Five Peaks 

• Designer: Adam Strzelecki
• Publisher: Trefl
• Players: 2-5
• Age: 9+
• Time: 25 min/player
• Played with review copy provided by publisher

It’s a warm September morning, the first day of a long-awaited vacation. You have arrived at the parking lot at the foot of the picturesque mountains. You unpack your backpacks from the car, tie your shoes properly and set off on a gentle uphill route. For the next few days you will travel mountain paths, collect undergrowth and enjoy the beautiful views. Perhaps you will be able to discover the forgotten, unbeaten paths that will lead you to the Five Peaks. After reaching the top of the mountain, add your pebble to the traditional stone tower and in the evening pitch your tents and enjoy the panorama of the mountain slopes.

Five Peaks is a game about mountain hiking. During the game, you will use your own sets of cards to perform various actions. You will develop your decks to find more efficient ways to move or gather resources. Discovering new places, building towers of pebbles on top of mountains or collecting panoramas are just a few ways to gain victory points and leave the rest of your teammates behind. Who will be able to visit all Five Peaks and collect the most points?

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House of Cats

• Designers: William Attia and Kristian A Østby
• Publisher: Aporta Games
• Players: 1-6
• Age: 10+
• Time: 10-15 minutes
• Played with review copy provided by Aporta Games/Matagot

Per the publisher: Fill your house with cats, mice and dice! Form rooms using numbers. Then use the rooms’ special abilities to score the most points. There are 4 unique levels (each with their own rules), and every time you play you use a random set of 4 out of 12 possible abilities. This ensures new challenges every game. House of Cats is a quick and clever roll-and-write game, and the first collaborative design by veteran designers William Attia and Kristian A Østby.

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The Perfect Wave

• Designers: Jason Mowery and Chase Williams
• Publisher: the Op Games
• Players: 2-4
• Age: 8+
• Time: 30-60 minutes
• Played with review copy provided by the Op at GenCon 2023

From the publisher: “Grab your board, paddle out, and try to put together the most impressive sequence of tricks on some of the most iconic waves in the world. Show your skills better than your rivals, and you’ll ride the perfect wave to victory!  The Perfect Wave presents a very fun and unique challenge. You’ll need to successfully create a wave by drafting Wave cards to construct a sequence, earning points for runs and sets of numbers. Play Trick cards to show off and score bonuses. But you’ll also need to simultaneously focus on paddling far enough out in the water to actually catch, surf, and score the very wave you’re creating! And here’s the twist…the more time spent creating your wave, the less you’ll be able to paddle out…and the more you paddle out, the trickier it becomes to create your wave! You’ll need careful planning and expert timing to balance these goals and win the game!  The Perfect Wave was the winner of the 2021 Cardboard Edison Award.”

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Tucana Builders

• Designers: Eilif Svensson and Kristian A. Østby
• Publisher: Aporta games
• Players: 1-5
• Age: 10+
• Time: 30 minutes
• Played with review copy provided by Aporta Games / Matagot

Tucana Builders is a sequel to the award winning Trails of Tucana. Place tiles on spaces that match the revealed terrain card to connect animals to corresponding huts. All connections that score in round 1 will score again in round 2. So, do you go for high scores in round 1, or will you try to create smart intersections for long-term benefits? Tucana Builders is an easy-to-teach game for those who enjoy challenging tile-laying puzzles.

—description from the publisher

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On The Road

• Designers: Gabriele Bubola and Leo Colovini
• Publisher: Helvetiq
• Players: 2-4
• Age: 8+
• Time: 30 minutes
• Played with review copy provided by Helvetiq

In On the Road, you play music bands that want to reach the Sunshine Festival with the most fans. During the game, you travel throughout the land in order to gather the highest number of fans. To win, you need to make sure they will also make it to the Festival to see you on stage — and won’t get stuck in line at the toilet. On your turn, play a movement card to visit new places or travel back to beloved festivals. Each tile represents a different landscape. The more often you visit a type of landscape, the more fans you will get there, i.e., stars you place in a bag. On the night tiles, you get a chance to draw from the bag. Your fans will be invited to watch you play, whereas other bands’ fans will be sent to queue for the toilet. The game ends when all the tickets for the Festival are sold. The winning band is the one with the most fans on the floor.

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