Turn Order: Time Track

In Sanibel, players walk up and down the beaches of this Florida island city, collecting a wide variety of seashells and carefully adding them to their bags — with your "bag" being a personal player board. As you collect shells, you "drop" them in the bag, letting them fall to the bottom Tetris-style. Focus on the types of shells and where they land, since they score in a variety of ways. Be sure to collect shark's teeth, too, as they're small and can fit in tiny spaces.

Movement on the beach is represented by player tokens that start in a line, with a multitude of tiles splayed into zones on the beach. Whoever is at the back of the line takes the next turn, advancing as far as they wish, then collecting tiles. At the halfway point, players loop around and head back to where they started. At the end of the game, players earn points based on which seashells they picked up and how carefully they arranged them in their bag.

In Patchwork, two players compete to build the most aesthetic (and high-scoring) patchwork quilt on a personal 9x9 game board. To start play, lay out all of the patches at random in a circle and place a marker directly clockwise of the 2-1 patch. Each player takes five buttons — the currency/points in the game — and someone is chosen as the start player.

On a turn, a player either purchases one of the three patches standing clockwise of the spool or passes. To purchase a patch, you pay the cost in buttons shown on the patch, move the spool to that patch's location in the circle, add the patch to your game board, then advance your time token on the time track a number of spaces equal to the time shown on the patch. You're free to place the patch anywhere on your board that doesn't overlap other patches, but you probably want to fit things together as tightly as possible. If your time token is behind or on top of the other player's time token, then you take another turn; otherwise the opponent now goes. Instead of purchasing a patch, you can choose to pass; to do this, you move your time token to the space immediately in front of the opponent's time token, then take one button from the bank for each space you moved.

In addition to a button cost and time cost, each patch also features 0-3 buttons, and when you move your time token past a button on the time track, you earn "button income": sum the number of buttons depicted on your personal game board, then take this many buttons from the bank.

What's more, the time track depicts five 1x1 patches on it, and during set-up you place five actual 1x1 patches on these spaces. Whoever first passes a patch on the time track claims this patch and immediately places it on his game board.

Additionally, the first player to completely fill in a 7x7 square on his game board earns a bonus tile worth 7 extra points at the end of the game. (Of course, this doesn't happen in every game.)

When a player takes an action that moves his time token to the central square of the time track, he takes one final button income from the bank. Once both players are in the center, the game ends and scoring takes place. Each player scores one point per button in his possession, then loses two points for each empty square on his game board. Scores can be negative. The player with the most points wins.

First in Flight is a push-your-luck, deck-building game about the race to early flight. Players take on the roles of the Wright Brothers, Samuel Langley, and other flight pioneers, racing to build and pilot the “flyers” that preceded modern airplanes.

Each player’s flyer design is represented by a deck of cards that they can steadily improve and refine, and which may include unknown design flaws that threaten their success.

Flying is a blackjack-style challenge to test a design, break new records, and gain experience -- hopefully without crashing. Then, players head back to the workshop to refine their flyers and improve their chances on future flights. There are dozens of available technologies, pilot skills, and friends in the field available for players to customize their own play style and strategy.

As a Jarl, you travel the northern seas to achieve immortal glory. Under the sails of your own ship, which is built like a karve (Karvi), you‘ll lead a crew, trade with foreign cultures and plunder other lands.

Strengthen the skills of your crew by upgrading your ship and hiring stronger warriors. Whether you wish to establish new trade routes to secure rare goods or battle distant settlements to plunder their riches, your path to glory is yours to choose. But make sure to remember to stock up on beer and bread, so you have enough supplies to outmaneuver the competing clans.

Successful planning will make you renowned throughout the lands, and secure your place in Norse legend as a fearless Jarl.

—description from the publisher

Als Jarl bereist du die nördlichen Meere, um unsterblichen Ruhm zu erlangen. Unter dem Segel deines eigenen Schiffs in der Bauart einer Karve (Karvi) führst du eine Crew an, handelst mit fremden Kulturen und plünderst Ländereien.

Verstärke die Fähigkeiten deiner Besatzung, indem du dein Schiff ausbaust und immer stärkere Kriegerinnen anheuerst. Ob du neue Handelsrouten etablierst, um dir seltene Handelsgüter zu sichern oder ob du gegen ferne Siedlungen in den Kampf ziehst und ihre Reichtümer plünderst, entscheidest du. Doch denke auch daran, dich mit genügend Vorräten an Bier und Brot
einzudecken, um die konkurrierenden Clans auszustechen.

Nur wenn du erfolgreich taktierst, wird man deinen Namen schließlich an genügend Orten kennen, um als Jarl in die nordischen Legenden einzugehen.

—description from the publisher (German)

In Namiji, you are fishers from the Japan of yesteryear, navigating south of the Japanese archipelago, a few kilometers from the famous Tokaido road. You will need to have a fruitful day at sea to win the game.

To do this, you will have the opportunity to contemplate magnificent marine species, to fish with a line or a net to fill your racks with colorful fish, and haul in your crustacean traps.

You can benefit from stops to improve your fishing equipment, and you will also have to contend with the gods of the sea by setting offerings afloat, or by fulfilling their wishes that they express during your contemplation with the Sacred Rocks, for which they will reward you.

Namiji features gameplay similar to Tokaido. The action spaces are laid out on the game board in a linear track, with players advancing down this track to take actions. The player who is currently last on the track takes a turn by advancing forward on the track to their desired action and taking that action, so players must choose whether to advance slowly in order to get more turns, or to travel more rapidly to beat other players to their desired action spaces. What players are doing on the track differs from what they do in Tokaido.