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.

Witchstone

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Witchstone

Witchstone

As established representatives of your guild, you gather around an ancient sacred stone, the significance and magical powers of which are known to adepts only. Each player occupies one of the four towers around the Witchstone and starts from there. Create your magic spells with the help of your cauldron, and put a network of magic energy around the stone. Send out your witches, scoop the magic crystals out of the cauldron, make use of the pentagram and the magic wand, and keep an eye on the prophecy scrolls in order to ensure victory.

Not all options are always available to you. Only if you cleverly make the most of your opportunities will you have the chance of accumulating the most victory points over the eleven rounds and thereby win Witchstone.

Each player in the game has a personal cauldron that bears seven crystals and six pre-printed magic icons, and they share a larger game board that features a crystal ball that shows the entire landscape. Each player has a set of fifteen domino tiles, with each half of the domino being a hexagon; each domino depicts two different magic icons from the six used in the game.

On a turn, you place one of the five face-up dominos in your reserve onto your cauldron, then you take the action associated with each icon depicted on that domino; if the icon is adjacent to other dominos showing the same icon (or the matching pre-printed icon), then you can take that action as many times as the number of icons in that cluster. You must complete the first type of action completely before taking the second action. With these actions, you can:

  • Use energy to connect your starting tower to other locations on the game board, scoring 1, 3 or 6 points depending on the length of the connection.
  • Place witches next to your starting tower on the game board or move them across your energy network to other locations. As you do this, you gain points and possibly additional actions to use the same turn.
  • Move your token around a pentagram to collect points and to acquire bonus hex tiles; you can use these tiles immediately for actions or place them in your cauldron to make future tile placement more valuable.
  • Move the crystals in your cauldron, whether to make room for future tile placement or to gain bonus actions by ejecting the crystal completely.
  • Advance on a magic wand to gain points and take additional actions, with the actions being doubled should you currently be the most advanced player on the wand.
  • Claim scroll cards that boost future actions or earn you bonus points at game’s end depending on how well you’ve completed the prophecy depicted.

After each player has completed eleven turns — which could equal 40-60 actions depending on how well you’ve used your cauldron — the game ends and players tally their points from prophecies and other collected scoring markers to see who has the highest score.

Game Mechanics:

  • Network Building
  • Open Drafting
  • Tile Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 60 – 90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.71

Whistle Mountain

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Whistle Mountain

Whistle Mountain

Whistle Stop designer Scott Caputo has teamed up with Luke Laurie (Manhattan Project: Energy Empire) to create a new worker-placement strategy title. Whistle Mountain gives a nod to Whistle Stop, but in this standalone game, you leave the train tracks behind and head to the sky with blimps, dreadnoughts, and hot air balloons!

In Whistle Mountain, take your company’s massive profits from all of that railroading and invest them in new technologies, deep in the Rocky Mountains where there is an abundance of resources. Your workers build crazy arrays of scaffolds and machines, upgrading your abilities and collecting resources. As you build with the help of your airship fleet, the mountain’s melting snow causes the water below to rise higher and higher, putting workers in danger and increasing the tension on the dynamically-changing board.

Because the resources you gather are determined by what players build, each game evolves differently, resulting in endless replayability. You have to choose between acquiring new abilities and enhancements for your airships and workers or building all sorts of contraptions as quickly as possible in order to achieve victory on Whistle Mountain.

Game Mechanics:

  • Tile Placement
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 60 – 90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.95

Terraforming Mars

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Terraforming Mars

Terraforming Mars

In the 2400s, mankind begins to terraform the planet Mars. Giant corporations, sponsored by the World Government on Earth, initiate huge projects to raise the temperature, the oxygen level, and the ocean coverage until the environment is habitable. In Terraforming Mars, you play one of those corporations and work together in the terraforming process, but compete for getting victory points that are awarded not only for your contribution to the terraforming, but also for advancing human infrastructure throughout the solar system, and doing other commendable things.

The players acquire unique project cards (from over two hundred different ones) by buying them to their hand. The projects (cards) can represent anything from introducing plant life or animals, hurling asteroids at the surface, building cities, to mining the moons of Jupiter and establishing greenhouse gas industries to heat up the atmosphere. The cards can give you immediate bonuses, as well as increasing your production of different resources. Many cards also have requirements and they become playable when the temperature, oxygen, or ocean coverage increases enough. Buying cards is costly, so there is a balance between buying cards (3 megacredits per card) and actually playing them (which can cost anything between 0 to 41 megacredits, depending on the project). Standard Projects are always available to complement your cards.

Your basic income, as well as your basic score, is based on your Terraform Rating (starting at 20), which increases every time you raise one of the three global parameters (which are temperature, oxygen, and ocean coverage). However, your income is complemented with your production, and you also get VPs from many other sources.

