Sanctuary replaces the card play of Ark Nova for a tile placement game.

My favourite aspect of Ark Nova is the action selection puzzle, finding the best order of operations to power up the actions you need to take. Sanctuary uses a similar mechanism to dictate which tiles you can select from on your turn and the strength of your action.

To start a turn, you must select a tile from the display. With my white tile range arrow pointing at 4, the first 4 tiles are available. Then you must choose an action to perform. Only the tile for the action performed is moved to the leftmost spot.

There are animal, project, and building tiles. Some tiles score fixed points, others will have variable scoring. The Ornithologist project tile will score 1 point for every bird anywhere in the zoo. Tiles with a hex pattern behind the scoring criteria want the specified icons in a connected network. The Outback Area building tile scores 2 points for every Australia icon connected to the tile, including tiles connected through other tiles with the same icon. Whereas, the Primate House (below) only scores for primate icons on tiles directly connected to it.

Tiles are placed starting from the zoo entrance and then must connect to previous tiles or the entrance. The action tile specifies which habitat type and animal level that can be played. Some tiles have additional requirements to be next to a river or adjacent to open areas (as marked on tile edges). Previously placed and printed open areas on the board can be used, but otherwise an additional tile from your hand needs to be played face-down.

After taking an action, players can optionally play a building tile, complete a conservation objective, and upgrade action tiles.

Buildings are very important in Sanctuary, as regardless of which action players choose, they can always play a building tile on their turn. In addition to their special effects, they give you habitat and animal class icons necessary for conservation objectives and upgrade requirements.

With 3 Asia icons in my zoo, I can support a conservation objective from the 5 randomly selected at the start of the game. My 3x token is placed under the matching objective and scores 7 points.

Now that I have a conservation marker on the board, one upgrade condition is met and I can upgrade a tile of my choice. This improves the action and shifts the strength arrow right to point one higher.

The game continues until any player has filled their zoo, supported 4 conservation objectives, or the tile supply is empty. All players then take one more turn before final scoring.

While I only played half a game at Gen Con, I was very impressed with Sanctuary. It kept aspects of Ark Nova that I love and presented an interesting tile placement puzzle. The actions in the game are simplified enough that the game can move quickly, and be played with friends who don’t enjoy heavy games, but still offers some good strategic depth. I can’t wait to play this one again.

2-4 Players

15 Minutes

Ages 14+

Designed by Takashi Saito

Art by Rei Betsuyaku

Published by Bright Eye Games

My Thoughts

• Tokkuri Taking exemplifies Japanese game design to me. They are unafraid to experiment to create a unique card game that is excellent the majority of the time and only falls flat on some edge cases. For this game, the weakness can be the scoring.
• Scoring can create vastly different experiences with each play. Some games end in one round when a player does well and someone has to give them all their chips. Or chips can get exchanged back and forth with no players going bankrupt, dragging the game on well past the 15 minute box time.
• Ending after the number of rounds equal to the player count or early if a player bankrupts is best to prevent the game from overstaying it’s welcome.

• While the theme is largely irrelevant to the game, it is so ridiculous that is makes the game more appealing.
• There is a tension similar to card games like L.L.A.M.A., where you are either hoping that someone makes the change you need or doesn’t affect what you need in play. In this case, playing a new tokkuri to let you play your card with more numbers, or not drinking from the bottles that have the perfect level for you to complete them.
• Playing a card at just the right time to drink from 3 or 4 bottles and empty multiple feels extra satisfying.
• The box size was increased from the original Japanese edition, but is still small. This gives space for the point chips that are included in the Bright Eye Games edition.
• Passing the troublemaker card around and baiting your opponents into drinking from your dummy bottle adds a small dash of meanness without verging into take that territory.

2-6 Players

20 Minutes

Ages 10+

Designed by Yusuke Sato

Art by Albert Monteys

Published by Allplay

My Thoughts

• Clue giving can be very challenging when you have two very disconnected words, since there is no choice but to connect the two suspects you are dealt. I thrive on this challenge, but you may not.
• Co-operative nature of the game provides room to make mistakes. Others can remove heat when you guess incorrectly and it is still possible to deduce the perpetrator without matching suspect pairs to alibis exactly.
• Despite being co-op, there is still some competitive spirit to be the player that matches all the alibis correctly.

• Big fan of the comic book villain art and how the word cards form the mugshot board they hold. While Alibis is just a word association game at the core, this brings the theme out more.
• Alibis is best played with 4 to 6 players, but the 2 and 3 player variants are still enjoyable and don’t feel like a lesser alternative version of the game.

