Tile Placement

Award-winning quilt makers devote considerable effort to collecting fabrics for their stashes. They shop for specific colors, often ranging into neighboring hues to achieve a nuanced, scrappy look. Quilters love a sale, where they may buy fabric just to have it on hand. If they can't find the colors they want, they sometimes hand dye their own fabric. They use their time and skills converting fabric into blocks, which they combine to make quilts. Often, quilters work on more than one quilt at a time to keep things interesting. They may embellish their quilts with intricate quilting stitches. The best quilters make good color choices, combine blocks skillfully, use their time well, and win generous purchase awards when they enter their quilts in shows.

In Quilt Show, "quilters" collect fabric cards, which can be exchanged for block tiles. The quilters race the clock as they amass block tiles that they can combine into one or more quilts at a time. They can mix block tiles of a single color or a single pattern to make a quilt. Three times during the game, when the clock reveals it is time for a quilt show, quilts are entered and prize money is awarded. At game's end, the quilter with the most prize money wins!

Overview

For The Win is an abstract strategy game in which each player gets ten tiles, two of each character representing Monkeys, Zombies, Pirates, Aliens, and Ninjas. The objective is to connect five (or more) of one's tiles, including at least one of each type, together (sides and corners count). Additionally, all five (or more) tiles must be face-up, or unactivated. The game ends immediately when a player achieves this goal. Each character type has a specific ability to help you toward the objective.

Gameplay

Players take turns using either 1 or 2 actions within 5 action rounds. Once one player's actions are consumed for a round, the other player(s) get to use any of their remaining 5 actions at once. Judicious action management is key; if one budgets one's actions wisely, one can play several actions in a row for game-winning combinations. The available actions are as follows:

Add a tile to the Grid
Move one of one's tiles
Refresh or flip a tile face up
Shove a tile or column/row of tiles
Activate an ability (the chosen tile turns face down; see below)

Characters & abilities

Alien — The Alien uses her tractor beam to pull any tile in the Grid to a space that is adjacent to her.
Monkey — The mischievous Monkey uses a banana peel to flip over all of the tiles it is touching.
Ninja — The sneaky Ninja can move from his current spot to any other unoccupied space in the Grid.
Pirate — The Pirate uses his trusty cannon to blast an adjacent tile to any unoccupied space in the Grid.
Zombie — The Zombie can infect any adjacent tile. The infected tile is removed from the Grid and replaced with a Zombie tile that has not yet been added to the Grid. If all of the Zombie tiles have already been added to the Grid, the Zombie may choose one adjacent tile and deactivate it (that is, flip it face down).

While the galactic conflict escalates and several new factions are trying to get a foothold on the galaxy, the adversaries suddenly need to find allies among themselves to face the rising threat. The systems previously thought to be empty are suddenly swarming with Ancients – whole worlds of them, with ship capabilities way beyond anything seen before.

They are not willing to negotiate.

Eclipse: Rise of the Ancients, the first full-size expansion for Eclipse, introduces several new additions to the base game, such as Rare Technologies, Developments, Alliances, Ancient Homeworlds and Warp Portals. There are also three new player boards with four new different alien species to choose from. New components allow up to nine players in one session.

Due to the modular design, you can use all of these additions or just some of them in any game of Eclipse, according to your preferences and play style.

The Ancients are rising. Will your civilization rise to the occasion and emerge victorious?

In the tile-laying game Castles of Mad King Ludwig, players are tasked with building an amazing, extravagant castle for King Ludwig II of Bavaria...one room at a time. You see, the King loves castles, having built Neuschwanstein (the castle that inspired the Disney theme park castles) and others, but now he's commissioned you to build the biggest, best castle ever — subject, of course, to his ever-changing whims. Each player acts as a building contractor who is adding rooms to the castle he's building while also selling his services to other players.

In the game, each player starts with a simple foyer. One player takes on the role of the Master Builder, and that player sets prices for a set of rooms that can be purchased by the other players, with him getting to pick from the leftovers after the other players have paid him for their rooms. When a room is added to a castle, the player who built it gains castle points based on the size and type of room constructed, as well as bonus points based on the location of the room. When a room is completed, with all entranceways leading to other rooms in the castle, the player receives one of seven special rewards.

After each purchasing round, a new player becomes the Master Builder who sets prices for a new set of rooms. After several rounds, the game ends, then additional points are awarded for achieving bonus goals, having the most popular rooms, and being the most responsive to the King's demands, which change each game. Whoever ends up with the most castle points wins.

In Ugg-Tect, first released as Aargh!Tect, players work in teams to construct fabulous – well, let's say "functional" – structures out of materials lying around them. All the players are cavemen, however, so you have only rough blocks with which to build and you can communicate only through primitive gestures and sounds. Ugungu!

When you're the architect on your team, you see a building plan that shows how the blocks should be placed in the finished design. To get the builders on your team to do the heavy work, you must tell them which piece to use – through gestures like stomping your feet or raising your arms above your head – and what to do with it. "Manungu" tells them to put the piece at the front of the structure, while "Manungu manungu" means to put it at the back. Moving pieces left or right, up or down, laying them down or rotating them – lots of details need to be conveyed with only a few commands and your trusty (inflatable) spiked club. When you give a command and your team performs well, tap them on the head once to show approval. Hit them twice, though, and they know they messed up and need to pay better attention. I said, "Karungu!!" (stomp stomp stomp)

The fastest – and most accurate – architect/building team will carry the day...