Abstract Strategy

You are the mayor of a tiny town in the forest in which the smaller creatures of the woods have created a civilization hidden away from predators. This new land is small and the resources are scarce, so you take what you can get and never say no to building materials. Cleverly plan and construct a thriving town, and don't let it fill up with wasted resources! Whoever builds the most prosperous tiny town wins!

In Tiny Towns, your town is represented by a 4x4 grid on which you will place resource cubes in specific layouts to construct buildings. Each building scores victory points (VPs) in a unique way. When no player can place any more resources or construct any buildings, the game ends, and any squares without a building are worth -1 VP. The player with the most VP wins!

-description from publisher

Shadows in Kyoto is a two-player abstract game based with the background of Hanamikoji in which players take control of the Oniwaban, a group of undercover spies, secretly protecting the Shogun, or an intelligence agency of the Meiji Government, funding with the advanced technology of the Western Industrial Revolution.

As the commanders, the players must secretly gather key intelligence from the opponent while protecting their own interests. Through movements, conflicts, and tactics, players have three different paths to victory:
1). Capture 2 enemy agents who possess real intelligence.
2). Let your opponent captures 3 agents of your own who possess fake intelligence.
3). Succeed in the escape of 1 agent of your own who possesses real intelligence.

Torres is an abstract game of resource management and tactical pawn movement. Players are attempting to build up castles and position their knights to score the most points each turn. Players have a limited supply of knights and action cards that allow special actions to be taken. Efficient use of pieces and cards, along with a thoughtful awareness of future possibilities, is the heart of this game.

Torres is considered by many to be an informal member of what is referred to as the Mask Trilogy.

Based on iconic seasonal flowers found in Japan, Kuzushi Seasons pits 2, 3 or 4 players against each other in a unique game of positional influence and control. Simple rules lead to beautiful complexities in this abstract area control tile placement card game. It's smart, fun, approachable and addictive.

Card placement and area control is all resolved orthogonally to other cards. So up, down, left and right only. Players try to control more of the board through influence from the base cards they play on each turn. Then they check up, down, left and right of the base they place to see what player (if any) has a majority of base cards around it. If no one has more bases than anyone else around it, that square is uncontrolled, and any flag there is returned to its owner, which they can again either as a base or a flag as required.

This makes for a dynamic board that gets built out into a square as play continues (6x6 for 2 players, 7x7 for 3 players, or 8x8 for 4 players). Once the boundaries are established, play continues until all the board is filled. The winner is the player who has the most cards of their color on the board. If there's a tie, the player with the largest "island" of their color cards touching is the winner.

—description of the publisher

Tatsu is a two-player game in which players control three different types of dragon pieces. By rolling two six-sided dice to decide movement and either combining or splitting the values, the pieces travel round the inside circle of the board, only swapping to the outer circle when landing on the same space as another piece, which will affect the piece in the following ways:

Vine dragons (green) entangle a player’s dragon.
Water dragons (blue) expel a player’s dragon off the board, back to their holding tray.
Fire dragons (red) destroy a player’s dragon, removing it entirely from play.

Victory is gained when a player manages to destroy all of one type of the opposition's dragons or knocks all the opposition’s dragons off the board so that none remain in play.

The Story
Japanese legend tells of a great battle between two mighty Dragon Lord armies, locked in combat on the peaks of Mount Hotaka, competing to win the hand of Princess Kushinada, the last and most beautiful of eight sisters. A battle so ferocious, that the villagers fearing for their lives, acquire the help of a powerful Wizard, who casts a spell over the Dragon Lords to keep them imprisoned in a circle of combat and to be freed only at the battle’s end. Their struggle continues to this very day, even though the Princess and their fateful story have long passed into legend.