Tag: Tile Placement

Games with Tile Placement mechanics require players to place tiles on a game board to create and modify the game’s environment.

Dominant Species

| T3d-1978
Dominant Species

Dominant Species

90,000 B.C. — A great ice age is fast approaching. Another titanic struggle for global supremacy has unwittingly commenced between the varying animal species.
Dominant Species is a game that abstractly recreates a tiny portion of ancient history: the ponderous encroachment of an ice age and what that entails for the living creatures trying to adapt to the slowly-changing earth.
Each player will assume the role of one of six major animal classes—mammal, reptile, bird, amphibian, arachnid, or insect. Each begins the game more or less in a state of natural balance in relation to one another. But that won’t last: It is indeed “survival of the fittest”.
Through wily action pawn placement, players will strive to become dominant on as many different terrain tiles as possible in order to claim powerful card effects. Players will also want to propagate their individual species in order to earn victory points for their particular animal. Players will be aided in these endeavors via speciation, migration, and adaptation actions, among others.
All of this eventually leads to the end game—the final ascent of the ice age—where the player having accumulated the most victory points will have his animal crowned the Dominant Species.
But somebody better become dominant quickly, because it’s getting mighty cold…

Game Play
The large hexagonal tiles are used throughout the game to create an ever-expanding interpretation of earth as it might have appeared a thousand centuries ago. The smaller tundra tiles will be placed atop the larger tiles—converting them into tundra in the process—as the ice age encroaches.
The cylindrical action pawns (or “AP”s) drive the game. Each AP will allow a player to perform the various actions that can be taken, such as speciation, environmental change, migration, or glaciation. After being placed on the action display during the Planning Phase, an AP will trigger that particular action for the owning player during the Execution Phase.
Generally, players will be trying to enhance their own animal’s survivability while simultaneously trying to hinder that of their opponents’—hopefully collecting valuable victory points (or “VP”s) along the way. The various cards will aid in these efforts, giving players useful one-time abilities or an opportunity for recurring VP gains.
Throughout the game, species cubes will be added to, moved about in, and removed from the tiles in play (the “earth”). Element disks will be added to and removed from both animals and earth.
When the game ends, players will conduct a final scoring of each tile—after which the player controlling the animal with the highest VP total wins.

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Control
  • Grid Movement
  • Open Drafting
  • Take That
  • Tile Placement
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 6 Players
  • 120 – 240 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 4.04

Cooper Island

| T3d-1978
Cooper Island

Cooper Island

In the age of exploration the players arrive at a new home far away from their homeland. They try to settle the big island and each player tries to explore one part of it by placing landscape tiles. Landscape tiles grant resources and those are used to erect buildings with special abilities. Barriers on the island have to be removed in order to explore the island even further. Players build valuable statues and supply ships get them the supplies from the old world they need to be a successful settler on Cooper Island.

The special thing about Cooper Island is the way the players mark their victory points. They sail with ships around the island to show their progress. On their way around the island they find smaller islands inshore that grant valuable benefits. After five rounds, a game of Cooper Island ends and the player who developed the best and went on furthest with their ships will win.

Game Mechanics:

  • Tile Placement
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 60 – 120 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 4.18

The Colonists

| T3d-1978
The Colonists

The Colonists

In The Colonists, a.k.a. Die Kolonisten, each player is a mayor of a village and must develop their environment to gain room for new farmers, craftsmen, and citizens. The main goal of the game is full employment, so players must create new jobs, educate the people, and build new houses to increase their population. But resources are limited, and their storage leads to problems that players must deal with, while also not forgetting to upgrade their buildings. Players select actions by moving their mayor on a central board.

The Colonists is designed in different levels and scenarios, and even includes something akin to a tutorial, with the playing time varying between 30 minutes (for beginners) and 180 minutes (experts).

