"I was already a fan of Mandala, a tense 2019 abstract game that sees its competitors tactically placing colored sand cards in a mimic of an ancient and sacred ritual. Thus, I was eager to try its sequel, Patterns, another small-box 20-minute game, where two players are tasked with manipulating colored sand tokens as part of an ancient and sacred ritual and... who am I kidding. This is essentially a pure abstract game where colored tokens are strategically moved about a grid"
"Create a new color group. Using the colored token in your hand, swap it out with another token, placing it facedown (dark-side up) somewhere on the playmat to establish a color group that is different from any other color groups of your own. If this is your first color group, every token of the same color added to this group in the future will be worth 1 point."
"Expand an existing color group. Flip over a sandy-side-up token of matching color orthogonally adjacent to one of your established color groups so it is dark-side-up. Alternatively, use the token in your hand to swap it out with a token orthogonally adjacent to one of your established color groups of matching color, and place it dark-side up. Either way, the newly flipped or placed token is locked in place and will serve as one of your scoring tokens."
Patterns is a two-player, small-box, 20-minute abstract game of perfect information where players manipulate colored sand tokens on a grid. Setup places 52 sandy-side-up tokens of six colors randomly on the playmat and gives players drafted start tokens. On a turn, a player either creates a new color group by placing a facedown token from hand or expands an existing color group by flipping or swapping matching-color tokens orthogonally adjacent to their groups. Each successive color group owned by a player increases the per-token point value from 1 up to 6. Play alternates until no legal moves remain.
Read at Board Game Quest
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