Worker Placement

Phoenix: New Horizon

In the year 2021, after years of seclusion underground, humanity emerges onto the surface, propelled by the development of groundbreaking new technology. Decades of catastrophic fallout from a nuclear disaster during the Cold War have laid waste to the known world, compelling civilization to seek shelter beneath the earth. The pressing task now is the construction of regenerators, which will generate new habitats to facilitate the resurgence of life and the reclamation of the Earth. A world brimming with hope awaits aboveground.

Phoenix New Horizon is a Euro-style board game in which players assume control of a team of commandos tasked with the mission of recolonizing Earth. Throughout the game's four rounds, players accumulate victory points by constructing regenerators and buildings, bolstering the planet's population, and achieving diverse objectives that vary between playthroughs.

Players must adeptly allocate their commandos to various actions throughout the game while also specializing them to enable more potent abilities at the expenses of versatility. Fulfilling missions assigned by the governing authorities yields additional actions on a player's turn.

The White Castle Duel

Following the arrival of the Portuguese in Japan, daimyos competed for control of foreign trade and technology. Himeji Castle, a symbol of feudal power, became a strategic center for clans seeking to gain influence.

In The White Castle Duel, two clans compete to exert their influence in the White Heron's court, managing resources and building engines. On each turn, you will use their lamp tokens to obtain resources and activate actions. Among the actions available, you can buy and upgrade influence cards, place clan seals on gardens and training grounds, move your courtier between circles of influence, or trade with the Portuguese. These actions will allow you to accumulate a series of icons — flags, katanas, kabutos, and origami figures — that will reward you with points, and whoever ends up with the most points wins.

Propolis

Propolis is a worker-placement, engine-building, area-control, and tableau-building game. Players take on the role of competing medieval bee colonies and take turns deploying worker bees to collect pollen, fortify their positions, and construct their hives to appease their queen and become the most glorious in the land!

As bees compete over the realm's floral landscapes, they will be collecting pollen to create the propolis they need to build their hives. Attaining dominance in different realms provides additional glory and building materials. As hives expand, new structures provide additional resources, new scoring opportunities, and the prerequisites to construct a glorious palace for the queen. The player who dominates the realm and builds the most prestigious home wins.

A Place for All My Books

A Place for All My Books is a puzzley book gathering, sorting, and organizing game in which players arrange stacks of books in different rooms of their apartment as personal projects. When done, they can admire their accomplishments and gain their rewards – not least of which is renewed energy, which they can then spend to head out into the village - to pick up more books!

Over nine rounds, players visit locations and gather books to complete objectives and earn Victory Points. The player with the most Victory Points wins.

The organizational puzzles are easy to accomplish, with the challenge being how many of them you can accomplish all at once to optimize each "admire" action.

A Place for All My Books includes a solo mode in which you must beat the game's rival: Penelope Eveready, an untiring extrovert who seems to be grabbing all the books you had wanted.

—description from the publisher

Age of Galaxy (Second Edition)

Age of Galaxy is a strategic 4X game that places you in control of an interstellar alliance consisting of three factions with unique powers. You can explore systems, colonize planets, research technologies, build galactic cruisers, and much more. You have many potential paths to victory based on how your factions work together and the main ideology of your alliance. The five ideologies:

Supporters of Science commit themselves to lifelong research on new technologies, convinced that knowledge is the only way forward.
Upholders of Militarism are merciless aggressors who conquer by might, regarding wars as a means to an end.
Keen adopters of Diplomacy prioritize relations between factions, acting tactfully while competing to become the head of the Congress.
Factions that value Industrialism undertake ambitious construction schemes to turn planets into highly-developed cities and industrial complexes.
As for factions that advocate Culturalism, they take pride in cultivating spiritual and cultural growth, always curious about the insights the mysterious "relics" might offer.

Faction cards can be played in multiple ways, with players either integrating them into their empire or sacrificing them for one-time benefits through agreements. More than thirty factions are included in the game.

This second edition of Age of Galaxy introduces an enhanced solo mode, new graphic design, and improved components to enrich the gameplay experience.