Category: Beginner Games

Azul: Stained Glass of Sintra

| T3d-1978

Created by Michael Kiesling, Azul: Stained Glass of Sintra challenges players to carefully select glass panes to complete their windows while being careful not to damage or waste supplies in the process. The window panels are double-sided, providing players with a dynamic player board that affords nearly infinite variability!

Players can expect to discover new unique art and components in Azul: Stained Glass of Sintra, including translucent window pane pieces, a tower to hold discarded glass panes, and double-sided player boards and window pane panels, in addition to many other beautiful components!

Game Mechanics:

  • Open Drafting
  • Pattern Building
  • Set Collection
  • Tile Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 30 – 45 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.01

Ascension: Deckbuilding Game

| T3d-1978

Ascension: Deckbuilding Game — originally released as Ascension: Chronicle of the Godslayer — is a fast-paced deck-building game designed by Magic: The Gathering Pro Tour champions Justin Gary, Rob Dougherty, and Brian Kibler, with artwork by Eric Sabee.

Ascension is a deck-building game in which players spend Runes to acquire more powerful cards for their deck. It offers a dynamic play experience where players have to react and adjust their strategy accordingly. Each player starts with a small deck of cards, and uses those cards to acquire more and better cards for their deck, with the goal of earning the most Honor Points by gaining cards and defeating monsters.

Game Mechanics:

  • Deck Building
  • Hand Management
  • Open Drafting

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • ~30 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.14

ArchRavels

| T3d-1978

Experience the colorful and crafty world of fiber arts with ArchRavels! Play as one of four characters, each with their own unique crafting specialty. Hit the Yarn Bazaar to build up your stash. Follow the patterns to make cuddly bears, warm blankets, and cozy scarves. Along the way you’ll get some unique special requests. Turn in your completed items to master a pattern, complete projects, and score points. When the project list runs out, the crafter with the most points wins!

Game Mechanics:

  • Economic
  • Open Drafting
  • Pattern Building
  • Set Collection

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 30 – 45 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.92

Animal Kingdoms 🟢

| T3d-1978

In Animal Kingdoms, each player takes on the role of a house leader, battling to gain control of the five kingdoms. Cards in your hand represent noble beasts that have pledged their allegiance to you. Over the course of three ages, you must deploy your beasts to the various territories – making sure that you adhere to each kingdom’s decree – to try and improve your influential position in the kingdoms. The house that gains the most influence by the end of the third age is declared the one true leader of the realm.

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Majority / Influence
  • Hand Management
  • Solo / Solitaire Game

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 5 Players
  • ~45 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.77

Adventure Land 🟢

| T3d-1978

In Adventure Land, King Agamis rules from his castle. Rich cities, vast forests and rugged mountain ranges dominate the country. The large river is known to be lined with gold and the forests filled with medicinal herbs, but dangers lurk beneath the fog! Only the bravest adventurers dare to face the challenges. When you move your adventurer tactically and bravely fight the fog creatures, you’ll win the favor of the king. Illustrated by Franz Vohwinkel and designed by acclaimed duo Wolfgang Kramer and Michael Kiesling who between them have won the highly coveted Spiel des Jahres award 5 times.

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Control
  • Grid Movement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • ~45 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.84

7 Wonders 🟢

| T3d-1978

You are the leader of one of the 7 great cities of the Ancient World. Gather resources, develop commercial routes, and affirm your military supremacy. Build your city and erect an architectural wonder which will transcend future times.

7 Wonders lasts three ages. In each age, players receive seven cards from a particular deck, choose one of those cards, then pass the remainder to an adjacent player. Players reveal their cards simultaneously, paying resources if needed or collecting resources or interacting with other players in various ways. (Players have individual boards with special powers on which to organize their cards, and the boards are double-sided). Each player then chooses another card from the deck they were passed, and the process repeats until players have six cards in play from that age. After three ages, the game ends.

In essence, 7 Wonders is a card development game. Some cards have immediate effects, while others provide bonuses or upgrades later in the game. Some cards provide discounts on future purchases. Some provide military strength to overpower your neighbors and others give nothing but victory points. Each card is played immediately after being drafted, so you’ll know which cards your neighbor is receiving and how her choices might affect what you’ve already built up. Cards are passed left-right-left over the three ages, so you need to keep an eye on the neighbors in both directions.