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Movement
  • Civilization
  • Hand Management
  • Open Drafting
  • Tile Placement
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 30 – 300 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 4.08

Caverna: The Cave Farmers

| T3d-1978
Caverna: The Cave Farmers

Caverna: The Cave Farmers

Following along the same lines as its predecessor (Agricola), Caverna: The Cave Farmers is a worker-placement game at heart, with a focus on farming. In the game, you are the bearded leader of a small dwarf family that lives in a little cave in the mountains. You begin the game with a farmer and his spouse, and each member of the farming family represents an action that the player can take each turn. Together, you cultivate the forest in front of your cave and dig deeper into the mountain. You furnish the caves as dwellings for your offspring as well as working spaces for small enterprises.

It’s up to you how much ore you want to mine. You will need it to forge weapons that allow you to go on expeditions to gain bonus items and actions. While digging through the mountain, you may come across water sources and find ore and ruby mines that help you increase your wealth. Right in front of your cave, you can increase your wealth even further with agriculture: You can cut down the forest to sow fields and fence in pastures to hold your animals. You can also expand your family while running your ever-growing farm. In the end, the player with the most efficiently developed home board wins.

You can also play the solo variant of this game to familiarize yourself with the 48 different furnishing tiles for your cave.

Caverna: The Cave Farmers, which has a playing time of roughly 30 minutes per player, is a complete redesign of Agricola that substitutes the card decks from the former game with a set of buildings while adding the ability to purchase weapons and send your farmers on quests to gain further resources. Designer Uwe Rosenberg says that the game includes parts of Agricola, but also has new ideas, especially the cave part of your game board, where you can build mines and search for rubies. The game also includes two new animals: dogs and donkeys.

Game Mechanics:

  • Economic
  • Tile Placement
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 7 Players
  • 30 – 210 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.79

BoonLake

| T3d-1978
BoonLake

BoonLake

With a group of pioneers, you have left civilization behind to settle along the shores of Boonlake, a long-forgotten region inhabited by humans long ago. This unexplored area beckons you! Become part of a new community and commit yourself to the common good. Explore the landscapes, build houses and settlements, raise cattle, produce raw materials, and develop an infrastructure. Do your best to automate these processes. Seize the opportunity to make the best of your new life in Boonlake.

Boonlake is an expert game in which you are finding yourself improving your life — and your group’s life — in this new territory…but how you accomplish this is completely up to you! Due to a novel action mechanism, each game progresses differently. Each action needs to be considered carefully since the other players also benefit from the action you choose. Besides this, the action determines how far you may move your ship — the further and faster, the better!

Game Mechanics:

  • Action Drafting
  • Civilization
  • Economic
  • Tile Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 80 – 160 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.78

Bonfire

| T3d-1978
Bonfire

Bonfire

The bonfires are sources of light, energy and warmth created by the guardians of light in order to brighten the cities on the otherwise dark planet. The residents of the cities however, took the bonfires for granted and exploited them for their personal gain. Disappointed the guardians of light retreated and let the bonfires extinguish. The citizens could no longer live in the now dark cities and were forced to leave.

You are a group of gnomes living close to the cities and you also need and the light of the bonfires. Missing it now, you try yourself to visit the cities and learn how to ignite the bonfires once again: You must visit the guardians of light on their holy islands and ask for tasks to prove your good will. For each completed task, they will re-ignite one extinguished bonfire. Whoever manages to earn the greatest trust from the guardians and manages to brighten their city the most will win the game.

The engine for Bonfire are the three-coloured tiles you will be puzzling onto your player board. When you manage to place the same colours adjacent to one another, you will receive more action tiles of that specific kind. This will allow you to specialize in certain types of actions and pursue different strategies.
You can use the tiles to perform the following actions:
– Move your ship to an island
– Receive a task from an island by spending two resources
– Invite a guardian of light into your city
– Trigger a procession of guardians through your city and gain resources.
– Add a landscape tile to your city (this is where the processions take place)
– Recruit a gnome gaining a special ability or victory points
– Find support by the last bonfire, gaining portals, resources or action tiles

You will play in turn order until a fixed number of tasks has been solved, after which each player has 5 more turns. During final scoring, you will receive points for your completed tasks (the bonfires) and any improvements made there (portals, landscapes or guardians).

