Towers of the Sun

In Towers of the Sun, two to four players take on the role of mystical creature clans, all with one thing in common; their worship of the sun. Despite their differences every clan carves beautiful stones from their region's resources and stack them higher and higher, building their way to the sun's shining glory. Legend has it that the clan with the highest tower will earn the sun's eternal gratitude. And so the race is on! Towers of the Sun is a lightweight, competitive, abstract game with healthy rubber-banding. Each player has a hand of five cards representing their clan members, a stash of clan-made tower stones and a treasure trove of precious sun stones. Turns allow players to either move around building and unbuilding towers, or take direct action in fighting other players for their place atop a tower. The fights are resolved by a war-style showing of clan cards, each with their own simplistic yet strategic meta-effect, pushing a bit of bluffing into the game. Building towers can help raise one's prestige and position and also triggers the end game when one player stands atop a tower of eight stones. Scoring takes into account stolen tower tiles from opponents, earned sun stones during the game and height and contents of the tower that each player stands atop at game's end. The game is played out on a dual-sided board which allows for day and night game variations. The night side gives a more dynamic version, easy for learning the game, while the day side provides a moving sun mechanism which shines its light on a different tower each turn, rewarding any player standing there with a precious sun stone, and acting as an additional end-game trigger once the sun has "set". —description from the publisher