SAGRADA (Floodgate Games)
One of the most visually striking games we played at Gen Con last year, Sagrada’s Kickstarter is completed and finished games are now available. All of the promise from the already amazing prototype has been wonderfully realized for the finished boxed game – what will probably be the most eye-catching on your shelf.
Before talking any more about the art and components, let’s get to the game. Sagrada is a puzzle-centered game that scratches a similar itch to a Sudoku. Assorted colored dice are plucked at random from a bag, rolled, and then players take turns placing them into their stained glass windows. The only guideline is that dice have to be connected and that dice of the same color or number (shade) can’t be placed side-by-side. Gameplay expands with every game however from a deck of backing window pattern cards granting different amounts of favor, secret objective cards, and a deck of tool and public objective cards  where you only use three in any single game. Each turn’s actions take a lot of thought in considering future moves and private and public objectives, but the rules can be explained in under five minutes (there’s also a full play-through video by JonGetsGames that the rulebook provides a link to).

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it’s a super fun and thoughtful game but back to those components.
With a rainbow of transparent colored dice for filling up beautifully illustrated stand glass frames, Sagrada will captivate everyone around the table. Floodgate Games is completely aware of this too and included a card encouraging players to take a photo of their winning window and post it to Twitter or Facebook with the hashtag #SagradaGame. Pretty ingenious… and I do mean pretty. (Floodgate Games) by David C. Obenour