Category: Combinatorial

Santorini: Pantheon Edition

NOTE: Pantheon Edition includes all material from the Golden Fleece expansion, as well as every promo card and many new cards. A lot of cards are revamped, reworked and rebalanced.

Santorini is an accessible strategy game, simple enough for an elementary school classroom while aiming to provide gameplay depth and content for hardcore gamers to explore, The rules are simple. Each turn consists of 2 steps:

1. Move - Move one of your builders onto an unoccupied neighboring space that is a similar level, up one level, or down any number of levels.

2. Build - Construct a building level adjacent to the builder you moved. When building on top of the third level, place a dome instead, removing that space from play.

Winning the game - If one of your builders moves from a lower level to the third level, you win. Or, if your opponent cannot move, you win.

Variable player powers - Santorini features variable player powers layered over an otherwise abstract game, with many thematic god and hero powers that fundamentally change the way the game is played.

boop the Halls!

A deceptively cute, deceivingly challenging abstract strategy game for two players.

The Mensa award winning, Game of the Year, boop, is back with a new Holiday edition and has really leveled up game play (literally!!).

The hoomans are hanging ornaments on the highest boughs of the tree, but those clever cats are leaping up and boopin’ them right off. You can win “Naughty” by knocking off 3 of your opponent’s ornaments or “Nice” by lining up three cats in a row!

The 4-tiered game board ‘tree’ presents a surprisingly mind-bending 3D challenge for players. And the alternate win condition of knocking off 3 of your opponent's ornaments creates new strategic problems to solve, elevating the play experience to a new high!

—description from the publisher

Wild Duo

Wild Duo is a game collection that includes 5 games for 2 players. You can play these games with two players or in larger groups (4/6/8/10), in which case the games are rotated between the groups of two. There is definitely enough variety, as each of the games is a unique gaming experience.

The games are perfectly playable for both children and adult players, as the gaming experience depends entirely on your, respectively, your fellow player's skills. That's why some games can be decided after only 5 minutes, while others last 30 minutes.

Each of the games deals with a different animal species or a specific behavior of this animal species and thus takes the players on a journey into one of 5 worlds. Each of the five rule explanations therefore always includes an exciting, thematic text on the corresponding animal species.

—description from the publisher

Pueblo

Pueblo - the ultimate building challenge! Work with the other players to create a mighty home for the Chieftain, stone by stone. You are a craftsman, but you cannot let the Chieftain see your trademark stones, or you will be penalized. The longer you play, the more difficult this task becomes! Take on your opponents and become the Chieftain's Master Builder.

The theme setting is the Native American Pueblos of the Southwest tribes of the Zuni and Hopi. The board is a fairly small square. Each player gets a number of building blocks in their own color, and also some neutral colored blocks (1 fewer than the colored). Starting with the odd colored block, the player places it on the board, and then gets to move the "Chieftain" around the outer track surrounding the board. If the Chieftain can look straight across and see any colored blocks, those players gain points -- but points are bad. And when the Chieftain lands on the corners of the track, he looks down on the Pueblo from above, and all visible player's blocks gain them more points. Now, on each subsequent pair of turns, you have a choice of a colored block and a neutral block. Once all players' blocks are played, the Chieftain makes one last trip around the board, players gaining points all along the way. The player who has gained the fewest number of points is the Master Builder and the winner of the game.

There are also some extra components for making the game more challenging by adding an element of bidding for turn order, and from 1 to 4 sacred sites that cannot be built upon.

Original description from box.

BOOoop.

A deceptively cute, deceivingly challenging & SPOOPY abstract strategy game for two players.

Every time you place a kitten on the bed, it goes “boop.” Which is to say that it pushes every other kitten next to it one space away. Line up 3 kittens in a row to graduate them into cats… and then, get 3 cats in a row to win.

But that isn’t easy with both you AND your opponent constantly “booping” kittens around. It’s like… herding cats!
And now, things just got boopier and spoopier -
with NEW Ghost Cats that float between the spaces. And so scary, cats will leap right over each other to get away!

Approachable but challenging abstract game following the incredible success of the original "boop" as a limited seasonal game.
Features a new quilted, fabric board that lays over the back of the box, completing the minature bed playing surface. 34 adorable wood cat and kitten playing pieces!
NEW Ghost Cats can boop cats over other pieces as they move across the board between spaces.

—description from the publisher