Each player keeps track of their production and resources on their player boards, and the game uses six types of resources: MegaCredits, Steel, Titanium, Plants, Energy, and Heat. On the game board, you compete for the best places for your city tiles, ocean tiles, and greenery tiles. You also compete for different Milestones and Awards worth many VPs. Each round is called a generation (guess why) and consists of the following phases:

1) Player order shifts clockwise.
2) Research phase: All players buy cards from four privately drawn.
3) Action phase: Players take turns doing 1-2 actions from these options: Playing a card, claiming a Milestone, funding an Award, using a Standard project, converting plant into greenery tiles (and raising oxygen), converting heat into a temperature raise, and using the action of a card in play. The turn continues around the table (sometimes several laps) until all players have passed.
4) Production phase: Players get resources according to their terraform rating and production parameters.

When the three global parameters (temperature, oxygen, ocean) have all reached their goal, the terraforming is complete, and the game ends after that generation. Count your Terraform Rating and other VPs to determine the winning corporation!

Game Mechanics:

  • Closed Drafting
  • Economic
  • Hand Management
  • Set Collection
  • Tableau Building
  • Take That
  • Tile Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 5 Players
  • ~120 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.25

Tapestry

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Tapestry

Tapestry

Tapestry is a two-hour game for 1-5 players designed by Jamey Stegmaier.

Create the civilization with the most storied history, starting at the beginning of humankind and reaching into the future. The paths you choose will vary greatly from real-world events or people — your civilization is unique!

In Tapestry, you start from nothing and advance on any of the four advancement tracks (science, technology, exploration, and military) to earn progressively better benefits. You can focus on a specific track or take a more balanced approach. You will also improve your income, build your capital city, leverage your asymmetric abilities, earn victory points, and gain tapestry cards that will tell the story of your civilization.

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Control
  • Dice Rolling
  • Hand Management
  • Open Drafting
  • Push Your Luck
  • Tableau Building
  • Take That
  • Tile Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 5 Players
  • 90 – 120 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.91

Suburbia

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Suburbia

Suburbia

Plan, build, and develop a small town into a major metropolis. Use hex-shaped building tiles to add residential, commercial, civic, and industrial areas, as well as special points of interest that provide benefits and take advantage of the resources of nearby towns. Your goal is to have your borough thrive and end up with a greater population than any of your opponents.

Suburbia is a tile-laying game in which each player tries to build up an economic engine and infrastructure that will be initially self-sufficient, and eventually become both profitable and encourage population growth. As your town grows, you’ll modify both your income and your reputation. As your income increases, you’ll have more cash on hand to purchase better and more valuable buildings, such as an international airport or a high-rise office building. As your reputation increases, you’ll gain more and more population — and the player with the largest population at the end of the game wins.

During each game, players compete for several unique goals that offer an additional population boost — and the buildings available in each game vary, so you’ll never play the same game twice!

The second edition of Suburbia features updated artwork, larger tiles than in the original game, a dual-sided scoreboard, GameTrayz storage organizers, and more!

Game Mechanics:

  • City Building
  • Economic
  • Open Drafting
  • Set Collection
  • Tableau Building
  • Tile Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 60 – 90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.77

Space Gate Odyssey

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Space Gate Odyssey

Space Gate Odyssey

The future of humanity awaits you in Space Gate Odyssey. A system of viable exoplanets has been recently discovered and the Confederations are flocking into space to colonize it. In this 2 to 4-player development and flow-management board game, you play the leader of one of these Confederations and play your influence in the Odyssey command station to send as many of your settlers as you can on these exoplanets.

After decades of research and technological development, humanity is preparing to leave the Earth to colonize this discovered system. To get there, only one possible means of transport exists: space gates. For reasons related to physics and other quantum aspects, these gates can be built only in space. The Confederations have therefore embarked on the construction of their own station in orbit, equipped with space gates.

At the beginning of the colonizing era, these portals make it possible to go on one of the first three discovered planets. As soon as an entire contingent of settlers has joined the gate of a space station, it is teleported to the corresponding exoplanet. The landing conditions vary according to the planets and the choice of colonized spots quickly becomes strategic.

As soon as one of the three exoplanets is fully colonized, each Confederation gains influence according to its placement, then access to one of the two later discovered exoplanets becomes possible. At the end of the colonization of the five exoplanets, the stations are teleported to the Hawking planet and the influence of each Confederation is assessed. The leader of the most influential Confederation will be promoted to the rank of Governor of this new system.

One of the biggest challenges in Space Gate Odyssey is your ability to quickly develop and intelligently arrange your space station. The better you optimize the flow of your settlers to your station, then to the exoplanets, the more of them you can send to the favorable spots and thus gain influence.

The choice of the modules, their arrangement, and the distance between the airlocks and the gates are therefore essential elements — especially since, at the end of the game, the domains of the modules you used to build your station will bring you additional influence points if they are in line with the position of the domains on the Hawking planet Predominance.

