In Slide, you need to arrange the numbered cards, aiming to score as few points as possible. But watch out, you will need to keep an eye on your opponents and be one step ahead to win the game!

Slide is played over 16 rounds. The game ends when all cards have been revealed and played.
Each round, players choose any face-down card from their grid and turns it face-up, in the middle of the table, at the same time.

Starting with the first player and continuing clockwise, each player chooses one of the cards from the middle of the table and places it in their grid.
To place a card in your grid, push (slide) the card into a row or column to fill an empty space and rebuild the 4 by 4 grid. You cannot slide cards diagonally.
You cannot place a card directly into an empty slot.

The First Player counter passes to the player on the left and a new round begins.
When every card has been turned over, count up the scores.

End of the game: All orthogonally adjacent cards with the same number cancel each other out and are removed from the game.
Each player counts up the values of the remaining cards in their grid. The player
with the lowest score wins the game.

Ready to slide? Click the link below to discover the game or play it from any device:

https://boardgamearena.com/gamepanel?game=slide

Note that this game includes a special mode : play until someone at the table reach 100 points. Quite challenging!

The game has been beautifully developed by dahrf and BoucleMed, so there is no doubt you can enjoy it anywhere, anytime, and we want to thank them for this!

Also, let's thank the amazing Gigamic Team as well as the game designer, Claude Clément, for this nice addition to our platform.

That's it for Monday, let's slide into the week with joy, and as always:

Take care and play fair!

See you on Wednesday.

More and more often, you are in for a treat...or two on Board Game Arena!

Let me tell you about Flowers: A mandala game.

In this game, your goal is to collect flower tiles by achieving majorities through clever card play. Skillfully build mandalas to claim the best tiles, combining and multiplying them to create exquisite flowers of your own!

Each player starts with a hand of cards, with the cards coming in six colors that match the flower tile colors.

On a turn, a player lays down one or more cards of the same color onto one of the flowers. If that color is already present in the mandala, the player then flips the card(s) face down; if not, the player leaves them face up. If the player laid down one card, they draw two cards from the deck; if they played two or more, they do not draw any cards.

After playing, if you have at least one face-up card on a flower and more cards than any other player, take that flower's "claim" token and place it on your cards. Then, if that flower now has all six colors face up around it, destroy the mandala.

Whoever has the claim token on their cards places one of the flower tiles from this mandala in front of themselves; if they already have a flower tile of the same color, they flip this "complete" flower face down. Whoever has the second most cards on this mandala takes the second flower tile. Anyone who took a flower tile discards all of their played cards on this mandala; everyone else returns their played cards to their hand. Draw a black tile and white tile from the stack to create a new mandala.

Continue play until someone completes their third flower, then everyone scores their points. Each separate flower half is worth as many points as the number of flowers on it. For each complete flower, if one of the tiles is 3x, triple the number of flowers on the other tile; if both tiles have flowers, double the number of flowers on the tile with fewer flowers. Whoever has the most points wins.

Simple, elegant. And you can play it now with 2 to 4 players, right from your browser, by clicking below:

https://boardgamearena.com/gamepanel?game=flowersmandalagame

Let us send some love to the Lookout Games team for this nice addition to the platform. All of our thanks also goes to the game designers Trevor Benjamin and Brett J. Gilbert, and of course, to the developer, Firgon, who did an amazing job porting it to BGA.

And that's not all...

Let us welcome the all-new expansion added to Catan: Cities and Knights!

Expand Catan with a more complex commodity market and knights to defend your cities.

The game changes the base game in three main ways:

First, there are 3 new commodities in the game, distinct from resources- paper, cloth, and coins, which can be acquired from Forest, Meadow, and Mountain spaces, respectively. Cities that would normally produce two of one of those resources instead produce 1 resource and 1 of the corresponding commodity. (To make commodities easier to obtain, each player starts the game with 1 city and 1 settlement on the board.) These commodities allow players to build city improvements that confer various advantages and eventually points.

