Tag: Pattern Building

In Pattern Building games players place various game components in specific patterns to achieve various results.

Azul: Summer Pavilion

| T3d-1978

At the turn of the 16th Century, King Manuel I commissioned Portugal’s greatest artisans to construct grandiose buildings. After completing the Palaces of Evora and Sintra, the king sought to build a summer pavilion to honor the most famous members of the royal family. This construction was intended for the most talented artisans — whose skills meet the splendor that the royal family deserves. Sadly, King Manuel I died before construction ever began.

In Azul: Summer Pavilion, players return to Portugal to accomplish the task that never began. As a master artisan, you must use the finest materials to create the summer pavilion while carefully avoiding wasting supplies. Only the best will rise to the challenge to honor the Portuguese royal family.

Azul: Summer Pavilion lasts six rounds, and in each round players draft tiles, then place them on their individual player board to score points. Each of the six colors of tiles is wild during one of the rounds.

At the start of each round, draw tiles at random from the bag to refill each of the five, seven, or nine factories with four tiles each. Draw tiles as needed to refill the ten supply spaces on the central scoring board. Players then take turns drafting tiles. You can choose to take all of the tiles of a non-wild color on a factory and place them next to your board; if any wild tiles are on this factory, you must take one of them. Place all remaining tiles in the center of the table. Alternatively, you can take all tiles of a non-wild color from the center of play; you must also take one wild tile, if present.

After all tiles have been claimed, players then take turns placing tiles on their individual boards. Each board depicts seven stars that would be composed of six tiles; each space on a star shows a number from 1-6, and six of the stars are for tiles of a single color while the seventh will be composed of one tile of each color. To place a tile on the blue 5, for example, you must discard five blue or wild tiles from next to your player board (with at least one blue being required), placing one blue tile in the blue 5 space and the rest in the discard tower. You score 1 point for this tile and 1 point for each tile within this star connected to the newly placed tile.

If you completely surround a pillar, statue, or window on your game board with tiles, you get an immediate bonus, taking 1-3 tiles from the central supply spaces and placing them next to your board. At the end of the round, you can carry over at most four tiles to the next round; discard any others, losing 1 point for each such tile.

After six rounds, you score a bonus for each of the seven stars that you’ve filled completely. Additionally, you score a bonus for having covered all seven spaces of value 1, 2, 3 or 4. You lose 1 point for each remaining tile unused, then whoever has the most points wins.

Game Mechanics:

  • Open Drafting
  • Pattern Building
  • Set Collection
  • Tile Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 30 – 45 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.07

Azul: Stained Glass of Sintra

| T3d-1978

Created by Michael Kiesling, Azul: Stained Glass of Sintra challenges players to carefully select glass panes to complete their windows while being careful not to damage or waste supplies in the process. The window panels are double-sided, providing players with a dynamic player board that affords nearly infinite variability!

Players can expect to discover new unique art and components in Azul: Stained Glass of Sintra, including translucent window pane pieces, a tower to hold discarded glass panes, and double-sided player boards and window pane panels, in addition to many other beautiful components!

Game Mechanics:

  • Open Drafting
  • Pattern Building
  • Set Collection
  • Tile Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 30 – 45 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.01

ArchRavels

| T3d-1978

Experience the colorful and crafty world of fiber arts with ArchRavels! Play as one of four characters, each with their own unique crafting specialty. Hit the Yarn Bazaar to build up your stash. Follow the patterns to make cuddly bears, warm blankets, and cozy scarves. Along the way you’ll get some unique special requests. Turn in your completed items to master a pattern, complete projects, and score points. When the project list runs out, the crafter with the most points wins!

Game Mechanics:

  • Economic
  • Open Drafting
  • Pattern Building
  • Set Collection

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 30 – 45 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.92

Tuned

| T3d-1978
Tuned

Tuned

In Tuned, you want to get your animal band in order so that they’ll be ready to play — and although you’re competing for space in the practice room with another band, you can incorporate all the musicians in your quest for the right arrangement.

To set up, each player takes two donkeys, two dogs, two cats, and one rooster. Place the rooster on the “move a figure” action space on your side of the 3×3 game board, leaving your two “add a figure” actions exposed.

