Worker Placement

First Martians: Adventures on the Red Planet

Built on the core of the award-winning Robinson Crusoe: Adventures on the Cursed Island, First Martians: Adventures on the Red Planet pits players against the hostile Martian environment and a whole host of new adventures and challenges. The immersion experience is further enhanced with an integrated app that maintains the balance and challenge throughout. Players have the option of taking on the design as a series of separate games, in a custom campaign mode in which each successive game builds on the last.

Ex Libris

In Ex Libris, you are a collector of rare and valuable books in a thriving gnomish village. Recently, the Mayor and Village Council have announced an opening for a Grand Librarian: a prestigious (and lucrative) position they intend to award to the most qualified villager! Unfortunately, several of your book collector colleagues (more like acquaintances, really) are also candidates.

To outshine your competition, you need to expand your personal library by sending your trusty assistants out into the village to find the most impressive tomes. Sources for the finest books are scarce, so you need to beat your opponents to them when they pop up.

You have only a week before the Mayor's Official Inspector comes to judge your library, so be sure your assistants have all your books shelved! The Inspector is a tough cookie and will use her Official Checklist to grade your library on several criteria including shelf stability, alphabetical order, and variety — and don't think she'll turn a blind eye to books the Council has banned! You need shrewd planning and cunning tactics (and perhaps a little magic) to surpass your opponents and become Grand Librarian!

Sentient

Description from the publisher:

The next great technological revolution is here. Sentient robots for information, transportation, industry — all at our fingertips. Building them is now the easy part. Programming them has proven to be more complicated. A handful of companies have emerged claiming to pull it off, but only one will win out. Your mission is clear: Procure valuable bots and plug them into your network. They'll have an effect on your systems. Anticipate it correctly, program your bots effectively, and attract the right investors to win and lead the sentient revolution.

In Sentient, players are tasked with choosing from available robots to program in their factory. Each robot that is added modifies your board and attracts the interest of investors for your company. Program your bots efficiently and collect the support of your patrons to build the most formidable operation.

Description from GTS article:

Sentient is a dice-manipulation game by J. Alex Kevern (World’s Fair 1893, Gold West). As with his other games, Sentient is filled with smart, simple, and rewarding choices. Each turn involves choosing an available bot, adding it to your factory, and deciding how to divide your resources between optimizing your bot and wooing investors. Players who enjoy a satisfying puzzle will appreciate the difficulty in adding the chosen bot to their factory. Each slot has a die on either side that will be modified based on the chosen bot card. But, adding another adjacent bot the next turn will modify the dice once again. The dice at the end of the round will determine how efficiently your bots were programmed and will grant you varying points based on the dice numbers. You may have everything perfectly sorted out — that is, until the last bot you choose changes the adjacent dice. Your plan can crumble and points can easily be lost with an errant decision or wrong choice!

Unearth

Long ago, your ancestors built great cities across the world. Now your tribe must explore forests, deserts, islands, mountains, and caverns to find these lost cities. Claim the ruins, build places of power, and restore the glory of a bygone age.

Unearth is a bend-your-luck game of dice placement and set collection. Designed by Jason Harner and Matthew Ransom, it plays in under an hour with 2-4 players. Each player leads a tribe of Delvers, represented by five dice (3 six-sided, 1 four-sided, and 1 eight-sided). Players take turns rolling and placing dice in an attempt to claim Ruins.

The game's elegant core mechanic is accessible to players of all skill levels. High rolls help players claim Ruins, while low rolls help players collect Stones. This opens two paths to victory: claiming sets of Ruins or using Stones to build Wonders. Delver cards help you affect your dice rolls or dice in play, and Wonders can grant abilities that impact the late game.

Lorenzo il Magnifico

Lorenzo de' Medici, also known as "Lorenzo il Magnifico" (Lorenzo the Magnificent), was one of the most powerful and enthusiastic patrons of the Italian Renaissance.

In Lorenzo il Magnifico, each player takes the role of a head of a noble family in a city during the Italian renaissance. You try to accumulate prestige and fame to gain more victory points (VP) than the others. To do so, you send your family members to different areas of town, where they can obtain many achievements. In one location they get useful resources, in another development cards (which represent newly conquered territories, sponsored buildings, influenced characters, or encouraged ventures), somewhere else they activate the effects of their cards.

Family members are not identical. At the beginning of each round, you roll three dice to determine the family members' value. You must carefully choose where to send your family members with a higher value...

You can gain VP several ways, and you must also pay attention to your relations with the Church. The game is divided into three periods, each formed by two rounds; at the end of each period, players must show their faith, and whoever hasn't prayed enough will suffer hard penalties.

After six rounds, you calculate your final scoring, and the player with the most VP wins.