• As a Codenames addict, there is room on my shelf for both games (if it helps, Alibis comes in quite a small box).
• I’ll reach for Alibis over Codenames when I have more or less than 4 players. At higher player counts, everyone is actively participating equally, each giving a clue and deciphering clues on their own. At the lower player counts, Codenames requires the Duet version or one player to give clues for both teams at 3.
• Whether you are capturing the criminal every time or just be baffled by bad clues from your friends, this game is pure fun.

1 Player

20 Minutes

Ages 10+

Designed by Bojan Prakljacic

Art by Bojan Prakljacic

Published by Button Shy Games

My Thoughts

• With many paths to defeat, the game has a thematic sense of dread. It feels like you are just barely getting by, and always on the brink of losing.
• Despite being a pretty challenging solo card game, winning feels achievable. Contrast that with a similar game like Regicide, which when playing solo feels nearly impossible to win and it’s more about how far you can progress.
• Quite involved hand management is necessary. Some solitaire games are more like a mindless activity to pass the time. In Ragemore, you really need to pay attention to which cards or abilities you are putting back into the deck, and which quest you choose to add encounters to. Being deliberate with your choices is key to victory.

• Whether defeat comes when only one card is needed to win or a blunder causes a quick loss, it’s very easy and tempting to shuffle up and play again and again.
• As with all Button Shy games, the packaging is a super portable wallet. Ragemore specifically has a small footprint on the table, with just a few piles of cards, so it can be played on any small surface you can find.
• The rough and dark art style is very fitting of the game, but might not be everyone’s cup of tea.

2-4 Players

30-45 Minutes

Ages 10+

Designed by Phil Walker-Harding

Art by Matt Owen (a.k.a. mrmattzan)

Published by Alderac Entertainment Group

Kickstarter Campaign Page

My Thoughts

• Fun discovering all the odd characters created by randomly combining cards and enjoying the wonderful fantasy artwork they feature.
• Lots of combo potential from diverse abilities and how they combine with the different type of recruitment boxes on the attribute cards.
• Placement of cards in your tableau is important for scoring and reusing actions. Finding cards that combo well is the first step, then there is the puzzle of the order to play them to best arrange them in your tableau.

• Good level up from lighter card games like Sushi Go or Castle Combo.
• There is near infinite replayability from recombining the deck to have different characters every play.
• Wish there was more creation of heroes within the gameplay mechanics. Once the deck is set, the cards are no different from a standard printed card. Only option for creating heroes is during setup, each player gets 4 cards to swap attributes between.

2 Players

15 Minutes

Ages 10+

Designed by Chris Handy

Art by Magdalena Markowska

Published by Perplext

My Thoughts

• Well designed multi-use cards create interesting gameplay choices. Can score the formation on them, but might need that frog to capture an opposing frog, not to mention they are also used for score tracking.
• BOG’s strategy and planning is easily digestible. Many Chess-like games have endless potential for moves, where BOG has the next available move for each frog in play clearly visible.

• Each frog card features unique artwork, which aligns nicely with the lily pads.
• Super portable card game, both due to the packaging and game footprint.
• Novelty size makes BOG an excellent gift or stocking stuffing. Novelty game packaging is one thing, but actually delivering a really fun game in that packaging makes BOG stand out.

The game plays over two phases, the first is constructing your dungeon. Secretly behind your player screen, you will create a dungeon by placing walls, a start space, and an exit staircase. Walls can never entirely enclose an area, all spaces should be accessible.

Treasures, traps, and monsters will be placed as well throughout the dungeon. The only placement restriction is that there must be at least one path to each treasure that goes through a maximum of one trap and one monster.

The start player will be told which space they are in and any walls they see around them. Using action cubes, they can then move into adjacent spaces. The opposing player will describe the walls in that space and then any features such as traps, treasure, exit, etc.

Each player has two special action cubes. The green can be used to look into an adjacent space, which makes features known and gives you the advantage if you decide to move in there. The yellow cube can be used to hustle or backtrack. Hustle lets you run through up to 3 spaces, but you stop at the first non-empty space. Backtrack lets you move through as many known spaces as possible.

As you direct your opponent to move your adventurer through the dungeon, you will track your location on a dungeon sheet. On this sheet you can mark the walls and any features discovered.

Moving onto a trap will make you suffer a negative effect, such as fatiguing 2 cubes, which gives you less actions on your current and next turn. If the trap is known, you have the chance to disarm it first by rolling dice to exceed the trap strength. Lairs has custom dice with values ranging 1 to 4.

Similarly, moving into a space with a monster will result in a negative effect if you didn’t know it was in that space. If the monster is in a known space, you have a chance to attack first by rolling dice to deal damage. Defeated monsters are taken as trophies and some may have additional rewards.