Finally, you must be careful not to leave too many open corridors on the space void as this represents a real danger for your settlers and could therefore damage your reputation.

Your most amazing quest starts with Space Gate Odyssey. Will you be able to take over your opponents in order to take control of the new system, or will you stay at the dock?

Game Mechanics:

  • Network Building
  • Tile Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • ~90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.79

RiverBoat

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RiverBoat

RiverBoat

Riverboat posits each player as the owner of a 19th century farm on the bank of the Mississippi River. You need to organize your workers to ensure that the fields are ordered according to their type and harvested when ready so that the goods can be shipped to New Orleans.

In more detail, the game lasts four rounds, and at the start of each round players draft phase cards until they’re all distributed. The phases then take place in numerical order, with the player who chose a phase being the first one to act. In the first phase, players place their workers in the fields, with each player having the same distribution of colored field tiles, but a different random placement for each player. In phase two, players organize their crops, trying to group like types together, with some fields requiring two or three workers. In phase three, players harvest crops and load riverboats, with a dock needing to be filled with all the goods of a single type before it can be loaded. In phase four, the boats are launched and players can take special actions, with additional victory points possibly coming in phase five.

Game Mechanics:

  • Action Drafting
  • Open Drafting
  • Set Collection
  • Tile Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • ~90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.90

Rajas of the Ganges

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Rajas of the Ganges

Rajas of the Ganges

Through tactics and karma to wealth and fame…

In 16th century India, the powerful empire of the Great Moguls rises between the Indus and the Ganges rivers. Taking on the role of rajas and ranis – the country’s influential nobles – players in Rajas of the Ganges race against each other in support of the empire by developing their estates into wealthy and magnificent provinces. Players must use their dice wisely and carefully plot where to place their workers, while never underestimating the benefits of good karma. Success will bring them great riches and fame in their quest to become legendary rulers.

Game Mechanics:

  • Dice Rolling
  • Economic
  • Network Building
  • Racing
  • Tile Placement
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 45 – 75 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.89

Posthuman Saga

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Posthuman Saga

Posthuman Saga

You are a survivor in a near-future Europe that has collapsed under the weight of its own political errors, in the wake of a bloody class-war fueled by genetic modifications. In Posthuman, you journeyed to the last bastion of organized human society in the area: The Fortress. A year down the line, you have become an active part of that society and honed the skills you need to fulfill your role there, but the mutants are gaining ground…

Posthuman Saga is a standalone survival game in the Posthuman universe. You play a seasoned member of the Fortress’ militia, sent out beyond the defensive perimeter to explore and hopefully reconnect with outposts the Fortress has lost touch with, while searching for scavengable sites along the way. You have to forge across a crumbled land where resources are spare and mutants roam the ruined mansions and forests alike.

Like the initial Posthuman, this is a sandbox-style survival journey, but the game system in Posthuman Saga differs from that of the first game in the series. Players win by completing various objectives that suit different characters and playing styles. It has an emphasis on tactical choices on two levels: the journey expressed through an innovative modular tile map puzzle and the individual story and combat encounters. The latter are fast, card-based affairs involving tough choices with future consequences. Posthuman Saga boasts over one hundred, finely crafted story scenes with a simple, push-your-luck mechanism that supplements the emergent narrative afforded by the game. Mutation is a way of life in the Posthuman world, and it can have its advantages, but it can easily get out of control…

Game Mechanics:

  • Auction/Bidding
  • Deck Building
  • Dice Rolling
  • Pattern Building
  • Push Your Luck
  • Role Playing
  • Storytelling
  • Tile Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 30 – 120 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.10

The Palace of Mad King Ludwig

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The Palace of Mad King Ludwig

The Palace of Mad King Ludwig

King Ludwig II of Bavaria has called all great architects to design his greatest achievement: a world-renowned palace. Only the best will do! Gorgeous appointments, white stone, surrounded by water, with swans everywhere. Oh, and the Ludwig touch? All the architects must design the palace together. The designer who shows the strongest influence will receive the order to build it.

In The Palace of Mad King Ludwig, each player builds rooms one at a time in a single gigantic palace. As rooms are completed, a moat slowly forms around the outside. Once the ends of the moat connect, the palace is finished, and the player who has contributed the most to the palace wins!

In more detail, this sequel to Castles of Mad King Ludwig shares a few similarities to its predecessor, such as tile-laying, room rewards, and the magic of watching a unique palace take shape through the course of the game, but the gameplay is entirely different, with no auction, a clever endgame timer that graphically builds pressure for players as the moat slowly closes in around the palace, and a twist on resource management with multi-colored swan tokens being used as currency, points, and the keys to new abilities.

Game Mechanics:

  • Tile Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • ~75 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.94