Sandcastles

• Designer: Alex Cutler
• Publisher: Pandasaurus
• Players: 2-6
• Age: 8+
• Time: 20 minutes
• Played with review copy provided by publisher

It’s a perfect day at the beach, and the only thing left to settle is whose sandcastle reigns supreme! Sandcastles is a drafting and tile-laying game for 2-6 players in which everyone building their own sandcastle, tile by tile, over 15 rounds.

Each round, one player reveals tiles one at a time and passes them around the table. Every player must decide in the moment whether to claim the current tile or hold out for something better later in the round — but once you take a tile, you’re done for that round, whatever comes next. The tile you claim gets added to your sandcastle, a 5×5 grid anchored by your Starter Tile at the bottom center. Sand tiles build up from the ground following the rules of gravity, while sky tiles float at the top and drop down to rest on your highest sand tiles at game end.

Scoring rewards players for building strategically:
• Windows score based on how many appear in each horizontal row, with points jumping at specific thresholds.
•Starfish score when placed adjacent to others of the same color, and collecting all five colors earns a bonus.
• Shells, shovels, and buckets each carry flat point values, with end-game bonuses for whoever collects the most of each.
• Filling your top row with five sky tiles earns a bonus as well.

The player whose sandcastle totals the most points wins the title of Best Sandcastle at the Beach!

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Computer Junkyard

• Designer: Allen and Jared Pincus
• Publisher: Dream Egg Games
• Players: 2-4
• Age: 14+
• Time: 60-90 minutes
• Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/3RoSJO4
• Played with review copy provided by publisher

You found a box of old computer games at a yard sale and can’t wait to play them with your friends. To your dismay, modern computers won’t run them. Instead, you each race to build your own vintage computer out of spare parts. Welcome to the Computer Junkyard, the perfect place to find all the components you will need! Scavenge for parts, sabotage your opponents, trade with your friends, and do it all with the cash in your pockets. Be the first to complete a computer good enough to run your game!

In Computer Junkyard, players assemble hardware tiles to construct a vintage computer. The first player to have a complete, bug-free computer, which meets the specifications necessary to run their unique computer game, is the winner. The primary mechanic of Computer Junkyard is the physical assembly of hardware tiles. Each player attaches their hardware together like puzzle pieces, connecting them up to a central motherboard tile to fit within a 9×9 chassis grid.

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