Puzzle

Vivid Memories

Every stick is a sword. Every bike is a steed. Every memory is a possibility.

In Vivid Memories, you’ll take turns collecting fragments of childhood memories, weaving a tapestry of colored threads in your mind. Throughout your journey, you’ll store important moments in your memory bank -- gaining new abilities to help you score.

Cleverly create connections and earn rewards for completing core memories, matching the imagination behind each moment, and working toward your lifelong aspirations for victory.

During the game, players take turns collecting fragments of memories from moment tiles, placing them in their "brain" board to weave a tapestry of colored threads. Using abilities at the end of each round to cleverly create connections, players are rewarded for how they store memory fragments while working toward completing “core memories”, which give repeated benefits each round. Through their journey, players store important moments in their memory bank -- gaining new abilities and new opportunities to score -- all while working to collect fragments and moments that match what they aspire to be.

—description from the designer

Azul: Queen's Garden

Welcome back to the palace of Sintra! King Manuel I has commissioned the best garden designers of Portugal to construct the most extraordinary garden for his wife, Queen Maria of Aragon.

In Azul: Queen's Garden, players are tasked with arranging a magnificent garden for the King's lovely wife by arranging beautiful plants, trees, and ornamental features.

Using an innovative drafting mechanism, the signature of the Azul series, players must carefully select colorful tiles to decorate their garden. Only the most incredible garden designers will flourish and win the Queen's blessing.

—description from the publisher

Mountains Out Of Molehills

Moles have traveled from all over to compete in the annual Mountain Maker tournament. In this light strategy game, competitors show their skill based on how high they can pile their Molehills, and by how many Mountains they control. The Mole that can build and control the most Mountains out of Molehills over 6 rounds will be declared the "Top Tunneler" and win the game. Features a two-level game board and full-color acrylic standees for each Mole!

Mountains Out Of Molehills is played over six rounds, and each round has four phases. In Phase 1 players take turns drafting action cards from a face up market to form a hand of 4 cards each. These actions will move Moles underground while adding Molehill pieces to the bottom of the Mountains above them.

In Phase 2, each player simultaneously determines the order they plan to resolve their action cards, they place these cards face down in a stack from first action, to last. Once the order is set it cannot be changed! Carefully planning will help ensure you take control of the most valuable Molehills, but be careful as your opponents may block your path, throw a Rock in your way, or even cause your best Mountains to Topple over, spilling the pieces onto other Mountains!

In Phase 3 players take turns revealing the top card from their stack and resolving its action. In Phase 4 players score the round. Each player controls the Mountains that have their color Molehill on the bottom, and they earn 1 point for each piece in the Mountains they control.

After scoring, players draft the turn order for the next round, starting with the player who has the most pieces on TOP of each Mountain. The player who goes first gets first choice when drafting cards, but the player who acts last gets the final movement of the round.

After six rounds players total up all their points from the 6 rounds and the player with the most points is dubbed the Top Tunneler and wins the game!

Phantom Ink

Renowned mediums are competing to figure out a secret object and prove they can connect with the "World Beyond". The first team to figure out the secret object wins!

To set up Phantom Ink, divide players so that the Sun team and the Moon team each have one Spirit and up to three Mediums. The mediums on a team share a hand of seven question cards, and the spirits begin the game by choosing one of the five objects on a card as the secret object. On a turn, the mediums pass two question cards to their spirit, with sample questions like "What color is it most commonly?", "What fictional character has it or uses it?", and "If it were a musical instrument, what would it be?"

The spirit discards one question card face up, then returns the question card it's going to answer to their mediums, then slowly writes the answer one letter at a time for all to see. As soon as the mediums think they know what this clue word is, they yell "Silencio", and the spirit stops writing. The other team of mediums might see only the letter "Y", but if you know the question is "What color is it?", then you know the clue must be "yellow". To end your turn, draw two new question cards.

On a turn, instead of handing over question cards, you can attempt to guess the answer — and to do so you write like the spirits, one letter at a time. If you write an incorrect letter, the spirits will stop you, marking out your error, with your partial guess giving the other team more information. If you guess the entire word correctly, you win!

Paris: La Cité de la Lumière

Paris is a two-player board game by José Antonio Abascal infused with Parisian aesthetics by the boardgame’s artist Oriol Hernández. The game is set in late 19th century Paris during the 1889 “Exposition Universelle,” or world’s fair, when public electricity was a hot topic. Electricity spread throughout the city, creating today’s beautiful nocturnal Parisian streets and coining Paris’s nickname “La Cité de la Lumiére”, the city of lights.

The most well-lit buildings are admired more highly by passers-by. In the first phase, players can either place tiles or grow their reserve of buildings. The cobblestone tiles are divided into 4 random spaces (their color, their opponents’ color, a streetlight or a mixed-color space where either player can build).

Then, in the second phase, players build on top of their color or the mixed spaces, in effort to position their buildings as close to as many streetlights as possible. More streetlights solicit more adoration and points. The player with the best lit buildings steals the hearts of Parisian pedestrians and wins the game.

—description from the publisher