Container

• Designers: Kevin Nesbitt, Franz-Benno Belonge, Thomas Ewert 
• Publisher: Allplay 
• Players: 3-5
• Age: 14+
• Time: 45-90 minutes
• Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/4gaQQNd
• Played with review copy provided by publisher

Every decision you make in Container shapes the market. During play, you build factories, produce containers, set prices, negotiate with your rivals, sail across the sea to trade, and (obviously) buy low, and sell high. At least that’s the goal — but can you make it happen?

The rules for Container are simple; the real challenge is understanding and timing the market. Players build machines, warehouses, and containers, then sail your containers to the island and auction them off. Be careful with your money — in the closed economy, money’s tight and your opponents are cutthroat!

At the beginning of the game, container value cards are secretly dealt to all players. Because these values aren’t shown, you’ll have to suss out what your opponents are going for throughout the game! But at final scoring, these come into play. The player with the most money wins.

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Temple Twist

• Designer: Bernhard Weber
• Publisher: Kosmos
• Players: 1-4
• Age: 8+
• Time: 30 minutes
• Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/4ynidfk
• Played with review copy provided by publisher

A cryptic notebook leads your archaeological expedition deep in the jungle to an ancient temple rumored to hold incredible artifacts. Your goal: Explore the rooms of the temple and escape before your energy runs out! But that’s easier said than done because the temple is a maze of movable walls and mysterious mechanisms! Now it’s time to work together. Using your action cards, you’ll navigate through this unique structure, move walls, and even rotate the entire temple!

In the action-packed co-operative game Temple Twist, players take turns choosing an action card from their hand to strategically manipulate the three-dimensional temple and move the explorer cube through the maze of rooms. Play through a series of increasingly difficult expeditions, or pick up some challenge cards and dive right in. This game combines strategy, co-operation, spatial reasoning, and hands-on action with a first-of-its-kind 3D-maze-gameboard that changes as you play.

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Chang’an

• Designers: Nestore Mangone, Carlo Camarotto
• Publisher: Arcane Wonders
• Players: 1-4
• Age: 14+
• Time: 45 minutes
• Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/4voZVs7
• Played with review copy provided by publisher

During the Tang dynasty, Chang’an was one of the largest cities in the world. It was a cosmopolitan urban center with thousands of travelers exploring it. As an important urbanist, compete against other players to build the best districts of Chang’an and to get the favors of the court.

Players will carefully project their plans by placing cards on the top part of their personal boards (the gates). Then they will move them into the city districts to build amazing buildings and to welcome influential characters in the neighborhood. Every new card built into the districts will provide players with different types of privileges and a certain number of victory points.

During your turn, you perform only one of the three main actions: research, play and/or move cards on the gates to produce resources and activate character effects, or build. The game ends as soon as a player gets nine or more cards built in the districts of their City board (cards at the gates are not considered). The player with the most victory points will be declared the best urbanist of Chang’an.

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