On a turn, move your rooster to an open action space on your side of the board. If you choose “add”, then place one of your figures on the board by following the placement rules:

  • Place a donkey only on an empty space.
  • Place a dog on an empty space or on an unencumbered donkey.
  • Place a cat on an empty space or on an unencumbered dog.

For a “move” action, choose an animal on the game board and move it to a new location while following the placement rules. You can move a portion of a stack; you cannot reverse the opponent’s previous move.

As soon as a player creates an orthogonal or diagonal row with three of the same animals on top, that player wins. If a player is forced to add an animal (because their rooster occupies the lone “move” action) but cannot, they lose.

Game Mechanics:

  • Abstract Strategy
  • Pattern Building

Game Specifications:

  • 2 Players
  • ~20 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.00

Sequence

| T3d-1978
Sequence

Sequence

Sequence is a board and card game. The board shows all the cards (except for the Jacks) of two (2) standard 52-card decks, laid in a 10 x 10 pattern. The four corners are free spaces and count for all players equally.

The players compete to create rows, columns or diagonals of 5 connected checkers placed on the cards that the player has laid down. Two-eyed Jacks are wild, while one-eyed Jacks allow an opponent’s checker to be removed. The game ends when someone has reached a specified number of connections.

Game Mechanics:

  • Abstract Strategy
  • Card Game
  • Hand Management
  • Pattern Building
  • Take That
  • Team Based

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 12 Players
  • 10 – 30 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.33

Seikatsu

| T3d-1978
Seikatsu

Seikatsu

In Seikatsu, players take turns placing tiles into a shared garden area, with each tile showing a colored flower and colored bird. Players score for groups of birds as they place them, but they score for rows of flowers only at the end of the game and only for the rows of flowers that exist from their perspective, i.e., that are viewable as lines from where they sit at the game board.

Game Mechanics:

  • Abstract Strategy
  • Hand Management
  • Pattern Building
  • Puzzle
  • Set Collection
  • Tile Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 15 – 30 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.58

Savannah Park

| T3d-1978
Savannah Park

Savannah Park

In Savannah Park, you each run your own wildlife park, and your goal is to group animals with their own kind — but everyone takes turns deciding what to move, so you might not be able to shuffle animals into the right spaces.

Each player starts the game with the same set of 33 unique animal tiles, with those tiles laid out at random in your personal wildlife park. Three bush-fire spaces and one rock space will remain unoccupied in your park for the entire game, and six tree spaces and four grass spaces are unoccupied at the start of play.

On a turn, you name a specific face-up tile that all players must pick up, flip face down, then move to a different empty space within their own park. Tiles that have been flipped cannot move again, and once all tiles have moved, the game ends with a scoring round. First, tiles adjacent to bush fires are removed if they depict as many animals as the number of fires (1, 2, or 3) on the bush-fire space. Score for each grass and tree uncovered on your board. Finally, score for each of the six animal species; the bigger the main herd of each of species and the more water holes it contains, the more points you score, e.g. a herd of five rhinos and three watering holes is worth (5×3) 15 points. The player with the most points wins.

Game Mechanics:

  • Abstract Strategy
  • Pattern Building
  • Puzzle
  • Set Collection
  • Tile Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 20 – 40 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.70

Rossio

| T3d-1978
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

Qwirkle

| T3d-1978
Qwirkle

Qwirkle

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 their hand to six blocks.

Game Mechanics:

  • Abstract Strategy
  • Hand Management
  • Pattern Building
  • Tile Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • ~45 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.62

Project L

| T3d-1978
Project L

Project L

Build pieces, develop an engine, perfect your strategy, and win the game!

Project L is a fast-paced, tile-matching brain burner with triple-layer 3D puzzles and lovely acrylic pieces. Challenge your friends to a game of simple design but intricate gameplay that makes a lasting impression!

The core of the game lies in using your pieces to complete puzzles. Starting with just two basic pieces, you use three actions every turn to develop a powerful engine. With more pieces of various types, you can efficiently complete even the most difficult puzzles. The puzzles you complete award you points or new pieces to further fuel your engine. Can you outsmart your opponents?

Game Mechanics:

  • Abstract Strategy
  • Action Points
  • Open Drafting
  • Pattern Building
  • Puzzle
  • Tile Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 20 – 40 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.52