Tag: Pattern Recognition

Games with a Pattern Recognition mechanic require players to keep track of, and recognize, various patterns created by the game.

5211 Azul

5211 Azul

5211 Azul

5211 is a fast-playing card game with a unique scoring method that rewards clever play!

This game has cards 1-6 in five colors. Each player starts with a hand of five cards. Players play two cards face-down, then simultaneously reveal them. They refill their hand, then repeat this process two more times, but only with one card.

The cards of the majority color will score — unless too many are present, in which case the color busts and the second most color scores. In case of a tie for majority, the tied colors are also out. These rounds are repeated until the deck runs out. The player with the most points wins.

5211 is a new edition of 5 COLORS that has all new art.

Game Mechanics:

  • Hand Management
  • Pattern Recognition
  • Set Collection

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 5 Players
  • 20 – 30 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.22

Wrathborne Champions

Wrathborne Champions

Wrathborne Champions

You and your friends have been chosen by the gods to become Wrathborne; the strongest fighters the world has ever known! Using special class skills, unique weapons, and a few items, you must work together to defeat monsters intent on destroying the civilized world. This fully cooperative game will require your party to tactically dismantle each enemy in a different way before all of you are out of options. Whether casual or hardcore, Wrathborne Champions is the perfect game for all those brave enough to face the monsters’ wrath.

Each player is assigned a deck of cards comprised of their specific class abilities, a series of attacks specific to the weapon they are using this game, and a few personally selected items. These decks control not only the moves available to players, but also their life total, with damage being applied directly to the deck itself.

Player fight against one or more giant monsters printed on 10×10 miniboards placed in the center of the play area. Unlike most “big bad” games, the Monster Cards in Wrathborne Champions have set attacks and actions performed each round. This “AI code” lets players predict a great deal of how the monsters will act, allowing them to make tactical choices during their turns to increase the likelihood of success.

Monster Card life is tracked via Life Cards in a similar fashion to player decks. Most of these life cards are benign, but some alter the state of play dynamically, sometimes twisting the control out of the player’s hands. Players defeat a Monster Card when all Life Cards are removed from the sectors of the Monster Card that can attack. The game ends when the last Monster Card is defeated, or the final player is killed.

Game Mechanics:

  • Cooperative
  • Deck Building
  • Pattern Recognition

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 6 Players
  • 30 – 180 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.14

Paint the Roses

Paint the Roses

Paint the Roses is a 2-5 player cooperative logic deduction game that automatically adapts to your skill during play.

Set in the puzzling world of Alice in Wonderland, you and your friends are the newly appointed Royal Gardeners. You are working together to finish the palace grounds according to the whims of the Queen of Hearts. Use strategy, logic, and teamwork to finish the garden whilst staying one step ahead of the Queen, otherwise, the last thing you hear will be, “Off With Their Heads!”.

The Queen’s whims are shared via cards, secret instructions each player is given into how the garden should be arranged. Her whims are always changing, so as soon as you solve one, a new one is in your hand.

Every turn, together as a team you must guess at least one of these secret whim cards. You can’t say what your card shows, but by carefully placing a new shrub tile into the garden (taken from those available in the Greenhouse) you are able to reveal clues, tokens that will show any matches between the arrangement in the garden and the secret whims each player holds in their hands.

Although you can’t discuss your own secret whim card, you can openly discuss other players’. Share your theories at the table and then make a guess. Correctly guessing a whim will move you forward on the score track, but the Queen is always following, and her speed automatically adjusts based on your current score. Guess incorrectly and the Queen moves twice as fast, her axe ever closer to your neck.

Game Mechanics:

  • Cooperative
  • Deduction
  • Limited Communication
  • Pattern Recognition
  • Puzzle
  • Tile Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 5 Players
  • 50 – 70 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.48

Mysterium

Mysterium

Mysterium

In the 1920s, Mr. MacDowell, a gifted astrologer, immediately detected a supernatural being upon entering his new house in Scotland. He gathered eminent mediums of his time for an extraordinary séance, and they have seven hours to make contact with the ghost and investigate any clues that it can provide to unlock an old mystery.

