Just like last year, my first meeting in the Exhibit hall was with The OP. This year, up in the top of their cool 2-story booth. Their surprise big hit of the con was Gnome Hollow and I’m looking forward to putting it through its paces.

Gnome Hollow

Gnome Hollow is a 2-4 player game that vaguely reminds me of Carcassonne, if the meeples were also workers and it had an upgradeable tech tree. Players draft 2 tiles to place into a center area. The tiles show various symbols and a fairy path of mushrooms. Players try to place tiles to complete a ring. The size of the ring will grant rewards – with some rewards becoming worker placement locations. A player’s personal board has two tracks – the upper one tracking victory point scoring and the lower area is the “tech tree.” When completing a ring of the correct size (or greater) a player can move their marker down one of the tech tree locations, gaining the benefits located there. (Fun fact – the pieces and player board are magnetic so when placed they don’t slide around!) For a slightly more advanced game, the player board can be flipped over and now the tile-laying goal will include creating rings of specific shapes rather than simply a specific size/length. The game was released at Gen Con and should be available in stores.

Stalk Exchange

Stalk Exchange has 2-5 player managing a portfolio of flowers by swapping them in and out in a central exchange. A player turn consists of two actions, either of which could be planting a flower from the exchange into the garden or swapping a personal flower with a different one in the exchange. Spade tokens allow players to take an extra action or they can be used to “flush” the tableau of available flowers in the exchange. When a flower in the garden is surrounded it is harvested and placed onto the harvest board. The state of the harvest board triggers the end game but it also determines the value of flowers in players’ hands. Managing the harvest board is key, as one type of flower is always flushed down to half of its normal value.

Avatar: The Last Airbender – Aang’s Destiny

This is a 2-4 cooperative deckbuilder along the lines of The OP’s previous Harry Potter themed co-op. Players take on one of the characters in the Avatar storyline and work together to defeat the current challenge – there are seven or so games strung together to make a campaign. One of the things that make it stand out from other deckbuilders are the bending cards. Many characters are “Benders”, able to make special use of fire, earth, water, or air. Some cards have an element aspect and are more powerful if played by a bender of that type. Some main characters (like Sokka) have no bending powers, but can still take advantage of bending bonuses if they have an ally (card) on the table of the appropriate type. Fans will note that the game has all-new art (as opposed to just grabbing it from the anime series.) The game should be out in stores in September.

Move Like Me

Move Like Me is a game for 4 or more players that works a little bit like a dance game of telephone. One player does a little dance, as suggested on a card. The next player then copies the first dance, then adds another dance (from their card) which is watch by the third player. They then do the first two dances and add a third. The last player in line attempts to do all the dances and then, if you even care at that point, their effort is compared to the cards to see if they score points. Obviously, the game is fairly hilarious even if there is no scoring used. It should already be available in stores.

DaDaDa

DaDaDa challenges 2 or more players to make sense out of a display of object cards using only the simple words provided. The active player flips a word (Puh!) and an object card and declares the word for the object. Another object card is flipped if it seems to be similar to the previous word; those two objects are lumped together. If not, a new word is drawn and assigned to the object (Eh!) Play continues through several object cards and word cards. Finally, a new group of objects is set out in a tableau. The active player must use only the words previously established in the game to convince the rest of the players to pick the card described.

Blank Slate Challenge

Blank Slate Challenge is a party game for two teams. A sentence or phrase card is flipped up, missing a key word. Players then secretly write down two words that they think their partner will use to complete the sentence. One word they’re pretty sure about and a second one that will possibly match. Written answers are flipped over and any matches score points. Yay Team!

Flip 7

Flip 7 was a small card game being heavily promoted at the convention, at least I was handed a pack as I headed into the exhibit hall on one of the days. The deck consists of cards 1 to 12 with exactly one 1 card and twelve 12 cards, etc… Players play a sort of blackjack by calling Hit Me! For additional cards, busting if any of the revealed cards make a match with a previously revealed card that turn. In addition to the numbered cards there are special ones that can be used against other players, add or subtract from scores, or even force players to take more cards. If a player manages 7 or more cards without busting they get an additional 15 points.

Tea Witches

Absolutely nothing to see here, but it was announced that next year’s Gen Con release will be Tea Witches, designed by the folks that brought you the dragon-merchant game from a couple years ago, Flamecraft.