Game Mechanics:

  • Pattern Building
  • Set Collection
  • Tile Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 70 – 100 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.64

Black Angel

| T3d-1978
Black Angel

Black Angel

Humanity, through its irresponsible behavior, has exhausted the natural resources of Earth, making it almost uninhabitable. In a burst of lucidity, pressed by the irreversible degradation of your planet, the great nations are forced to put aside their differences and share their knowledge in order to create the most vast spacecraft ever constructed. Thus, the BLACK ANGEL project is launched.

The Black Angel, the first intergalactic frigate in history, must transport the genetic heritage of humanity beyond known worlds, over a journey that is likely to last several thousand years. Her crew will be composed of only robots. Because no nation is willing to trust creation of the AI (artificial intelligence) that will control this crew to any other nation, a compromise is found: The Black Angel will be co-managed by several AIs, and the utility of each decision will be evaluated in VP (Validation Process).

At the completion of this long and perilous voyage, when a new inhabitable planet has been reached, the AI that has earned the most VP will be entrusted with reawakening Humanity, and overseeing its new start….

All the reports are in agreement: The Black Angel is approaching Spes, a planet with the highest probability for habitability by the human species. Take advantage of our approach to maintain the good relations you have gradually woven with the benevolent Alien species populating the galaxy, and watch out for the dreaded Ravagers, who would do anything to prevent you from reaching Spes.

Game Mechanics:

  • Dice Rolling
  • Hand Management
  • Tile Placement
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 60 – 120 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.85

Ark Nova

| T3d-1978
Ark Nova

Ark Nova

In Ark Nova, you will plan and design a modern, scientifically managed zoo. With the ultimate goal of owning the most successful zoological establishment, you will build enclosures, accommodate animals, and support conservation projects all over the world. Specialists and unique buildings will help you in achieving this goal.

Each player has a set of five action cards to manage their gameplay, and the power of an action is determined by the slot the card currently occupies. The cards in question are:

  • CARDS: Allows you to gain new zoo cards (animals, sponsors, and conservation project cards).
  • BUILD: Allows you to build standard or special enclosures, kiosks, and pavilions.
  • ANIMALS: Allows you to accommodate animals in your zoo.
  • ASSOCIATION: Allows your association workers to carry out different tasks.
  • SPONSORS: Allows you to play a sponsor card in your zoo or to raise money.

255 cards featuring animals, specialists, special enclosures, and conservation projects, each with a special ability, are at the heart of Ark Nova. Use them to increase the appeal and scientific reputation of your zoo and collect conservation points.

Game Mechanics:

  • Economic
  • Hand Management
  • Open Drafting
  • Set Collection
  • Tile Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 90 – 150 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.72

Archipelago

| T3d-1978
Archipelago

Archipelago

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.

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Control
  • Auction/Bidding
  • Civilization
  • Cooperative
  • Economic
  • Grid Movement
  • Negotiation
  • Tile Placement
  • Trading
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 5 Players
  • 30 – 240 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.74

A Feast for Odin

| T3d-1978
A Feast for Odin

A Feast for Odin

A Feast for Odin is a saga in the form of a board game. You are reliving the cultural achievements, mercantile expeditions, and pillages of those tribes we know as Viking today — a term that was used quite differently towards the end of the first millennium.

When the northerners went out for a raid, they used to say they headed out for a viking. Their Scandinavian ancestors, however, were much more than just pirates. They were explorers and founders of states. Leif Eriksson is said to be the first European in America, long before Columbus.
In what is known today as Normandy, the intruders were not called Vikings but Normans. One of them is the famous William the Conqueror who invaded England in 1066. He managed to do what the king of Norway failed to do only a few years prior: conquer the Throne of England. The reason why the people of these times became such strong seafarers is due to their unfortunate agricultural situation. Crop shortfalls caused great distress.

In this game, you will raid and explore new territories. You will also experience their day-to-day activities: collecting goods to achieve a financially secure position in society. In the end, the player whose possessions bear the greatest value will be declared the winner.

Game Mechanics:

  • Dice Rolling
  • Economic
  • Grid Coverage
  • Push Your Luck
  • Puzzle
  • Tableau Building
  • Tile Placement
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 30 – 120 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.85