Unable to talk, the amnesiac ghost communicates with the mediums through visions, which are represented in the game by illustrated cards. The mediums must decipher the images to help the ghost remember how he was murdered: Who did the crime? Where did it take place? Which weapon caused the death? The more the mediums cooperate and guess well, the easier it is to catch the right culprit.

In Mysterium, a reworking of the game system present in Tajemnicze Domostwo, one player takes the role of ghost while everyone else represents a medium. To solve the crime, the ghost must first recall (with the aid of the mediums) all of the suspects present on the night of the murder. A number of suspect, location and murder weapon cards are placed on the table, and the ghost randomly assigns one of each of these in secret to a medium.

Each hour (i.e., game turn), the ghost hands one or more vision cards face up to each medium, refilling their hand to seven each time they share vision cards. These vision cards present dreamlike images to the mediums, with each medium first needing to deduce which suspect corresponds to the vision cards received. Once the ghost has handed cards to the final medium, they start a two-minute sandtimer. Once a medium has placed their token on a suspect, they may also place clairvoyancy tokens on the guesses made by other mediums to show whether they agree or disagree with those guesses.

After time runs out, the ghost reveals to each medium whether the guesses were correct or not. Mediums who guessed correctly move on to guess the location of the crime (and then the murder weapon), while those who didn’t keep their vision cards and receive new ones next hour corresponding to the same suspect. Once a medium has correctly guessed the suspect, location and weapon, they move their token to the epilogue board and receive one clairvoyancy point for each hour remaining on the clock. They can still use their remaining clairvoyancy tokens to score additional points.

If one or more mediums fail to identify their proper suspect, location and weapon before the end of the seventh hour, then the ghost has failed and dissipates, leaving the mystery unsolved. If, however, they have all succeeded, then the ghost has recovered enough of its memory to identify the culprit.

Mediums then group their suspect, location and weapon cards on the table and place a number by each group. The ghost then selects one group, places the matching culprit number face down on the epilogue board, picks three vision cards — one for the suspect, one for the location, and one for the weapon — then shuffles these cards. Players who have achieved few clairvoyancy points flip over one vision card at random, then secretly vote on which suspect they think is guilty; players with more points then flip over a second vision card and vote; then those with the most points see the final card and vote.

If a majority of the mediums have identified the proper suspect, with ties being broken by the vote of the most clairvoyant medium, then the killer has been identified and the ghost can now rest peacefully. If not, well, perhaps you can try again…

Game Mechanics:

  • Cooperative
  • Deduction
  • Hand Management
  • Limited Communications
  • Pattern Recognition
  • Storytelling

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 7 Players
  • ~42 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.90

Cryptid

Cryptid

Cryptid

You’ve studied the footage, connected the dots, and gathered what meager evidence you could. You’re close — soon the whole world will know the truth behind the Cryptid. A group of like-minded cryptozoologists have come together to finally uncover the elusive creature, but the glory of discovery is too rich to share. Without giving away some of what you know you will never succeed in locating the beast, but reveal too much and your name will be long forgotten!

Cryptid is a unique deduction game of honest misdirection in which players must try to uncover information about their opponents’ clues while throwing them off the scent of their own. Each player holds one piece of evidence to help them find the creature, and on their turn they can try to gain more information from their opponents. Be warned; give too much away and your opponents might beat you to the mysterious animal and claim the glory for themselves!

The game includes a modular board, five clue books, and a deck of set-up cards with hundreds of possible set-ups across two difficulty levels. It is also supported by an entirely optional digital companion, allowing for faster game set-up and a near-infinite range of puzzles.

Game Mechanics:

  • Deduction
  • Pattern Recognition

Game Specifications:

  • 3 – 5 Players
  • 30 – 50 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.23

Rossio

Rossio

Rossio

The Portuguese King has called the finest stonemasons of the country to pave one of the most important squares with calçada tiles (worldwide famous black and white tiles that pave several squares in Portugal). But the task is enormous and players will have to count with the aid of helper cards who will help them score points and/or collect money.

