In this co-operative game, players attempt to complete a puzzle using oversized foam blocks, despite seeing only one perspective of the design. You have to co-operate to complete the puzzle as a team, but you have a time limit, so don't just sit around staring at the pieces. In addition to the time pressure, players have other challenges, such as not being able to talk or to touch certain color blocks.
Mental Blocks features sixty puzzles: thirty "family mode" puzzles and thirty "challenge mode" puzzles that ramp in difficulty. For an even wilder game, you can add a traitor to the table to block your block-building... Yes, developer Jonathan Gilmour apparently must have a traitor in everything he touches.
I'm looking forward to this one as I love spatial puzzles in general, and these types of puzzles have a special appeal, perhaps dating back to high school architecture classes in which you were presented with a 3D image, then challenged to represent it properly from the front, side, and top in individual images. Learning how to see things from multiple perspectives is a valuable skill, whether you're talking about objects or more complicated aspects of the world...
• Renegade Game Studios has announced two new titles in the run-up to GTS 2019, one of those being the Chris Bryan roll-and-write game Lanterns Dice: Lights in the Sky, which is due out in June 2019 and which continues the story of Renegade's 2015 Lanterns: The Harvest Festival:
In Lanterns Dice: Lights in the Sky, players act as artisans, decorating the palace lake with floating lanterns and launching fireworks to light up the sky. The player who earns the most honor has made the best impression on the emperor and wins.
In more detail, roll dice and choose which colored lanterns players can fill on their scoresheets. Earn gifts to perform special actions, fill in additional colored lanterns, and create powerful combinations. Cover completed shapes with fireworks tiles to score points and put on a spectacular show!
In the co-operative game The Aquicorn Cove Board Game, 2-4 players take on the roles of members of a small fishing village struggling to survive while maintaining a balance with the natural world. To win, the villagers must feed and grow their village, while helping to restore the health of the reef and aquatic ecosystem. The villagers are fortunate, though, and the waters of their cove are home to the beautiful and benevolent aquicorns, as well as the wondrous reef guardian Aure, who can help them both to understand the impact humans are having on the environment and to save the village.