Weekly Featured Games

Five Tribes – 1/19/2026

Five Tribes: The Djinns of Naqala, is a popular euro-style strategy board game that features a unique Mancala-style worker displacement mechanic. Unlike traditional worker placement games where you add meeples to the board, Five Tribes starts with all 90 wooden meeples already on the board. On your turn, you pick up all the meeples from a single tile and place them one by one along an orthogonal path. The last meeple dropped must land on a tile that already has at least one meeple of the same color, which you then pick up, performing that tribe’s action and potentially the tile’s action. 

Key gameplay elements include:

• Five Tribes: Each color represents a different tribe with unique actions.
  • Assassins (Red): Eliminate an opponent’s meeple or a specific number of meeples on the board.
  • Builders (Orange): Gain gold (victory points) based on the number of adjacent oases and palaces to their location.
  • Merchants (Green): Collect merchandise cards which are valuable for set collection scoring at the end of the game.
  • Sages (White): Collect Djinn cards, which offer unique, powerful abilities and bonus points.
  • Viziers (Yellow): Are worth one victory point each at the end of the game, with a large bonus for the player who has the most.
• Bidding System: A unique turn-order auction lets players bid money (victory points) to determine the turn order for the round, a critical decision as the board state changes drastically with each turn.

Join us to learn and play this strategic game were nearly every move earns you victory points in some way!

Sea, Salt, and Paper 1/5/26

Sea Salt & Paper is a tactical, ocean-themed card game blending elements of set collection, hand management, and a “push your luck” round end mechanic, into a visually charming experience.

During the game players aim to collect cards that offer various scoring opportunities. These cards are beautifully illustrated with origami figures, adding a unique aesthetic to the game. Gameplay involves players drawing two cards from a deck, and choosing one to add to their hand and one to discard. Or taking the top card from one of two discard piles. Players can play sets of “duo” cards, like two fish or two boats, to gain special abilities, such as taking an extra turn, stealing a card, or drawing more cards.

The game revolves around accumulating points through different card types:

• Collector cards: Increase in value as players collect more of a kind (like shells or penguins).
• Multiplier cards: Boost the points earned from certain card types in a player’s hand (e.g., a lighthouse card enhances the value of boat cards).
• Mermaid cards: Provide a color bonus, granting points for each card of the color a player has most of. Collecting all four Mermaid cards results in an instant win.

The strategic heart of the game lies in deciding when to end a round. Once a player has at least seven points, they can choose to:

• Stop: End the round immediately, and all players score their points.
• Last Chance: This is a push-your-luck gamble. The player who calls “Last Chance” reveals their hand and declares their score, allowing other players one final turn to try and surpass that score. If the “Last Chance” player remains in the lead, they score bonus points for the color they have the most of; if not, they only score the color bonus, while other players score normally.

The game concludes when a player reaches a certain point threshold, which varies depending on the number of players (40 for two players, 35 for three, and 30 for four). Sea Salt & Paper offers a delightful mix of set collection, hand management, and a touch of calculated risk, making it an engaging and visually appealing card game for families and gamers alike.

Rating: 7.5/10
Players: 2-4
Time: 30-45 minutes
Weight: 1.48/5