pattern building

Publisher's description of this new hex-tile game scheduled to debut at Essen 2008:

"Logan Stones is a two player strategic game that encourages memory and tactical thinking. It is played without a board, using 18 tactile pieces that are etched and painted on both sides with different symbols.

The game has simple rules that are based on the visually recognizable symbols of Rock Paper Scissors.

Logan Stones takes the simplicity of ‘Rock Paper Scissors’ and adds to it a fast paced, fun game, that can also be played with strategic precision for a much more thought provoking experience. The aim is to make a line of 4 of the same symbol, but as you and your opponent are in control of the same stones and with them constantly being flipped over to reveal new symbols, it’s not as simple as it sounds."

In Blueprints, players are architects who must use different colored dice to build three different structures from blueprints, with the dice providing different advantages to you. In the game, each round progresses like this:

Discover your blueprint.
Each turn, choose a die and place it in your building.
Reveal your building, tally your points, then discover who wins the awards and prizes.

After three rounds, players tally their awards and prizes to see who wins. Who will be the best architect?

Fantasy Frontier is a fantasy board game of airships and exploration for 2 to 4 players with a playing time of 45 to 90 minutes. Each player controls a unique airship with a crew of pioneers. Players manage the actions of these pioneers each turn in an effort to scout the land, gather resources, construct townships, and even battle it out in aerial combat. Creating geographic patterns via tile placement, the players will develop a new world each time they play. Players compete to be the first to score the required number of victory points to win the game. Points are scored by building townships, completing geographic patterns, and fighting their rivals in airship battles!

Every turn, players must carefully manage the actions of five workers, which can be assigned the following tasks:

Piloting the Airship - Moving their airship token around the board.
Research & Development - Drawing map cards with geographic patterns and discovering development cards to improve their airships.
Scouting the Land - Drawing terrain tiles to place on the map to expand the community game board.
Gathering Resources - Landing the airship and exiting the workers to collect food, wood, stone and gold, with these resources being used to improve the performance of workers and to build townships.
Construct a Township - Landing the airship and disembarking the workers to build a township, which provides a reoccurring resource stream and is worth victory points.
Aerial Combat - Engaging in airship battles with other players to slow their progress and potentially score victory points.
Repair Ship Damage - Repairing the damage taken in battle.

Fantasy Frontier is a unique gaming experience, blending a peaceful Euro play-style with the optional take-that element of combat, creating a game unlike any other.

Award-winning quilt makers devote considerable effort to collecting fabrics for their stashes. They shop for specific colors, often ranging into neighboring hues to achieve a nuanced, scrappy look. Quilters love a sale, where they may buy fabric just to have it on hand. If they can't find the colors they want, they sometimes hand dye their own fabric. They use their time and skills converting fabric into blocks, which they combine to make quilts. Often, quilters work on more than one quilt at a time to keep things interesting. They may embellish their quilts with intricate quilting stitches. The best quilters make good color choices, combine blocks skillfully, use their time well, and win generous purchase awards when they enter their quilts in shows.

In Quilt Show, "quilters" collect fabric cards, which can be exchanged for block tiles. The quilters race the clock as they amass block tiles that they can combine into one or more quilts at a time. They can mix block tiles of a single color or a single pattern to make a quilt. Three times during the game, when the clock reveals it is time for a quilt show, quilts are entered and prize money is awarded. At game's end, the quilter with the most prize money wins!

Overview

For The Win is an abstract strategy game in which each player gets ten tiles, two of each character representing Monkeys, Zombies, Pirates, Aliens, and Ninjas. The objective is to connect five (or more) of one's tiles, including at least one of each type, together (sides and corners count). Additionally, all five (or more) tiles must be face-up, or unactivated. The game ends immediately when a player achieves this goal. Each character type has a specific ability to help you toward the objective.

Gameplay

Players take turns using either 1 or 2 actions within 5 action rounds. Once one player's actions are consumed for a round, the other player(s) get to use any of their remaining 5 actions at once. Judicious action management is key; if one budgets one's actions wisely, one can play several actions in a row for game-winning combinations. The available actions are as follows:

Add a tile to the Grid
Move one of one's tiles
Refresh or flip a tile face up
Shove a tile or column/row of tiles
Activate an ability (the chosen tile turns face down; see below)

Characters & abilities

Alien — The Alien uses her tractor beam to pull any tile in the Grid to a space that is adjacent to her.
Monkey — The mischievous Monkey uses a banana peel to flip over all of the tiles it is touching.
Ninja — The sneaky Ninja can move from his current spot to any other unoccupied space in the Grid.
Pirate — The Pirate uses his trusty cannon to blast an adjacent tile to any unoccupied space in the Grid.
Zombie — The Zombie can infect any adjacent tile. The infected tile is removed from the Grid and replaced with a Zombie tile that has not yet been added to the Grid. If all of the Zombie tiles have already been added to the Grid, the Zombie may choose one adjacent tile and deactivate it (that is, flip it face down).