Tag: Hand Management

Hand Management is a game mechanic in which players are rewarded for playing cards in a specific order. This mechanic often encourages players to hold cards for later turns.

Munchkin

Munchkin

Munchkin

Go down in the dungeon. Kill everything you meet. Backstab your friends and steal their stuff. Grab the treasure and run.

Admit it. You love it.

This award-winning card game, designed by Steve Jackson, captures the essence of the dungeon experience… with none of that stupid roleplaying stuff. You and your friends compete to kill monsters and grab magic items. And what magic items! Don the Horny Helmet and the Boots of Butt-Kicking. Wield the Staff of Napalm… or maybe the Chainsaw of Bloody Dismemberment. Start by slaughtering the Potted Plant and the Drooling Slime, and work your way up to the Plutonium Dragon…

And it’s illustrated by John Kovalic! Fast-playing and silly, Munchkin can reduce any roleplaying group to hysteria. And, while they’re laughing, you can steal their stuff.

Game Mechanics:

  • Hand Management
  • Take That

Game Specifications:

  • 3 – 6 Players
  • 60 – 120 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.80

Monster Crunch!

Monster Crunch!

Monster Crunch!

It’s ok to play with your food! Pick your favorite Monster Cereal character and battle to see who can “eat” the most cereal.

In this fast-paced game of luck and strategy, players collect as many Cereal Cards in their Bowls as they can. Each Monster has special powers to give you an advantage and help you gobble up the most cereal. Use Milk Tokens to combine Cereal Cards and take bigger bites. The Monster Cereal character that munches the most wins the game!

Monster Crunch! The Breakfast Battle Game features Boo Berry, Count Chocula, Fruit Brute, Fruity Yummy Mummy, and Franken Berry.

Game Mechanics:

  • Hand Management

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 5 Players
  • ~20 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.21

Marvel United: Deadpool

Marvel United: Deadpool

Marvel United: Deadpool

The Deadpool expansion brings you a whopping three flavors of the Merc with a Mouth, as well as his not so trusty sidekick Bob, Agent of Hydra. These most unusual characters can all be played as either Heroes or Villains, always with tongue stuck firmly in cheek. Not content with being just a 4th wall-breaking Hero and unbeatable Villain, Deadpool can also crash into any game, riding his plush unicorn, in the form of a Challenge that sows chaos wherever he goes!

Game Mechanics:

  • Cooperative
  • Hand Management

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 5 Players
  • ~40 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.50

Lost Ones

Lost Ones

Lost Ones

Lost Ones is a “Choose Your Own Path” story utilizing map tile exploration. Each player takes on the role of a Lost One, a kidnapped youth taken to the Otherworld, home of the Fae. Thankfully, a conflict between warring Fae factions has created enough distraction for the Lost Ones to escape. Now you must explore this magical realm of dreams and nightmares and hopefully discover a way home while the remaining Fae hunt you down.
Each player takes between 1 and 3 actions in a round. Once a player completes their action, any player who hasn’t taken their turn can take their actions. Repeat taking rounds until the game ends.

Game Mechanics:

  • Cooperative
  • Hand Management
  • Narrative Choice
  • Storytelling
  • Tile Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 45 – 90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.50

Lanterns: The Harvest Festival

Lanterns: The Harvest Festival

Lanterns: The Harvest Festival

The harvest is in, and the artisans are hard at work preparing for the upcoming festival. Decorate the palace lake with floating lanterns and compete to become the most honored artisan when the festival begins.

In Lanterns: The Harvest Festival, players have a hand of tiles depicting various color arrangements of floating lanterns, as well as an inventory of individual lantern cards of specific colors. When you place a tile, all players (you and your opponents) receive a lantern card corresponding to the color on the side of the tile facing them. Place carefully to earn cards and other bonuses for yourself, while also looking to deny your opponents. Players gain honor by dedicating sets of lantern cards — three pairs, for example, or all seven colors — and the player with the most honor at the end of the game wins.

Game Mechanics:

  • Hand Management
  • Pattern Building
  • Set Collection
  • Tile Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • ~30 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.56

Junk Art

Junk Art

Junk Art

Junk Art contains more than ten game modes, along with more than sixty big colorful wooden or plastic components. In one version of the game, players pile all of the wooden or plastic parts in the center of the table, then are dealt a number of cards, with each card depicting one of these parts. On a turn, a player presents their left-hand neighbor with two cards from their hand. This neighbor takes one card in hand, then takes the part shown on the other card and places it on their base or on other parts that they’ve already placed. If something falls, it stays on the table and the player continues to build on whatever still stands. Once players have finished playing cards, whoever has the tallest work of art wins.

Game Mechanics:

  • Bingo
  • Dexterity
  • Hand Management
  • Party Game

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 6 Players
  • ~30 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.23

Jamaica

Jamaica

Jamaica

After a long career in piracy, Captain Henry Morgan skillfully gets appointed to be Governor of Jamaica, with the explicit order to cleanse the Caribbean of pirates and buccaneers! Instead, he invites all of his former “colleagues” to join him in his retirement, to enjoy the fruits of their looting with impunity. Each year, in remembrance of the “good old days,” Morgan organizes the Great Challenge, a race around the island, and at its end, the Captain with the most gold is declared Grand Winner.

Game Mechanics:

  • Dice Rolling
  • Hand Management
  • Racing

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 6 Players
  • 30 – 60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.65

Hanamikoji

Hanamikoji

Hanamikoji

Welcome to the most famed Geisha street in the old capital, Hanamikoji. Geishas are elegant and graceful women who are skilled in art, music, dance, and a variety of performances and ceremonies. Greatly respected and adored, Geishas are masters of entertainment.

In Hanamikoji, two players compete to earn the favor of seven illustrious Geishas by collecting each Geisha’s preferred performance item. With careful speculation and a few bold moves, can you outsmart your opponent to win the favor of the most Geishas?

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Control
  • Hand Management

Game Specifications:

  • 2 Players
  • ~15 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.69

Garum

Garum

Garum

Garum was a fermented fish sauce used as a condiment in the old ages; its manufacture and export was an element of prosperity and perhaps an impetus for the Roman penetration of Lusitanian and Hispanian coastal regions.

Garum from today’s Portugal and Spain was highly prized in Rome and has now inpired a versatile strategy boardgame for the whole family, ages 8 and up, that plays 2 to 4 players. Garum is a tile-laying game, which plays in about 30 minutes, it is language independent and features endless replayability, due to its board system, that ensures no two games are alike.

In Garum, each player represents a master in the preparation of a specific type of fish sauce and receives a set of 16 Cetarian Tiles; each one has 4 spaces filled by 4 colors in different proportions, though the color that the player is defending is the predominant one.

The goal of the game is to play Cetarian Tiles strategically, in order to get a huge number of his own colour symbols in selected rows or columns – the greater the influence, the higher the reward! While placing the tiles, players may apply to score, collect some bonuses and also block their opponent’s intents. Whoever scores most points is the winner.

Game Mechanics:

  • Abstract Strategy
  • Area Control
  • Hand Management
  • Pattern Building
  • Tile Placement
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 30 – 40 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.44

Forbidden Island

Forbidden Island

Forbidden Island

Dare to discover Forbidden Island! Join a team of fearless adventurers on a do-or-die mission to capture four sacred treasures from the ruins of this perilous paradise. Your team will have to work together and make some pulse-pounding maneuvers, as the island will sink beneath every step! Race to collect the treasures and make a triumphant escape before you are swallowed into the watery abyss!

Game Mechanics:

  • Action Points
  • Cooperative
  • Grid Movement
  • Hand Management
  • Set Collection

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • ~30 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.74