Katamino Pocket

• Designer: André Perriolat
• Publisher: Gigamic
• Players: 1
• Age: 8+
• Time: 2-3 minutes per level?
• Played with review copy provided by publisher (Hachette USA)

Katamino Pocket is a portable version of a well known solitaire game, unsurprisingly enough called Katamino.  In the game, you have 12 pentominos that you use to fill in particular areas on the board. If you have seen some older versions of the game – this may be a bit different.  The original versions only had 10 pentominos instead of the 12 in this set…

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Shapers of Gaia

• Designers: Ian Cooper, Jan Gonzalez
• Publisher: Wizkids
• Players: 2-3
• Age: 14+
• Time: 60-90 minutes
• Played with review copy provided by Wizkids

Shapers of Gaia is billed as “an eco-building game”.  The Wizkids promo text goes: “Compete over resources and land to rejuvenate the world of Gaia! You are a Shaper, emerging from the Vault after millennia carrying the ingredients to restore Gaia and its ecosystem to its former glory! Work alongside the Caretaker robot to earn Prestige as you restore the ruined biomes of the land to their former splendor, repopulate species old and new, and give life to a rejuvenated ecosystem. Accumulate rare resources such as Nutrients and Energy to grow faster. But be careful! New biomes also provide resources to your rival factions.  Use your unique abilities to come out on top as you compete with the other Shapers for resources and Prestige. Gain Prestige by arranging animals following their established behaviors, collecting DNA samples, and unlocking new Shaper abilities. Only the Shaper with the most Prestige (VP) at the end of the game will be allowed to permanently join the Caretaker as guardians of the rebirthed Gaia!”

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Terracotta Army

• Designers: Przemysław Fornal, Adam Kwapiński
• Publisher: Board&Dice
• Players: 1-4
• Age: 14+
• Time: 90-120 minutes
• Played with review copy provided by publisher

To start, the TL;DR intro from the publisher:

Emperor Qin Shi Huang has passed away. To protect him in the afterlife, a great army in the form of statues of faithful warriors must be assembled to stand guard in the Emperor’s tomb. You will be among those tasked with building this magnificent army.

In Terracotta Army, you represent talented craftsmen and artists laboring to build the wondrous assembly of statues. During the game, you collect resources, upgrade your workers, and seek favor with the Emperor’s advisors. Your goal is to play a crucial role in the process of creating the terracotta army, and your success is measured in victory points (VPs). During the game, you and your fellow players build the army together, but after the fifth round of the game is over, only one of you — the one with the most points — will stand as the winner.

During the game, you place warrior miniatures within the mausoleum, forming groups. A group’s miniatures may belong to multiple players as denoted by the player bases on those miniatures. Multiple separate groups consisting of the same type of miniature may exist within the mausoleum.

You will have many opportunities to score points based on domination and presence. To achieve domination, you must be the only player with the most of the specific resource or type of statue currently being scored. (If you are the only player, you have domination.) To have presence, you must have at least one of the specific resource or type of statue currently being scored.

At the end of the fifth round, the player with the most VPs wins.

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Top Ten

• Designer: Aurelien Picolet
• Publisher: Asmodee Germany
• Players: 4-9
• Age: 12+
• Time: 30 minutes
• Played with a copy purchased in Germany at Thalia.de

Top Ten was the typical Spiel des Jahres nominee/recommended game that I had never heard of prior to it being on the list of games from the jury.  There tends to be one or two games like this every year, and if possible, I try to learn more about the game.  There is currently no English version for this game; the reason for this is pretty simple; as for now, this is a German language only version with 135 cards laden with German language text.  Lucky for me, the wonders of technology (namely Google Translate/Google Lens) make games like this fairly easy to play with online immediate translation.  I saw this on a front sale table at a bookstore in Regensburg on a recent vacation, and my curiosity got the best of me, and it didn’t take me long to pick up a copy to try out.

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Top Ten Quiz

• Designers: Julien Gupta, Johannes Berger
• Publisher: Chili Island
• Players: 4-14
• Age: 14+
• Time: 30 minutes
• Played with copy provided by publisher

Chili Island is a new imprint, one that focuses on family games – from the company page on BGG: 

• Creative, communicative, and cooperative – are our games.
• Easy as pie – are the rules to our games.
• Artistic – are the cover and the game materials.
• Critical – are we about plastic, climate change, and discrimination.

I was given a set of three of their newest releases at GenCon 2022, and we gave them a try at a recent family reunion.  Most of the players were not gamers, but I felt like this was the sort of audience that Chili Island is looking for.

Top Ten Quiz pits two teams against each other: “Try to gain as many points as possible with your team. You will achieve this by giving up to ten correct answers for each Top-Ten-Chart.”  The game comes with 14 sets of 7 Top-Ten-Charts.  In any particular game, you’ll only need one set of 7 cards.

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