Towers of the Sun (2023)

Towers of the Sun is an abstract strategy game in which two to four players take on the role of mystical clans each coming from their own unique and beautiful regions. They’ve lived in peace and harmony until a dangerous and mysterious mist begins to gradually cover their world, blocking out the sunlight. The clans must now compete to collect the remaining sunlight, and build majestic towers to escape the mist and reach towards the sun.

During the game players will build and navigate a changing, three-dimensional landscape. The playing field is limited and players will compete for the best positions, occasionally battling it out with their hand cards in a simple, yet mind-boggling duel of simultaneous reveal. As they navigate the board, players will collect sun crystals that other players have dropped. At the end of each round the sun shines upon a different tower presenting the players with additional sun crystals. Before a new round begins, players will score points based on which tower they stand upon and the crystals they’ve collected so far.

The main mechanisms used in the game are its modular board (mutated by the players via tile placement), area control, hand management and deductive logic (for the card battles). Beyond the strategy of building and managing their tower tiles, players must also think ahead and not be too greedy because after the scoring phase of each round the leading player will have to exercise their generosity and care by providing charity to the lowest scoring player. This adds both rubber-banding and interactivity that makes every game tense until the last sun crystal has been claimed.

The game comes to end when all of the sunlight is gone. This happens naturally, with sun crystals being collected each round, but players can also force this to happen early by standing atop a tower of 8 tiles or more and essentially “reaching the sun”.

—description from the publisher