Shifting Stones is a competitive brain game where you manipulate a grid of Stone cards to match arrangements on your Pattern cards. The trick is that you have to spend your Pattern cards to swap or flip the Stone cards. It's a game where you have to balance the benefit of changing the grid against the loss of potentially scoring Pattern cards.

Play involves taking turns to spend those Pattern cards to change the Stone card grid. When it matches one of the Pattern cards still in your hand you score those points. You only get three of these actions a turn so care is needed to be efficient.

As you progress you work towards your high-scoring patterns, you need to also consider how opponents are shifting the stones. You also need to remember what the colours are on the reverse side of tiles to know if it's worth turning over.

The result is a tug-of-war puzzle as each player wrestles to get the grid in the form they need it to score points. It's a simple game that works brilliantly with a wide range of ages.

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