Second, the deck of development cards is replaced by three different decks, each corresponding to one of the commodities. Building city improvements gives players a chance to draw these cards with every roll of the dice. Building more improvements will increase these chances, but cards cannot be bought directly in any way. These cards are similar to the development cards in the base game, but with a wider range of effects. (Some cards are balanced better as well- the new Resource Monopoly card, for example, can take no more than 2 of the named resource from any one player.)

Finally, players can also build knights on the island along their network of roads. These knights can be used to claim certain intersections and move the Robber (taking the place of Soldier cards), but are also used to defend the island from periodic barbarian attacks. If the island is successfully defended, the player(s) with the most knights are rewarded. If not, the player(s) with the fewest knights each have a city downgraded to a settlement.

You can play it by activating the expansion from your game settings before playing, right from the game page.

Let us thank the Catan team, and the work done by dahrf to bring it to Board Game Arena!

That's it for today. ;)

Let's dive into these releases and until next week...
Take care and play fair!

Trailblazers are the gutsy folks who pave and brave the trails of the great outdoors.

Whether with hiking boots, cycling wheels, or river paddle, these tenacious travelors seek to feed their insatiable appetite for adventure.  With a scenic wilderness ever ahead and a freshly charted path under the heels, one must not forget to eventually find their way back to camp.  There are always new environments to explore, further expeditions to undertake, and more trails to blaze.

In Trailblazers, players compete to earn the most points by building biking, hiking, and kayaking loops from their campsites of the matching trail type. Each round, players are dealt eight trail cards where they will draft two cards, arrange those cards in their personal area, and pass their hand to the next player three times. Cards must either be placed adjacent to or overlapping other cards. While players can push their luck by aiming to construct long and elaborate trails, only closed loops that start and end at a matching campsite will score points. Players also compete to fulfil “First To” and “End Game” goal cards. After four rounds, the game ends and the player with the most points from closed loops and goal cards wins.

36 missions for solo players, plenty of options for up to 8 players: a wonderful way to play the game the way you want, but relaxed. And you can enjoy learning it by playing with the included tutorial, or like usual, check for more game information and start a table from the link below:

https://boardgamearena.com/gamepanel?game=trailblazers

We would love to thank Ryan Courtney, the game designer, as well as the Bitewing Games team, and the fantastic work done by Banban for adapting this game to our platform.

That's it for this Monday.
Enjoy the games, and relax.
And as always, take care and play fair!

A simple, rewarding and super-fun game!

Play all at once (alone or up to 12 players):

1- Check off the numbers drawn one by one to fill your grids!

2- Complete rows and columns to trigger cascading bonuses: lightning bolts change the numbers drawn, stars earn points... and do not forget the moons, or you will be sorry at the end of the game!

3- Combine the points from all 4 rounds and become a SUPER MEGA STAR!

An addictive game of fast-paced sequences! A little luck, a few tactics and a whole lot of fun, a perfect title to fill that empty space with a number 1 game.

It is so simple you probably do not even need to check the included and very well-made tutorial available. But you can also click that link to the game page and find out what the fuss is about:

https://boardgamearena.com/gamepanel?game=supermegaluckybox

Let us thank the amazing work done by PaulCBirch to adapt this game to the platform. Especially because you can switch between two different card designs to suit your preference.

Let us also thank the game designer, Phil Walker-Harding for the authorization to bring this fun and short game on Board Game Arena, as well as the Gamewright team.

There are already more than 500 tables playing it. Will you be at the next one?

And that's it for today.
Try your luck on this amazing box!

Have a very good week and see you next Wednesday for another WRT!

(Until then, of course, take care and... play fair!)

Two games, for 2 players, on a single day!

BOREAL:

"We are currently experiencing the biggest solar storm of the last 20 years," explains the European Space Agency in a message to the media. And it is time to witness the beauty of nature, through a game named Boreal, like the aurora.

