Tile Placement

From the Publisher:

Hive is a highly addictive strategic game for two players that is not restricted by a board and can be played anywhere on any flat surface. Hive is made up of twenty two pieces, eleven black and eleven white, resembling a variety of creatures each with a unique way of moving.

With no setting up to do, the game begins when the first piece is placed down. As the subsequent pieces are placed this forms a pattern that becomes the playing surface (the pieces themselves become the board). Unlike other such games, the pieces are never eliminated and not all have to be played. The object of the game is to totally surround your opponent's queen, while at the same time trying to block your opponent from doing likewise to your queen. The player to totally surround his opponent's queen wins the game.

Online Play

Boardspace.net (real-time, AI option)
BoardgameArena (real-time)

Cartoona is a creature-building, tile-laying game featuring the pop art of Robert Burke. The goal is to be the first player, or team to reach 50 points by building colorful and odd cartoon creatures. This is accomplished by placing tiles of different creature parts together and by playing cards that speed the process, or hinder your opponents. The game box includes 94 creature part tiles, 70 action cards, 8 player screens, and a rules booklet.

Akrotiri places you in the role of an explorer in Classical Greek times, combing the then-uncharted Aegean sea for lost Minoan temples that have long ago fallen into ruin. You've not only heard of these temples hidden around the island of Thera, but you actually have access to the secret maps that tell you of their hidden locations! Two mountains to the north? A volcano to the west? This *must* be the spot...

But running an expedition can be costly. In order to fund your voyages into the unknown and excavate the ancient temples, you will have to first ship resources found on surrounding islands back to the resource-poor island of Thera.

In Akrotiri — which combines tile placement, hand management, and pick-up and delivery — players place land tiles in order to make the board match the maps that they have in hand. Players excavate temples; the ones that are harder to find and the ones further away from Thera are worth more towards victory, but the secret goal cards keep everyone guessing who the victor is until the end! May the gods forever bless you with favorable winds!

Plan a route to complete your own secret mission before the other players do. Your explorer needs to travel over roads and sandy plains, through woods and rivers, to arrive at the next coordinate using the most efficient or tactical route. Once arrived, you'll receive a new coordinate or clue where the treasure on that rout can be found. But watch your opponents explorers! They will try to sabotage your activity with fallen tree trunks, damaged bridges, or other obstacles. Given the right action cards and perseverance, you could be the first to accomplish your mission and reach the greatest treasure of all: Victory!

There are several ways to play the game. The following variants are possible:

Basic Game
The basic game is played with 2 to 4 players and 2 explorers per player. Each player can move one explorer on his turn. The die thrown depends on which type of land the explorer is standing on. Changing type of land results in ending the players turn. During each players turn, action cards can be collected by moving to one of his own marked coordinates, Reaching a marked coordinate, a new coordinate and action card is received. The action cards are a collection of information, obstacle and help cards. Ending a route means saving the coordinates and the treasure belonging to the route. These coordinates and the treasures are the key to accomplish your own secret mission first.

Young players
To play the game with young players, the game can be played with only one explorer and without using the hiker. All other rules are the same as in the basic game.

Teams
This variant can only be played with 4 players. The 2 players sitting diagonally opposite each other are working together as a team. Both players work on one mission together. Each player will use a set of two explorers. In the team, it's allowed to move each others explorers. It's allowed to discuss the strategy and to give hints to each other during the game.

Game material:
- 4 board segments with a coordinate frame
- 14 mission cards
- 26 treasure cards
- 60 coordinate cards
- 42 actions cards (11 obstacle cards, 11 help cards, 20 information cards)
- 4x2 explorer tokens with 3 accompanying tokens with route symbol
- 28 obstacle and help attributes (8 hikers, 10 fallen tree trunks, 6 damaged bridges, 4 shortcut tokens)
- 20 'single'-tokens and 10 'multi'-tokens
- 4 dice
- rules of the game

In Archipelago, players are Renaissance European powers competing in the exploration of a Pacific or Caribbean archipelago. They will explore territories, harvest resources, use those resources in markets both internal (for their use and that of the natives) and foreign (to sell it in Europe), build markets, harbors, cities and temples, and negotiate among themselves (and maybe betray each other) – all this to complete their secret objectives. They will also need to guess the secret objective of the other players to be able to benefit from them.

But players also need to be careful of the natives; if they make them too unhappy or if too many of them are unoccupied, they could revolt and declare independence. Then everyone will lose!

According to the author, what he's tried to create is a "German" economic worker-placement game, but without the two things he dislikes in them: the superficial theme and the lack of interaction. Indeed this game includes a very present theme and a lot of negotiation and potential backstabbing.

The game includes three sets of objectives, enabling players to choose between a short, medium and a long game. Solo play is also possible with an expansion.