys.

To end the round, you remove all of the office occupants of the region that scored, add new chests under each office seat in those scoring regions and each space on the supply table, then sweep the king clockwise 1-3 regions. As the king moves, he returns all of the envoys that he encounters in the regions that he enters to their owners. After five rounds, players score for their treasure chests as well as for how well they completed their secret job cards, and the player with the most points wins.

Set Dice has three dice games in one box, and in all three games, the more sets you make, the higher your score. What's a set, you ask? To make a set, you need three dice on which the shape of the symbols on them are all the same or all different, on which the number of symbols are all the same or all different, and on which the color of the symbols are all the same or all different. The three games in this collection are:

Scramble SET: Drop all 42 dice from the bag onto the table, then start calling out sets as soon as you see them. When no more sets remain, tally the number of sets for each player, then start another round. Whoever has the high score after five rounds wins.
Crossword SET: Each player takes ten dice, then rolls them at the same time to start play, with players trying to combine their dice into a crossword-style grid made of sets. Whoever uses all of her dice first wins.
SET CUBED: Players score points Scrabble-style by creating sets with their dice and with dice already on the game board.