Encompass is a 2 player abstract board game played on a 7x7 grid. Each player has 7 pieces and there is 1 neutral objective piece. The goal of the game is to surround the objective piece with your pieces by playing cards. My favourite mechanism in Encompass is the card market. Each player has a hand of 2 cards and the remaining 2 cards form the market. When I play a card, I immediately swap the played card with 1 card from the market. The card I just played becomes available

Still on the beach In early 2025, my wife and I were travelling on the auto train from Sanford, FL to Lorton, VA on the way home from a family vacation. The train ride was set to last 14 hours, so I set a goal for myself that I would design a game while we travelled. “Hey Jess, give me a theme.” “The ocean.” I had just received Air, Land, and Sea for Christmas and loved the idea of a small deck of cards that can all have different abilities. I had also just read the rulebook