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.

Etherstone

| T3d-1978

Nobura is a forgotten planet shrouded in mystery. The story told that a cosmic being sacrificed its divine essence to breathe life into its desolate lands. Etherstones shaped the planet’s biomes and interconnected all living beings with nature. Yet, the lurking threat of the Vacuous, a parasitic force born from the depths of Nobura, poses a challenge to life on the surface, weaving a tale of divine sacrifice. Nobura has always been part of a paradoxical loop of life and death, where the forces of creation and destruction dance in an eternal cosmic struggle.

In Etherstone, players embody faction leaders uniting forces to avert the impending extinction, striving to gain the most victory points through various means, such as summoning cards, overcoming threats, and utilizing their abilities as effectively as possible.

The first stage of the game will be drafting your hand of 7 cards and your leader card. Alternatively, for the first few matches, players can take a pre-made hand of cards with the matching Leader. Leaders have a set number of life points, a strength value, and a persistent asymmetric ability.

During your turn, you can take only one action among the following: Dice Draft, Summon, Attack, Rest, Void Pact.

Players will win by gaining victory points while doing several different actions and the game will end if any of the end-game conditions are met:

  • The active player has no cards left in their hand.
  • There are no cards left in the Threat deck.
  • The victory point pool has no more tokens in it.

Game Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

  • 2 -40 Players
  • 30 – 60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.36

Deep Dreams

| T3d-1978

Little Bruno has gone to sleep and will travel during the night between dreams. Our mission as dream guardians is to keep him immersed in the most pleasant dreams and assure us that he wakes up as little as possible during the night.

The goal in Deep Dreams is to score points playing and connecting dream cards, that show the four colors of the dream. You will need to create the largest color groups connected to score victory points, while making sure Bruno doesn’t wake up by drawing a continuous path with the white lines and arrows through the cards. Some dream cards got powerful effects that will help players to get better combinations. And at the end, the longest path will have the greatest reward. Get ready to enter the world of dreams and ensure that Bruno has a quiet and peaceful night.

Game Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 5 Players
  • 10 – 15 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.00

Everything Ever

| T3d-1978

You’ve prepared your whole life for this. Every movie you’ve seen, every show you’ve watched, every song you’ve listened to, every place you’ve visited, every book you’ve read, every kind of food you’ve eaten, and every person you’ve ever heard of makes you better at this game. It’s finally time to get credit for everything you already know!

In Everything Ever, you and your friends take turns listing things from categories like “Every Dinosaur Movie” or “Every Brand of Soap”. Two category cards are in play, and on your turn, you must say something that fits in one category and something that fits in the other, with both of those somethings not having been said previously. If you can’t think of something, you can play a category card from the three in your hand to cover the one you’re blanking on, then name something from that new category. If you can’t think of something for a category, you must take that pile as a penalty, then flip a new category from the deck.

If you say something that fits both categories at the same time, you can either discard one of your penalty cards or draw a new category card from the deck, then play a third category card to the table. (Once someone is penalized, drop back to two categories.)

Keep your friends’ iffy answers in check with judge cards, and win by collecting the fewest cards once the deck runs out.

Game Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 10 Players
  • 20 – 60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.00

EGO

| T3d-1978

We are not alone! It is the 23rd century, and proof of alien life has finally been discovered beyond our solar system. In fact, recent developments in technology have triggered a cascade of discoveries throughout the galaxy; intelligent life and advanced civilizations are now known across many planets, moons, and asteroids in the Milky Way. Now the race is on to establish interstellar relations with the aliens. The only chance we have of reaching alien life is by pooling our resources to build the required Super Ship. In an unprecedented, albeit uneasy, co-operation between the planetary governments, the peoples of our solar system have finally built the first of these Super Ships. Now, the coalition known as the Extraterrestrial Greeting Organization — EGO — is now ready to launch our first mission.

In EGO, players proceed through a sequence of major and minor events including auctions, drafts, risks, and more. Risks and egos are the lifeblood of this game as players will frequently find themselves in a game of chicken with their rival ambassadors as they try to impress various alien civilizations and earn political power. At the end of the game, players earn significant bonus points or suffer serious penalty points depending on how offensive the aliens find them to be. Ultimately, the ambassador with the most prestige and respect will earn a seat in the Galactic Senate and be crowned the winner of the game.