Immerse yourself in a world where Nature has claimed what is rightfully hers, accompanying two young explorers on their adventure. Through the methodical construction of a pyramid of cards, each representing a place to be discovered, you will chart your course and carve out your destiny in this thrilling experience.

Boreal is more than just an ordinary card game: it offers a unique strategic experience, specially designed for two players. Excel at managing your resources and choose your card locations wisely in your pyramid to maximize your victory point harvest.

There is, of course, a tutorial to learn the game, and you can click the link below to discover even more information and play it!

https://boardgamearena.com/gamepanel?game=boreal

We would love to thank Spiral Editions for the rights to bring this game to the platform, as well as the game designer Masafumi Mizuno.

Nothing would have been possible without the work done by firgon, and he deserves some love for this!

SOLSTIS:

"The solstice is an astronomical event that occurs twice a year, when the apparent position of the sun reaches its greatest northward or southward inclination with respect to the celestial equator. This results in the longest or shortest day of the year." And it's gonna happen in a bit more than a month, on the 20th of June. And we wanted you to be prepared...

Prove your worth and and collect the most stars by traveling the mountain and assembling as many landscape tiles as possible, meeting the forest spirits and lighting fires on the peaks creating a path through the valley.

The tile capture mechanisms are taken from the hanafuda mechanisms. Collect a tile according to the column or row then place them in your landscape. The goal of the game will be to reconstruct a landscape by combining its tiles to score as many points as possible. You will have to be careful not to leave tiles to your opponent while optimizing your landscape according to your opponent's choices.

Also, create tile squares to collect spirits that will help you during or at the end of the game.
The experience is zen and very quick to set up, fun for adults and children!

Solstis also offers a tutorial you can play to learn, or simply dive to the game page to start a game by clicking the link below:

https://boardgamearena.com/gamepanel?game=solstis

We would thank, as usual, the people behind the game that made it possible for you to play it online: Lumberjacks Studio, the publisher, as well as Bruno Cathala & Corentin Lebrat, the game designers.
The game has been beautifully ported to Board Game Arena by Moof and he also deserves, like all developers, some love for the work done here.

And that's it for today!

Two games on a Monday, that's the start to a great week.

Enjoy these very original and different titles, let us know which one got your favor,

and as always...
Take care and play fair!

As a Renaissance banker, you will finance kings or republics, sponsor voyages of discovery, join secret cabals, or unleash jihads and inquisitions. Your choices determine whether Europe is elevated into the bright modern era or remains festering in dark feudalism.

Pax Renaissance is a card drafting and tableau building game, in which you take cards in order to form rows in the East and West (or simply use them directly as a one-time effect), which you can later activate for several effects. You do these things in order to spread your influence over Europe and nearby regions, take concessions around trade routes (to likely gain money) or influence places, move armies to make war campaigns, fund rebellions, gain political and religious renown, all in order to achieve one or more of the 4 winning conditions Pax Renaissance has.

As in other Pax games, you can acquire cards in a market, sell them out of the game, or play them into your tableau. You can also stimulate the economy by running trade fairs and trading voyages for Oriental goods.

It is a fantastic and complex game, yet not so deeply hard to grasp and play. It has a tremendous richness of choices, options, and historical bits, which, all together, provide a tasty and fulfilling experience.

Curious about it? Check the link below and dive quickly into the rules:

https://boardgamearena.com/gamepanel?game=paxrenaissance

We are more than happy to welcome one more title from this series by Ion Game Design, whom we would love to thank for their efforts in bringing the game to the platform.

Also, let's send kudos to Thalack for developing the game to Board Game Arena, as well as for the authorization from the game designers, Phil & Matt Eklund.

It's not that often we welcome such a rich and compact game, and it deserves to be played. Don't be shy!

And that's it for this Wednesday.
What's coming up next?
More games of course.

