Shallow Sea

• Designer: Yeom.C.W
• Publisher: Bad Comet
• Players: 1-4
• Age: 14+
• Time: 30-45 mins
• Played with review copy provided by publisher

In Shallow Sea, a multi-layered puzzle board game inspired by the breathtaking beauty of the Great Barrier Reef, players create their own vivid ocean landscapes by strategically arranging an array of marine life, colorful fish, and corals. Unlike typical puzzle games in which pieces merely stack up, the elements in Shallow Sea can activate, deactivate, and even move, creating exciting combos and thought-provoking dilemmas that keep you on your toes.

On your turn, choose tiles showing fish, coral, or sea life, and place them on an empty space on your board. When fish surround a coral of the same color, you flip over the completed coral, which becomes a home for fish. Choose which fish will inhabit the coral, keeping the puzzle and ecosystem cards in mind. Use seashells to lure fish and move them, ideally completing multiple coral at once if you build them strategically.

Invite other creatures to enrich your ocean, trying to match the distinct scoring requirements of the ecosystem cards in order to score the most points.

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Countryside

• Designer: Peter Prinz
• Publisher: nanox games 
• Players: 1-4
• Age: 10+
• Time: 60 mins
• Played with review copy provided by publisher

In Countryside, you are a farmer with a vision, and you want to build the most thriving and efficient farm the land has ever seen. To do so, you will expand your territory by playing area cards and cultivate it with trees, vegetables, animals, and more. Will you raise live-stock in lush meadows, plant trees in your garden, or focus on growing hearty crops? Every decision counts as the right combination of items, perfect timing, and smart planning will bring you step by step closer to your goal. Balance your strategy and manage your resources wisely in this competitive game as you race to earn the title of the region’s top farmer.

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The Hobbit: There and Back Again

• Designer: Reiner Knizia
• Publisher: Office Dog
• Players: 1-4
• Age: 10+
• Time: 30 min
• Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/4axeQsb
• Played with review copy provided by publisher

The Hobbit: There & Back Again is a competitive adventure game in which players draft dice to make pathways, collect resources, and perform actions that help them to reach their chapter goal. In more detail, each of the players has their own adventure board book open to the same chapter of the game, and they play in turn order starting with the shortest player. That player rolls all of the dice, then selects one, then the next player selects one, and so on until all dice have been chosen, at which point the next player rolls all the dice once again.

With your chosen dice, you use a dry-erase pen to mark the current chapter of your book, drafting a path to evade trolls, battle goblins, solve riddles, and pen the best conclusion to each chapter. The game takes players through the eight most iconic challenges faced by Bilbo and the Dwarves in The Hobbit, such as overcoming trolls, goblins, wargs, and giant spiders; reclaiming the treasure of the dwarves; and defeating the dragon Smaug. In the end, you want to complete the most rewarding journey to The Lonely Mountain.

The Hobbit: There & Back Again includes a solo mode, as well as a way to increase the game’s difficulty, whether for some players to balance different skills levels or for everyone to increase the challenge.

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