EGO is a drastic reimagining of the strategic, push-your-luck auction game, Beowulf: The Legend and introduces many innovations by:

  • Revamping the polarizing risk mechanism while preserving its excitement and drama
  • Increasing the set-up variety with a randomized sequence of interchangeable civilization boards
  • Streamlining the endgame push-your-luck token system in which players can score big or suffer immensely
  • Introducing exciting new features such as currency cards and transmission events
  • Balancing the bidding tie-breaker system with the simple solution of ranked cards
  • Speeding up the playtime with a condensed and focused sequence of events
  • Doubling the number of unique special cards that can be drafted as rewards
  • Spicing up the risk events with varying rewards and penalties
  • Sharpening the endgame hand management decisions with tempting rewards following a climactic final auction
  • Broadening the appeal of the theme and presentation with vivid galactic artwork by Marie Bergeron

Game Mechanics:

  • Auction / Bidding
  • Hand Management
  • Modular Board
  • Open Drafting
  • Push Your Luck
  • Variable Set-up

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 5 Players
  • 40 – 80 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.40

Everdell: Silverfrost

| T3d-1978

Silverfrost is the next standalone edge of the map series of Everdell. Beyond the snow-capped Spirecrest mountains to the south of Everdell Valley, lies the bold country of Silverfrost. It is your task to build and maintain a city in this challenging landscape. You must clear the piling snow, burn the fires to keep your citizens warm and prosperous, and complete important quests for the Ranger’s Guild.

In Silverfrost, you send critter workers to various Locations on the board, cards, or the mountain to gather resources and activate unique effects. You use these resources to play cards face up in front of you, forming your own city. Each turn, you take 1 of 3 possible actions — Place a worker, Play a card, or Prepare for the next season.

You may place 1 of your workers on any Basic Location, Red Destination card in your city or opponent’s cities, the Forge, the Hot Springs, or a mountaintop Beacon, so long as it is not blocked by Snow or another worker. You then claim the listed resources or perform the action. If there is Snow at the location, you must first spend a Fire resource to clear the snow pile. If you use your unique Ranger worker, you can visit an occupied location, or gain a Fire resource if visiting a location alone.

To play a card, you must pay the listed cost of resources. If it is a Critter, you may instead play it for free by using 1 of your 2 Chimneys, so long as you have the necessary Fire to light it. Cards may be played either from your hand, or from the area of face-up cards on the board known as the Valley. Nearly all of the cards in Silverfrost feature new and powerful abilities, offering a huge variety of strategic depth and combos to explore.

If all of your workers are deployed, you may prepare for the next season by bringing back all of your workers, gaining a new worker, and performing the action described for the following season, introducing new snowfall to the board and to your city, as well as other challenges. A player is finished when they have played through the last season (Spring) and cannot perform any more actions. After all players have finished, the player with the most points is the winner.

Game Mechanics:

  • Hand Management
  • Open Drafting
  • Set Collection
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 30 – 120 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.13

Finspan

| T3d-1978

You are a marine researcher seeking to find and observe an array of aquatic life in the colorful Sunlight Zone, ghostly Twilight Zone, and pitch-black Midnight Zone of the world’s seas and oceans. In Finspan, the fish you discover over four weeks will generate a series of benefits as you dive deeper into the ocean.

Each dive site specializes in a key aspect of expanding your research:

  • Grow your collection of fish.
  • Discover freshly laid eggs.
  • Hatch eggs into young and consolidate young to form schools.

The winner is the player with the most points gained from fish, eggs, young, schools, and achievements.

—description from the publisher

Game Mechanics:

  • End Game Bonuses
  • Hand Management
  • Once-Per-Game Abilities
  • Solo / Solitaire Game
  • Tags

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 5 Players
  • 45 – 60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.32

Faraway

| T3d-1978

Welcome to Alula, a mysterious continent with ever-changing geography, shaped after the rhythm of the seasons. Beyond the Sea of Mists lies the mysterious continent of Alula. Roam across the land in search of its secrets, meet its inhabitants, and list its wonders in order to gain more fame than your opponents.