But until then...
Take care, and... play fair!

...and you are gonna move a lot of tiles and animal-shaped meeples.

Puzzling and animal breeding: Designer Uwe Rosenberg is at his best!

New York Zoo is what is called a polyomino puzzle game. The idea is that you want to be the first player to have their zoo board filled with multiform Tetris-like puzzle pieces, each representing a cage or enclosure.

Build animal enclosures, introduce new animals, and raise their offspring. The game play is straight forward as you have only two turn options: puzzle a new enclosure tile into your zoo area or gain new animals to populate your animal enclosures. But be sure to time your actions well since you want your zoo to participate in as many animal breedings as possible.

You start with a zoo board and two animals, which are placed in the "indoor enclosures" on the left side of the board.

After that, players take turns moving the elephant on the center board with one to four (or three based on your player count) squares to grab a tile with an outdoor enclosure or two animals for your zoo.
If you choose to grab an outdoor enclosure, you will need to place it in your zoo and add an animal that comes from your indoor cage or from one of the other enclosure tiles in your zoo. If you take animals, you can place them in one of your pens or on one of the cages on your board. It is important to note that each outdoor enclosure tile can only contain one type of animal.

As the elephant walks around the center board, it also passes the so-called breeding areas. When this happens, animals can multiply, but only when there are two of the same on a field tile, a third is added.
Once one of your areas is full of animals, move it from your board back to the supply, keep one in an indoor enclosure if you wish, and get an attraction tile to fill up your zoo faster. The game ends when the first player completely fills their zoo with accommodation and attraction tiles. He or she is the winner.
It is as simple as that. And it is brilliant.

You can learn it right now from the included tutorial, thanks again to Nekonyancer for this. Or simply click the link below to start a game:

https://boardgamearena.com/gamepanel?game=newyorkzoo

We would love to thank Feuerland Spiele for their authorization to bring the game on BGA, as well as the game designer and the whole team behind this title. Of course, nothing could be played online without the dedication of a developer, and this brilliant adaptation has been done by Mizutismask. Thanks and love to her for this!

That's it for this Monday!

Enjoy a few games, and as always,

Take care and play fair!

We like to.... MOVE IT!

Discard the best cards from your hand in order to score the least points.

To win, you will need to have the least points at the end of the game. You can do this by discarding the highest cards OR keeping only those of the same suit.

Mojo is an abstract family game about hand management and matching. The idea is that players will play their cards trying to have the least value in their hands when the round is over and points equal to the numbers on the cards. However, only one card of each color scores, the highest value. The players who gets down to 3 cards (or 2 cards, in 2p games) continue their gameplay by placing these 3 cards on the table and revealing them one by one when it is their turn.

Once someone is out of cards or when someone reveals their 3rd card, the round is over and players count their points. The person who was out of cards (or who revealed the 3rd card, if no one was out of cards) gets the Mojo card, which carries a danger: if the person who has this card is not the person with the lowest score for the round, they will get +10 points added to their total. The game ends in the round when someone has 50+ points, and the person with the lowest score is the winner!

Do you have the Mojo card? Be good or you may regret it!

Want to try this relaxed and fun game? Check out the tutorial included or click the link below and invite your friends:

https://boardgamearena.com/gamepanel?game=mojo

All of our thanks go to Moof for porting it to our platform, but also to Antoni Guillen (the game designer) & The Flying Games publishing team for their authorization to welcome this game on Board Game Arena!

Short and amusing, that's it for today. A relaxing day for many countries. A perfect time to enjoy a fun game.
Just a way to cool off your brain before our next releases.

What's next? You'll discover it soon.
Until next week, as always,

Take care and play fair!

Become the best metro network planner Paris has ever seen. Use overhead crossings to link the capital’s iconic monuments, all while taking advantage of shortcuts through the central platform!

