Tag: Pattern Building

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

Garum

| OTSG Staff

Garum was a fermented fish sauce used as a condiment in the old ages; its manufacture and export was an element of prosperity and perhaps an impetus for the Roman penetration of Lusitanian and Hispanian coastal regions.

Garum from today’s Portugal and Spain was highly prized in Rome and has now inpired a versatile strategy boardgame for the whole family, ages 8 and up, that plays 2 to 4 players. Garum is a tile-laying game, which plays in about 30 minutes, it is language independent and features endless replayability, due to its board system, that ensures no two games are alike.

In Garum, each player represents a master in the preparation of a specific type of fish sauce and receives a set of 16 Cetarian Tiles; each one has 4 spaces filled by 4 colors in different proportions, though the color that the player is defending is the predominant one.

The goal of the game is to play Cetarian Tiles strategically, in order to get a huge number of his own colour symbols in selected rows or columns – the greater the influence, the higher the reward! While placing the tiles, players may apply to score, collect some bonuses and also block their opponent’s intents. Whoever scores most points is the winner.

Game Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 30 – 40 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.62

Fjords

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Explore a landscape so stunning that even a Viking would hold their breath in awe…

Fjords is a tile-laying game that takes place in two phases. The first one invites the players to explore the fjords around them by laying hexagonal landscape tiles, creating a map that serves as the gameboard. In the second phase, players begin from the longhouses they placed during phase one and will walk the landscape, claiming as much of the plains and cliffs as possible.

The winner of the game will be the player who has claimed the most land. Savvy placements and the ability to plan ahead yet act tactically will be your most important tools.

This new edition of Fjords differs from the original release in the following ways:

  • The game now plays up to four players.
  • The game contains five new variants/modules designed by Phil Walker-Harding. These add optional variety and flavor to the game.

Game Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 30 – 45 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.53

Dream Home

| OTSG Staff

What would your house look like? Would you rather have a huge bedroom with an elegant canopy bed or a spacious living room with a grand piano? You are going to play a part of designers who will plan a house and add more and more rooms to it.

Dream Home is a family game about building and furnishing your new house. Over twelve rounds, players collect pairs of cards consisting of a room card and an accessory card (roof, helper, furnishing or tool) and place them on their personal boards, creating their dream homes.

At the end of the game, all players’ houses are finished and fully furnished. Players compare their houses, counting points for functionality, good design, quality of roof and furnishing. The player with the nicest and most comfortable house wins.

Game Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • ~30 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.65

Dimension

| OTSG Staff

In the puzzle game Dimension six task cards are laid out each round, with these cards dictating how the balls in the game should be stacked on top of one another and side to side. These challenges aren’t easy as some colors shouldn’t touch one another.

Fast puzzle-solving is important, but more than that in the end whoever solves the most of these difficult tasks wins.

Game Mechanics:

  • Pattern Building
  • Puzzle

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • ~30 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.41

Connect 4

| OTSG Staff

Connect 4 is a well known vertical game played with “checkers” game pieces, although it is more akin to Tic-Tac-Toe or Go Moku.

The board is placed in the stand to hold it vertically and the players drop game pieces into one of the seven slots, each of which holds up to six game pieces, until one player succeeds in getting four in a row, whether horizontally, vertically, or diagonally.

Game Mechanics:

  • Pattern Building
  • Pattern Recognition

Game Specifications:

  • 2 Players
  • ~15 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.32

boop.

| OTSG Staff

A deceptively cute, deceivingly challenging abstract strategy game for two players.

Every time you place a kitten on the bed, it goes “boop.” Which is to say that it pushes every other kitten on the board one space away. Line up three kittens in a row to graduate them into cats… and then, get three cats in a row to win.

But that isn’t easy with both you AND your opponent constantly “booping” kittens around. It’s like… herding cats!
Can you “boop” your cats into position to win?
Or will you just get “booped” right off the bed?

  • Approachable but challenging abstract game. Plays in 20 to 30 minutes.
  • Features a quilted, fabric board that lays over the back of the box, completing the miniature bed playing surface. 8 wood kittens and cats per player – 32 adorable cat pieces in all!

Game Mechanics:

  • Grid Movement
  • Pattern Building

Game Specifications:

  • 2 Players
  • 20 – 30 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.39

Best Treehouse Ever: Forest of Fun

| OTSG Staff

It’s time to build another treehouse!

In the new stand alone sequel to the Golden Geek Nominated Best Treehouse Ever (Best Card Game, Best Family Game, 2015), Best Treehouse Ever: Forest of Fun, players compete to build their best treehouse, outfitting their treehouse with cool rooms, and creating fun habitats for their favorite furry and feathered friends, while also making sure that their tree doesn’t tip over and that their rooms are more impressive than all of their friends’ rooms at the end of the game.

In addition, our treehouse builders have leveled up their experience by visiting new locations in the forest that provide special abilities to help them in their new build.

Building takes place over three weeks/rounds, and in each round, players use card drafting and spatial reasoning to add five new rooms to their treehouse. Players must pay attention to the other treehouses being built since they take turns determining which types of rooms score for everyone at the end of each round.

At the end of the third week, the winner is the player with the best treehouse ever!

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 20 – 30 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.50

Azul: Master Chocolatier

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In the game Azul, players take turns drafting colored tiles from suppliers to their player board. Later in the round, players score points based on how they’ve placed their tiles to decorate the palace. Extra points are scored for specific patterns and completing sets; wasted supplies harm the player’s score. The player with the most points at the end of the game wins.

Azul: Master Chocolatier includes double-sided factory boards, with these tiles being placed on these boards at the start of each round. One side of the factories is blank, and when using this side the game plays exactly like Azul. The other side of each factory tile has a special effect on it that modifies play in one way or another, putting a twist on the normal game. Additionally, the tiles are modeled to look like chocolates and other treats, despite remaining as inedible as the tiles in the original game.

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 30 – 45 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.79

Azul

| OTSG Staff

Introduced by the Moors, azuleijos (originally white and blue ceramic tiles) were fully embraced by the Portuguese when their king Manuel I, on a visit to the Alhambra palace in Southern Spain, was mesmerized by the stunning beauty of the Moorish decorative tiles. The king, awestruck by the interior beauty of the Alhambra, immediately ordered that his own palace in Portugal be decorated with similar wall tiles. As a tile-laying artist, you have been challenged to embellish the walls of the Royal Palace of Evora.

In the game Azul, players take turns drafting colored tiles from suppliers to their player board. Later in the round, players score points based on how they’ve placed their tiles to decorate the palace. Extra points are scored for specific patterns and completing sets; wasted supplies harm the player’s score. The player with the most points at the end of the game wins.

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 30 – 45 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.77

Akropolis 🔵

| OTSG Staff

The most talented architects in ancient Greece stand ready to achieve this goal. Build housing, temples, markets, gardens and barracks, so you can grow your city and ensure it triumphs over the others. Raise its prestige with harmonious planning that conforms to specific rules, and enhance it by building plazas.

Stone is an essential resource, so make sure you do not neglect it. You’ll need enough quarries so you can build higher up, making your city stretch towards the sky.

  1. Choose a tile from the construction site
  2. Arrange it in your city to unlock each district’s full potential
  3. Build on higher levels, increase the value of your districts and win the game

Game Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 20 – 30 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.69