Stonespine Architects

Stonespine Architects is a game about building your own dungeon. It is a drafting game. You start a round with a selection of tiles. You pick one to add to your dungeon, and pass the rest to your neighbour. You receive tiles from your other neighbour to choose your next tile. 

Your dungeon is a 4x4 grid and you build it row by row over four rounds. Tiles have various features and they help you score points. Every tile has a pathway. Ideally you want all your tiles to be connected. Along the top edge of your player board you have your dungeon entrance. Along the bottom you have your exit. You want your entrance and exit to be connected to as many tiles as possible, and to each other as well. This is basic for any architect, but in this game this is not easy to do. 

Tiles you pick have different gold values. You collect this gold, and at the end of each round you can spend it to buy features from the market (top right corner in the screenshot above). This is not done in turn order. It is always the richest person who buys next, until everyone passes. You buy stuff from a common pool, so if there is something you desperately need, you’d better try to be rich. When you eventually pass, you get to pick a scoring condition card which will be evaluated at game end (those challenge cards along the top in the screenshot above). You will score points if your dungeon fulfils the condition on the card.

Everyone has a blueprint (top right in the screenshot above). Think of it as the user requirements. This can be in the form of specific features at specific positions of your dungeon, or the tile type at specific positions (earth or stone). The more requirements you fulfil at game end, the more points you will score for your blueprint. This gives you some direction when you choose tiles. You can also buy features to help you with the blueprint. 

I am very close to connecting my entrance and exit

The theme might be fantasy and dungeons and monsters, but this is very much a Euro-style tile-laying game. You are always puzzling out how best to build your dungeon, to fulfil the various scoring conditions. You are torn in different directions and it's rare to find that perfect tile. You often need to prioritise. Pick the tile type which fulfils your blueprint, but its pathway may suck. Pick the tile with the goblin which will fulfil a challenge card, but its gold value may be low, or the tile itself  may even come with a point penalty. 

You should watch your opponents. You can see their blueprints so you know what tiles they want. You can also see the challenge cards they have picked. You should deny them tiles which help them. The same principle applies when buying features. So there is some player interaction, although it's not direct.