The city of Paris has commissioned you to redesign its underground network! Optimise connections, serve as many sights as possible, and exploit the tunnels that pass under the Seine. Be careful to respect the specifications set by the city.

1. Reveal the next Station card.
2. Draw a new section
3. Optimise the 4 tube lines

Which of you will be the best project manager?

Third in the NEXT STATION series, it is a very simple yet addictive flip-and-write game you can try from your browser easily:

https://boardgamearena.com/gamepanel?game=nextstationparis

Be quick to try it right now: the game is available for FREE to all for a full month. Do not miss your chance! (or grab a Premium upgrade)

Remember you can also play Next Station: London and Next Station: Tokyo that are already available here. Which do you like best?

It is all thanks to the amazing Matthew Dunstan who designed it, and the Blue Orange team that we are welcoming this game to our platform.
Let's not forget the work done by darhf and BloucleMed for their work developing the game for Board Game Arena and be sure to thank them!

That's it for this Monday.
See you on Wednesday for our Wednesday Release Time (WRT) and until then...
Take care and play fair!

Adapt in an ever-changing ecosystem where food is scarce and predators lurk. (Sounds familiar, right?)

Evolution relies on good management of resources and the multiple characteristics of the species in our possession. A game is divided into several rounds, each of which is divided into 3 stages. First, all players secretly decide on the potential food available in the dedicated space. The strategy starts now, as the food pool is shared by all players... so whoever eats first (in turn order) has a clear advantage. Once this choice has been made, players are invited to select the cards of their choice in order to perfect the species they own, design new ones, increase populations, or even increase the size (and therefore the defence) of a species. A large number of cards are available, each with its own criteria.

Once this stage is complete, each player's population, defences, and characteristics are laid out in front of him. The available food is revealed, and each player has access to it in turn order, with a few subtleties if the cards played beforehand suggest so.

The round ends as soon as all the animals have been fed, or there is simply no food left... all animals without food perish. Food points acquired are accumulated and added up for each player. They are then taken into account at the end of the game.

Once all the rounds have been completed, the points are tallied. They take into account the food ingested, whatever the diet, the characteristics of the species and the number of species still alive.

At the beginning, the difficulties are even less, as the herbivores feed in a totally passive way, and the impact on the rest of the players is minimal. A little gumption is enough to win the game by multiplying your populations while keeping an eye on available food.

The game becomes progressively more difficult with the addition of carnivores... which, in turn, inevitably have an impact on the other players. Carnivores, the offspring of transformed herbivores, require meat, and will therefore aggressively attack neighboring populations. A definite asset, but one to be handled with great care. Indeed, prey must be smaller and unguarded, and the latter have many strategies at their disposal to avoid attack- but in the case of a successful aggression, the attacked player quickly finds himself deprived of a large part of his population!

Evolution packs a surprising amount of variety for a game with simple rules. The variety comes from the synergies between the trait cards and from the different personalities at the table. Some players thrive on creating Carnivores to wreak havoc on their fellow players. Others prefer to stay protected and mind their own business. Evolution encourages both play styles by giving each of them multiple paths to victory. And it is the mix of play styles at the table that ultimately determines the ecosystem in which the players are adapting. So gather your friends and see who can best adapt to the changing world around them.

This game won many awards, such as the Golden Geek, and that is a solid reason for you to try it right now if you have not played yet. Like usual, click the link below:

https://boardgamearena.com/gamepanel?game=evolution

Of course, no games without developers, and this one has been beautifully adapted to our platform by stst. A lot of thanks to him, and of course, the whole team of North Star Games and the game designers Dominic Crapuchettes, Dmitry Knorre & Sergey Machin for their authorization to bring this brilliant title on Board Game Arena!

No doubt you can handle this wonderful game with a few friends or random opponents here and there. But will you climb the Arena ladder to the top?
Let's discover it!

And that's it for today.
See you around in a few days.
Until next week, take care, and...
Play fair!