Abstract

What if the formation of Earth had gone differently?

In Ecos: First Continent, players are forces of nature molding the planet, but with competing visions of its grandeur. You have the chance to create a part of the world, similar but different to the one we know. Which landscapes, habitats, and species thrive will be up to you.

Gameplay in Ecos is simultaneous. Each round, one player reveals element tokens from the element bag, giving all players the opportunity to complete a card from their tableau and shape the continent to their own purpose. Elements that cannot be used can be converted into energy cubes or additional cards in hand or they can be added to your tableau to give you greater options as the game evolves.

Mountain ranges, jungle, rivers, seas, islands and savanna, each with their own fauna, all lie within the scope of the players' options.

—description from the publisher

In Kodama 3D, players will grow trees in three-dimensional space. Players move their kodama pieces around a 4x4 grid of branch tiles in order to pick the branches they want to add to their tree. When a player adds a branch to their tree that doesn’t match what it is touching, they choose a goal card from the ones available. After all players have placed 12 branches on their tree, players score all of their goal cards. The player with the most points wins.

—description from the publisher

Long ago, a vengeful god stole the stars from the night sky. To illuminate the night, hopeful people sent glowing paper lanterns floating toward the heavens. Out of nowhere, clever magical phoenixes appeared, soaring through the sky. As they flew from lantern to lantern, their enchanted touch changed the lanterns into new stars! The phoenix who can create a constellation of seven new stars will be the champion of a world looking for light!

Tsuro: Phoenix Rising is a new entry in the classic Tsuro series. The game shares a bond with the foundations of the venerable original: play tiles, move pawns, and stay in play, but it introduces a revolutionary board that allows for the double-sided tiles to flip and rotate throughout the game, creating diverging paths and opening up new strategies.

Featuring gorgeous phoenix miniatures, beautiful lantern tokens, and unique gameplay elements such as life tokens that allow your phoenix to be reborn from the ashes once per game, Tsuro: Phoenix Rising is a new chapter in the legacy of Tsuro!

The small island of Kuchinoshima has been hit by a terrible storm, leaving the village with only a single fishing boat. Each hoping to prove themselves the village’s best fisherman, 2-4 players take turns moving the boat marker around the island, collecting any fish tiles they land upon. At the end of the day, the player with the best haul wins, but there’s a twist – with 3 or 4 players, each player’s score is added to the player to their right’s score before determining the winner!

—description from the publisher

Legendary Forests is a multiplayer solitaire game akin to Take it Easy! or Karuba as each player has an identical set of tiles and plays the same tile at the same time to their own tableau — but where each player places each tile may differ...

In more detail, each player creates their own world by connecting the landscapes on their tiles. Each player starts the game with the same starting tile in play. One player, the "Leader", shuffles their tiles face down, then removes five tiles from play without looking at them. On a turn, the Leader reveals the next tile, calls out the number on it, then everyone places that same tile somewhere in their landscape, with the adjacent edges of each pair of tiles needing to match.

When the Leader draws a tile with a red number, everyone places their piece, then starting with the player who holds the God piece (initially the Leader), everyone draws a monument tile from the center of the playing area and places it on an area in their landscape. Monuments come in three colors (while the landscapes have areas in four colors), and you use only two monuments of a color for each player in the game. After placing monuments, pass the God piece clockwise to the next player.

The game ends after everyone has placed their twenty tiles, then players score points based on the areas where they have monuments. Each non-purple edge of a tile has a half-circle on it; when two such edges are placed together, the owner of those tiles has created a "cookie" in that area. To score, you look at each area where you have a monument. If you have no half-circles in this area — that is, the area is completely enclosed — then you score 2 points for each cookie in that area. If you have any unconnected half-circles in this area, you instead score 1 point per cookie. Whoever has the most points wins!

The first edition of Legendary Forests included tiles for 2-4 players, while the second edition included tiles for 2-5 players. You can have any number of players compete in the same game as long as you have enough sets.