Explore Lush and Twinkling Bloodstone Transmissions

Explore Lush and Twinkling Bloodstone Transmissions
• For years, UK artist Matt Dixon has been creating illustrations of robots in a print series titled "Transmissions", examples of which you can see here. Now designer Adam West has created a game of the same name for 2-4 players in which you get to take charge of those robots as described here:
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In the game, players share robots as workers moving around a rondel-styled board, collecting engrams and electricity. These are used to gather ideas to improve your use of the robots or items to score points at the end of the game. You also build your own set of connected, flowing pipes while gathering birds and butterflies to score even more points. The game ends when no ideas are left, a player's robots are complete, or no pipes remain to be built. After an equal number of turns, the player with the highest total score wins!

Board Game: Transmissions

The game features a unique mechanism of worker selection and sharing with incredible illustrations, adorable miniature robots, and very welcoming play for everyone!
U.S. publisher CrossCut Games plans to Kickstart Transmissions for release in 2021.

• Toy manufacturer Verdes Innovations has been a fixture at the annual SPIEL game convention for years with its V-CUBE line of "rotational puzzle cubes", and now the company plans to release its first game, with Theodore Karvounis' Twinkle being Kickstarted (link) ahead of a mid-2021 release.

Here's an overview of this 2-4 player game that plays in 15-30 minutes:
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In Twinkle, the boundless universe comes to your table as you build your own constellation. Having the role of a stellar creator, your task is to decorate the night sky using colorful dice as stars and win the competition among other creators who share the same goal. Choose your star dice carefully, foresee your opponents' moves. and take risks at the right moment in order to claim victory.

Board Game: Twinkle

Over the seven rounds of the game, you form your constellation one die at a time, building off either or both of the "starting stars" on the player board. To set up, roll the six colors of d8 dice, then place them on the central game board. Place the d4, d6, d10, and d12 dice in each of the six colors to the side. On a turn, choose either:

—One of the d8 dice without changing the value on it
—Any three dice not previously claimed (with d8 dice being an option), then roll those three dice and choose one of them, returning the other dice to the central game board or the side as appropriate.

Place your chosen die in your constellation, either as a star branching off one of your starting stars or as a star branching off a previously placed star. Each starting star and each placed star may have at most two branches off of it, and each placed star must have a lower value than the star from which it's branching off.

Board Game: Twinkle

If a newly placed star has more sides than the star it's branching off of, you immediately score 2 points. Otherwise, you score points only at game's end, with your dice scoing points based on their color. For example, with yellow you score 1, 3 or 6 points for having one, two, or at least three yellow dice. Blue dice are worth only 1 point each, unless two blue dice branch off one star, in which case the pair is worth 4 points. Black dice score based on their sum off each starting star, and red dice based on how many even or odd non-red dice are on the same line. Whoever scores the most points wins.

You can also play Twinkle with mission cards that reward the player with the lowest total sum, the fewest types of dice, the fewest colors, and so on, with 1-3 of these mission cards in play as desired.
James Hudson's Bloodstone has been in the BGG database since mid-2017, and now the game is moving toward publication, with publicity material from publisher Druid City Games noting that the game will be available only through a Kickstarter campaign that will launch in January 2021. Here's a short take on what the game is about:
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The Bloodstone is an evil and powerful relic that enchants any who possess it. We pick up our story with an interesting cast of characters from all over the realm. They all have very different stories about how they became entrapped in the arena. Nightly, they fight to the death only to be resurrected and made to do it all over again at the sorceress' whim.

Board Game: Bloodstone

In Bloodstone, you control one of the characters and use a custom dice mechanism to determine your attacks and movements, using your miniature to move around the arena and engage in combat. You hope someday to escape this damned place, but tonight...you fight!
Given that description, making the "o"s in "Bloodstone" an ouroboros a lemniscate is a great design element.

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