In Rossio, players start the game by drawing five cards and keeping three of them on their hands.

On a player’s turn, players will first recruit a card from their hands, placing it on the rightmost space under their player board, sliding to the left all cards previously recruited, discarding the card that slides off their boards (under each player board there are only 3 card slots). If the newly recruited card is played face-up, players must pay its cost in coins. If the card is played face-down, no money needs to be spent.

Then, ALL cards under a player board will activate: face-up cards will give the player Points for each time the pattern depicted on the card is found on the square. Face-down cards will provide the player 1 coin each.

Then, players must build the leftmost calçada tile of their player boards. Players can never voluntarily change the order of the tiles on their board. At any moment players can, however, spend 1 coin to swap 2 pieces on their board that are orthogonally adjacent. The tile must be built in the square orthogonally adjacent to at least 2 elements: 1 tile and 1 wall, or 2 tiles. And must be built on the leftmost available space of the line it is being built. If the players manage to build orthogonally adjacent to a similar tile, they can as bonus build the next leftmost tile, and so on, until they decide to stop or until they can’t build more. Players collect then 1 coin for each coin depicted on the spaces that were left free on their player boards after tiles were built.

Finally, players end their turn by drawing 1 card into their hand from the 4 cards available on the market. However, the amount of cards players can choose from depends on the number of tiles that they have built. So, if players build only 1 tile, they must take the 1st card. If they build 3 tiles, for example, they can choose between the 1st, 2nd or 3rd cards. Players end their turns by refilling the empty spaces of their player boards with tiles from the facedown stacks.

As the square is being cooperatively built, certain patterns appear more often than others and the scoring of face-up cards becomes exponential. Also, when players complete a column, they collect a bonus, that can be either 1 coin or drawing more cards. Money is very tight in this game, so gaining an extra coin can be crucial to recruiting a card from your hand face-up.

The game ends when the square is finished and the player with most points wins the game.

Rossio is all about timing: Recruit a card face-up late in the game, and then it will score fewer times than expected. Recruit it too early, and it will score you a few points since there are few tiles built on the square. To many cards recruited face down will give that extra amount of money, but, they won’t score any points. Build several tiles and you’re probably helping your opponents. Build fewer tiles and you probably won’t have money next turn to recruit a face-up card.

Rossio is a game with very simple rules, but with high interaction between players and interesting decisions every single turn.

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Control
  • Hand Management
  • Pattern Building
  • Pattern Recognition
  • Tile Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 30 – 45 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.75

Potion Explosion

Potion Explosion

Potion Explosion

Dear students, it’s time for the final exams of the Potions class! The rules are always the same: Take an ingredient marble from the dispenser and watch the others fall. If you connect marbles of the same color, they explode and you can take them, too! Complete your potions using the marbles you collect, and drink them to unleash their magical power. Remember, though, that to win the Student of the Year award, being quick won’t be enough: you’ll also need to brew the most valuable potions in Potion Explosion!

Game Mechanics:

  • Pattern Recognition
  • Puzzle
  • Set Collection
  • Take That

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 30 – 45 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.76

Paranormal Detectives

Paranormal Detectives

Paranormal Detectives

You open your eyes to discover the most horrible truth of a lifetime… It has just come to an end and you are a ghost, floating in the air! Terrified, you look at your own body. A group of strange individuals have gathered around your mortal remains, watching it closely with sparks of fascination in their eyes. They want to communicate with you to discover how your life ended. You need to talk to them and reveal the truth so the culprit can be judged!

Paranormal Detectives is a deduction party game. One player takes the role of a Ghost. All other players work as Paranormal Detectives and need to discover how the victim died. Using paranormal abilities they will communicate with the Ghost, asking open questions about the details of the crime. The Ghost answers in a variety of ghostly ways – by arranging a hangman’s knot, playing chosen tarot cards, creating a word puzzle on a talking board, drawing by holding the hand of a detective and many more!

Game Mechanics:

  • Acting
  • Deduction
  • Hand Management
  • Line Drawing
  • Party Game
  • Pattern Recognition

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 6 Players
  • 30 – 50 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.69