Tile Placement

In Archipelago, players are Renaissance European powers competing in the exploration of a Pacific or Caribbean archipelago. They will explore territories, harvest resources, use those resources in markets both internal (for their use and that of the natives) and foreign (to sell it in Europe), build markets, harbors, cities and temples, and negotiate among themselves (and maybe betray each other) – all this to complete their secret objectives. They will also need to guess the secret objective of the other players to be able to benefit from them.

But players also need to be careful of the natives; if they make them too unhappy or if too many of them are unoccupied, they could revolt and declare independence. Then everyone will lose!

According to the author, what he's tried to create is a "German" economic worker-placement game, but without the two things he dislikes in them: the superficial theme and the lack of interaction. Indeed this game includes a very present theme and a lot of negotiation and potential backstabbing.

The game includes three sets of objectives, enabling players to choose between a short, medium and a long game. Solo play is also possible with an expansion.

Murano the game is set in Murano the place, with Murano being a small group of seven islands near Venice that's well-known by tourists for its glassmaking. As in Venice, the islands of Murano are separated by canals, so gondolas and transportation are at the heart of this game.

The game board depicts the islands of Murano, with the islands being divided up into building sites and walkways. Surrounding the islands is a series of action spaces, with gondolas being present in some number of them at the start of play. On a turn, you move one of the gondolas in the direction of play to an empty space, then take the action shown there. You can't pass another gondola while moving or land in an occupied space, but for a coin you can move a gondola that's in front of the gondola you want to move, and you can pay to move multiple gondolas, if needed.

Some actions place shops on the islands, with shops coming in different types. You mark a shop to show ownership, and when tourists show up later, they will shop at various stores depending on their proximity and the goods they offer. You also need to take actions to move your personal gondolas to islands so that you can take actions there.

Why are you doing all of this activity? To score victory point cards in hand, and actions on the board will let you gain additional VP cards to give you direction to your actions or let you profit from what you've already done.

You can also use some of the buildings to create glassworks, and those glassworks come into play on the VP cards, through tourist sales, and via an action space shown at the bottom of the game board image that lets you sell different types of glass for money.

In Patchwork, two players compete to build the most aesthetic (and high-scoring) patchwork quilt on a personal 9x9 game board. To start play, lay out all of the patches at random in a circle and place a marker directly counter-clockwise of the 2-1 patch. Each player takes five buttons — the currency/points in the game — and someone is chosen as the start player.

On a turn, a player either purchases one of the three patches standing clockwise of the spool or passes. To purchase a patch, you pay the cost in buttons shown on the patch, advance your time token on the time track a number of spaces equal to the time shown on the patch, move the spool to that patch's location in the circle, then add the patch to your game board. You're free to place the patch anywhere on your board that doesn't overlap other patches, but you probably want to fit things together as tightly as possible. If your time token is behind or on top of the other player's time token, then you take another turn; otherwise the opponent now goes. Instead of purchasing a patch, you can choose to pass; to do this, you move your time token to the space immediately in front of the opponent's time token, then take one button from the bank for each space you moved.

In addition to a button cost and time cost, each patch also features 0-3 buttons, and when you move your time token past a button on the time track, you sum the number of buttons on your game board, then take this many buttons from the bank.

What's more, the time track depicts five 1x1 patches on it, and during set-up you place five actual 1x1 patches on these spaces. Whoever first passes a patch on the time track claims this patch and immediately places it on his game board.

When a player takes an action that moves his time token to the central square of the time track, he places the purchased patch (assuming he had purchased one and wasn't passing), then takes one final button scoring from the bank. Once both players are in the center, each player loses two buttons for each blank square on his game board. Whoever has the most buttons wins.

Fantasy Frontier is a fantasy board game of airships and exploration for 2 to 4 players with a playing time of 45 to 90 minutes. Each player controls a unique airship with a crew of pioneers. Players manage the actions of these pioneers each turn in an effort to scout the land, gather resources, construct townships, and even battle it out in aerial combat. Creating geographic patterns via tile placement, the players will develop a new world each time they play. Players compete to be the first to score the required number of victory points to win the game. Points are scored by building townships, completing geographic patterns, and fighting their rivals in airship battles!

Every turn, players must carefully manage the actions of five workers, which can be assigned the following tasks:

Piloting the Airship - Moving their airship token around the board.
Research & Development - Drawing map cards with geographic patterns and discovering development cards to improve their airships.
Scouting the Land - Drawing terrain tiles to place on the map to expand the community game board.
Gathering Resources - Landing the airship and exiting the workers to collect food, wood, stone and gold, with these resources being used to improve the performance of workers and to build townships.
Construct a Township - Landing the airship and disembarking the workers to build a township, which provides a reoccurring resource stream and is worth victory points.
Aerial Combat - Engaging in airship battles with other players to slow their progress and potentially score victory points.
Repair Ship Damage - Repairing the damage taken in battle.

Fantasy Frontier is a unique gaming experience, blending a peaceful Euro play-style with the optional take-that element of combat, creating a game unlike any other.

Subdivision mimics the city-building feel of Bézier Games' Suburbia, but differs in scope as now each player has been allocated a specific area in which to create the best possible subdivision, filling it with residential, commercial, industrial, civic, and luxury zones, while balancing various improvements to the area, including roads, schools, parks, sidewalks, and lakes. By the end of the game, each player will have created a unique, custom neighborhood with areas that interact with each other, hoping to outscore the competition by having the best subdivision.

In the game, each player starts with a subdivision player board and a hand of hex-shaped zone tiles. A parcel die is rolled to indicate the type of parcel where a zone tile may be placed, and all players simultaneously place one of their tiles. If a zone tile is placed next to existing zone tiles, those existing tiles have the ability to create new improvements, which may also be placed at this time. Those improvements provide money and points, while slowly covering up as many parcels as possible. Players pass the remaining zone tiles in hand to their left, then someone rolls the parcel die once again. This continues until only one zone tile remains in hand, which is discarded.

Players then play another round, but at the start of the second, third, and fourth rounds, players first check to see whether they've achieved bonuses, which give them extra cash or allow for extra activations of certain zone tiles.

After four rounds, the game ends, and scores are tallied, with players gaining points for parks being adjacent to other tiles, sidewalks passing through as many different zones and improvements as possible, schools ranking the best in the city, and zones connecting to the highway that runs around (or through) your subdivision.