Discovering treasure chests will earn you treasure cards, one from the face-up card row, and one random from the deck. Each treasure gives you some small amount of points, and may give even more points if a complete set is collected.

To win Lairs, you must find the dungeon exit after having collected 3 treasure chests, defeated 3 monsters, or collected 2 treasure chests and defeated 2 monsters.

Included in the game are several boxes and envelopes that add new monsters, action cubes, cards, and other components to evolve the complexity of the game.

2-4 Players

15 Minutes

Ages 6+

Designed by Zach Connelly

Art by Michael Parla

Published by Pandasaurus Games

My Thoughts

• Easy rules can be explained in a minute and jump straight into the game.
• Super fun and enjoyable experience to play whether you are good or bad at flicking dice.

• Game elements feel somewhat reminiscent of pinball, such as multipliers or hitting specific targets. Earning a bonus turn feels similar to unlocking multi-ball. Otherwise, the theme largely comes through in the art.
• Retrieving monsters that fall through the holes in the middle of a round is a bit annoying and disruptive to the quick flow of the game.

• Walls provide opportunity for bank shots that are not possible in similar dice flicking games.
• Pulling off a cool shot to collect multiple clue tokens or knock opponent dice off is exciting.

1-4 Players

30-60 Minutes

Ages 8+

Designed by Pauline Kong and Marie Wong

Art by Serene Illustrations

Published by Hot Banana Games

Kickstarter Campaign Page

My Thoughts

• Bunny movement rules create double the puzzle; how to get the tiles you need, and how to arrange them in the workshop.
• Interesting choice of when and how often to switch between hopping and dashing bunnies. Can attempt to just use hopping bunny that moves 3 spaces (to keep mooncakes for points), but craters limit spaces as the game progresses.
• Cute theme and colorful components attract players to the table. Photos below are prototypes of the standard edition. The deluxe edition features acrylic tiles and bunnies, and squishy mooncake tokens.

• Variety of scoring goals with a recipe on all 108 tiles, and at most 4 public recipes and 18 recipes coming out in a 4 player game.
• Surrounding recipes with herbs for a bonus turn, can let you set up for a big turn collecting multiple tiles and completing several goals in one go.
• Simple rules and friendly scoring makes for a great family game.

One of the main mechanics in the game is dice placement. Each player operates a single ship exploring space near the gateway. Player boards show the stations within the ship, where dice are placed for actions when manned by crew.

Navigation and Helm deal with ship movements. Sensors let you investigate adjacent space tiles instead of exploring into them blindly. Command lets you attack enemies, Engineering repairs damage, and Crew Quarters draw more crew cards.

Crew are placed into these stations to allow them to be used, but crew can also be exhausted for their abilities or to complete missions.

Each turn concludes with the option to hire a new freelancer or promote crew you have already.

Also shown above are the mission cards. Explore space to find planets where these missions can be completed by spending matching symbols and crew strength. At this planet below, the blue player can Investigate Local Myths if they spend crew cards with the two symbols indicated on the top left that have a total value of 5 or more.

Each sector of space has a token for the first player to explore there, which may reward you with experience or have you run into an enemy ship. Sometimes anomalies will be encountered while exploring.

These will cause you to draw an anomaly card that come with negative effects, but are worth 3 points at the end of the game. They can always be discarded, forgoing the points for the positive effect listed on the bottom.

Objectives are another way to score points in StarDriven: Gateway by meeting the specified conditions.

Space exploration is dangerous and each round the Warbound will activate by drawing as many cards as there are players.

If the revealed number on the Warbound deck matches the tile of a Warbound ship, it will move as directed on the ship’s reference card. In this case, the small white Interceptor will move to the closest player ship and attack. If no Warbound ships move, instead resolve the effects of the Warbound card (Ram & Board above).

Attacks resolve through both the attacker and defender rolling dice. Matching values are blocked.

Unmatched dice hit on the station matching their value. If the roll above had the attacker on the left, only 1 was blocked and hits will be taken in stations 2 and 4. A damage token is placed over the top die slot, limiting your ability to take actions there. If a station is fully damaged, the hull damage tracker will be reduced which is non-repairable and loses points during end game.

Any dice previously place in a damaged slot are removed and not recovered until a rest turn is performed.

StarDriven: Gateway is played over multiple replayable episodes with varying scoring and unique rules. Opponent levels and available mission cards also change depending on the scenario. Competitive and cooperative episodes will be available.

While I’ve only been given a small taste of the game, StarDriven: Gateway felt like a big, epic space game (think Stars of Akarios) but simplified and focused. No massive fleet of ships exploring in different directions, just your one ship. Follow along with the Gamefound campaign for more details.