Throughout a game of Faraway, you will play a row of 8 cards in front of you, from left to right. These cards represent the regions you will come across while exploring the lands. Characters on these cards will grant you victory points if you later fulfill the conditions they demand. At the end of the game, you walk back the same way, scoring cards in the opposite order you played them. There lies the heart of the gameplay. Throughout the game, the cards you play will serve both to set new objectives, and to meet the ones you played previously.

Each turn, you play a card from a hand of 3. Then you pick a new card from a face-up river. As play is simultaneous in Faraway, you must take into account a clever priority system in all of your choices – being last to pick a card leaves you with fewer options and often less profitable choices for the next turns.

—description from the publisher

Game Mechanics:

  • Constrained Bidding
  • End Game Bonuses
  • Hand Management
  • Open Drafting
  • Selection Order Bid
  • Set Collection
  • Simultaneous Action Selection

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 6 Players
  • 15 – 30 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.91

Fantasy Realms: Deluxe Edition

| T3d-1978

Bruce Glassco’s Fantasy Realms is a modern classic, and this new Deluxe Edition has updated every card with a sleek, intuitive graphic design. The base game cards have also been updated to include new art from Anthony Cournoyer to match his beloved work on The Cursed Hoard expansion, giving the entire game a fresh look!

It includes:

The original base game with all new art and graphic design!
The Cursed Hoard, which includes two expansion modules, also with new graphic design!
The Jester and Phoenix cards, previously only available as promo cards!
100+ art sleeves to protect all the included cards, plus some extras!
In Fantasy Realms, you build your Realm, one card at a time, as you collect Beasts, Armies, Wizards, and more! Each card is unique and scores points based on the other cards in your hand. You start with seven cards, and each turn you’ll draw a new card from the deck or discard, and discard one card from your hand, always trying to improve your Realm! Whoever’s realm scores the most points is the winner!

—description from the publisher

Game Mechanics:

  • End Game Bonuses
  • Hand Management
  • Open Drafting
  • Set Collection

Game Specifications:

  • 3 – 6 Players
  • 20 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.05

Fantasy Fluxx

| T3d-1978

Fluxx is a card game in which the cards themselves determine the current rules of the game. By playing cards, you change numerous aspects of the game: how to draw cards, how to play cards, and even how to win.

At the start of the game, each player holds three cards and on a turn a player draws one card, then plays one card. By playing cards, you can put new rules into play that change numerous aspects of the game: how many cards to draw or play, how many cards you can hold in hand or keep on the table in front of you, and (most importantly) how to win the game.

In Fantasy Fluxx, you want to gather your friends for a party — an adventuring party, that is! Pack up your Second Breakfasts, and set off on a classic quest with your faithful companions: the Helpful Elf, the Dwarven Warrior, the Gallant Swordsman, the Wise Old Wizard, and of course, the Humble Young Hero! Learn from the Cranky Magic Teacher how to use your Wand to cast spells like Invisibility or Fireball! You may need them as you encounter the Dreaded Pirate, or when you find out that Captured Princess is actually the Mother of Dragons! Will you and your fantasy favorites survive the Final Showdown with the Dark Lord?

Game Mechanics:

  • Hand Management
  • Set Collection

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 6 Players
  • 10 – 40 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.50

Family Plot

| T3d-1978

In Family Plot, each player strives to build their perfect family while keeping other players by killing them off one by one.
Gameplay begins by a player laying out any “Family Members” in their hand that match their Family Tree. Afterwards a player can launch an assault using REAPERS and ACTION CARDS that could unleash anything from a Zombie Apocalypse to a Psycho Killer, sending their opponents family members to the graveyard! The chosen victim can block the attack on their “Family” by using ANGELS, WEAPONIZED FOOD, or even TEARS OF A UNICORN that they have in their hand. That way when it gets to your turn simply complete your unique Family Tree and YOU WIN!

Game Mechanics:

  • Hand Management
  • Push Your Luck
  • Take That

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 6 Players
  • 20 – 30 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.13