Game Mechanics:

  • City Building
  • Civilization
  • Closed Drafting
  • Economic
  • Hand Management
  • Set Collection

Game Specifications:

  • 3 – 7 Players
  • 30 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.32

DC Deck-Building Game: Multiverse Box

| T3d-1978
  • Deck Building
The DC Deck-Building Game: Multiverse Box is a storage solution for one box to house every DC Deck-Building Game card, featuring customizable trays, spacers, and a Crossover Pack of brand new cards! These new cards allow for each previous DC Deck-Building Game to be used together in one game.

Games included are: 
 
DC Deck-Building Game: Injustice: Gods Among Us
DC Deck-Building Game: Rebirth
DC Deck-Building Game: Rivals – Shazam! vs. Black Adam
DC Deck-Building Game: Rivals – The Flash vs. Reverse Flash

Game Mechanics:

  • Deck Building
  • Open Drafting

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 6 Players
  • 60 – 90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.75

Dream Home

| T3d-1978

What would your house look like? Would you rather have a huge bedroom with an elegant canopy bed or a spacious living room with a grand piano? You are going to play a part of designers who will plan a house and add more and more rooms to it.

Dream Home is a family game about building and furnishing your new house. Over twelve rounds, players collect pairs of cards consisting of a room card and an accessory card (roof, helper, furnishing or tool) and place them on their personal boards, creating their dream homes.

At the end of the game, all players’ houses are finished and fully furnished. Players compare their houses, counting points for functionality, good design, quality of roof and furnishing. The player with the nicest and most comfortable house wins.

Game Mechanics:

  • Memory
  • Open Drafting
  • Pattern Building
  • Set Collection

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • ~30 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.67

Downforce

| T3d-1978

High-stakes bidding on million-dollar race cars. Frantic bets placed in secret even as the cars race around the track. And to the victor, the biggest purse of all. But in the world of motor racing, the margin between victory and defeat can be a single moment: a steep banked turn, tires screaming and spitting out smoke, and the downforce, pressing you down in your seat and keeping you on the track as you make your move inside to pull ahead.

Downforce is a card-driven bidding, racing, and betting game for 2-6 players based on Top Race, the award-winning design by the legendary Wolfgang Kramer. Players first bid to own the six cars in the race, then they play cards from their hand to speed them around the track. However, most cards will also move their opponents’ cars. So figuring out just the right time to play a card is the key to victory. Along the way, players make secret bets on who they think will win the race. Whoever has the most money from their prize money, winning bets, and remaining bank wins.

This is a game whose design needed no attention. Years of play and multiple versions have honed it to near perfection. On the contrary, one of the design challenges was figuring which of the many rules modules to incorporate to create the most fun version. Downforce also adds variable player powers to improve replayability. But mostly, it improves the look of the game to make it gorgeous and easy to play. Special attention was paid to the colors, the layout of the cards, the design of the cars, the details on the board, and more.

Game Mechanics:

  • Auction/Bidding
  • Hand Management
  • Racing

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 6 Players
  • 20 – 40 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.74

Dixit

| T3d-1978

Each turn in Dixit, one player is the storyteller, chooses one of the six cards in their hand, then makes up a sentence based on that card’s image and says it out loud without showing the card to the other players. Each other player then selects the card in their hand that best matches the sentence and gives the selected card to the storyteller, without showing it to anyone else.

The storyteller shuffles their card with all of the received cards, then reveals all of these cards. Each player other than the storyteller then secretly guesses which card belongs to the storyteller. If nobody or everybody guesses the correct card, the storyteller scores 0 points, and each other player scores 2 points. Otherwise, the storyteller and whoever found the correct answer score 3 points. Additionally, the non-storyteller players score 1 point for every vote received by their card.

The game ends when the deck is empty or if a player has scored at least 30 points. In either case, the player with the most points wins.

Game Mechanics:

  • Party Game
  • Racing
  • Storytelling
  • Targeted Clues

Game Specifications:

  • 3 – 6 Players
  • ~30 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.26