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.

Regency

| T3d-1978
Regency

Regency

Take up the mantle of history’s greatest rulers in this fast-paced, interactive, civilization-themed, set-collection game! Compete against Attila the Hun, Cleopatra, William Wallace, and Queen of Sheba, in your quest to assemble a diverse domain, consisting of six different citizen types. But beware! Rival regents will attract citizens away from your domain, whether by allure, by force, or by treachery.

Set against a historical and multi-cultural backdrop, Regency simulates the struggle of power and control that has marked the rise and fall of the world’s greatest empires. Players use cards out of their hand to exert influence over citizens and to perform various actions and reactions. With the addition of each new caste of citizen (including nobles, religious, military, merchants, commoners, and even brigands), new actions become available, resulting in an ever-escalating dynamic and competitive environment, right up to the crowning moment when one regent emerges supreme.

Game Mechanics:

  • Civilization
  • Hand Management
  • Open Drafting
  • Set Collection
  • Take That

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 6 Players
  • 20 – 40 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.33

Red Rising

| T3d-1978
Red Rising

Red Rising

Enter the futuristic universe of Red Rising, based on the book series by Pierce Brown featuring a dystopian society divided into fourteen castes. You represent a house attempting to rise to power as you piece together an assortment of followers (represented by your hand of cards). Will you break the chains of the Society or embrace the dominance of the Golds?

Red Rising is a hand-management, combo-building game for 1-6 players (45-60 minute playing time). You start with a hand of 5 cards, and on your turn you will deploy 1 of those cards to a location on the board, activating that card’s deploy benefit. You will then gain the top card from another location (face up) or the deck (face down), gaining that location’s benefit and adding the card to your hand as you enhance your end-game point total. If at any point you’re really happy with your hand, you can instead use your turn to reveal a card from the top of the deck and place it on a location to gain that location’s benefit.

Game Mechanics:

  • Dice Rolling
  • Hand Management
  • Open Drafting
  • Set Collection
  • Take That

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 6 Players
  • 45 – 60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.27

Raptor

| T3d-1978
Raptor

Raptor

Mamma Raptor has escaped from her run and laid her eggs in the park. A team of scientists must neutralize her and capture the baby raptors before they run wild into the forest.

Raptor is a card-driven board game with tactical play and some double guessing. Players use their cards to move their pawns — with the scientists on one side, Mother and baby raptors on the other — on the board. Every round, the player who played the lowest ranked card can use the corresponding action, while their opponent has movement or attack points equal to the difference between the values of the two cards. The scientists can use fire, can move by jeep on the tracks, and can even call for reinforcements, while the mamma raptor can hide in the bushes, yell to frighten the scientists, and call for her babies.

Game Mechanics:

  • Action Points
  • Grid Movement
  • Hand Management
  • Take That

Game Specifications:

  • 2 Players
  • ~30 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.07

The Quest for El Dorado: Golden Temples Adventure

| T3d-1978
The Quest for El Dorado: Golden Temples Adventure

The Quest for El Dorado: Golden Temples Adventure

In The Quest for El Dorado: The Golden Temples, which can be played as a standalone game or combined with 2017’s The Quest for El Dorado, players have now reached the legendary city of gold and they have started to explore it. What will they find there?

Game Mechanics:

  • Deck Building
  • Grid Movement
  • Hand Management
  • Open Drafting
  • Pick-Up and Deliver
  • Racing

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 30 – 60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.88

The Quest for El Dorado

| T3d-1978
The Quest for El Dorado

The Quest for El Dorado

In The Quest for El Dorado, players take the roles of expedition leaders who have embarked on a search for the legendary land of gold in the dense jungles of South America. Each player assembles and equips their own team, hiring various helpers from the scout to the scientist to the aborigine. All of them have one goal in mind: Reaching the golden border first and winning all of the riches for themselves. Whoever chooses the best tactics will be rewarded!

Game Mechanics:

  • Deck Building
  • Grid Movement
  • Hand Management
  • Open Drafting
  • Racing

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 30 – 60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.93

Quadropolis

| T3d-1978
Quadropolis

Quadropolis

Each player builds their own metropolis in Quadropolis (first announced as City Mania), but they’re competing with one another for the shops, parks, public services and other structures to be placed in them.

The game lasts four rounds, and in each round players first lay out tiles for the appropriate round at random on a 5×5 grid. Each player has four architects numbered 1-4 and on a turn, a player places an architect next to a row or column in the grid, claims the tile that’s as far in as the number of the architect placed (e.g., the fourth tile in for architect #4), places that tile in the appropriately numbered row or column on the player’s 4×4 city board, then claims any resources associated with the tile (inhabitants or energy).

When a player takes a tile, a figure is placed in this now-empty space and the next player cannot place an architect in the same row or column where this tile was located. In addition, you can’t place one architect on top of another, so each placement cuts off play options for you and everyone else later in the round. After all players have placed all four architects, the round ends, all remaining tiles are removed, and the tiles for the next round laid out.

After four rounds, the game ends. Players can move the inhabitants and energy among their tiles at any point during the game to see how to maximize their score. At game end, they then score for each of the six types of buildings depending on how well they build their city — as long as they have activated the buildings with inhabitants or energy as required:

  • Residential buildings score depending on their height
  • Shops score depending on how many customers they have
  • Public services score depending on the number of districts in your city that have them
  • Parks score depending on the number of residential buildings next to them
  • Harbors score based on the longest row or column of activated harbors in the city
  • Factories score based on the number of adjacent shops and harbors

Some buildings are worth victory points (VPs) on their own, and once players sum these values with what they’ve scored for each type of building in their city, whoever has the highest score wins.

Game Mechanics:

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

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 30 – 60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.21

Psycho Killer

| T3d-1978
Psycho Killer

Psycho Killer

In the deck, there are 5 cards for the psycho killer and cards for the weapons he uses to attack you.

Your turn consists of playing as many cards as you like from your hand but must end by you drawing a card from the top of the deck. However, you do not need to play a card to draw from the deck.

If someone draws a Psycho Killer card they must play it on the table in front of them, unless they can evade the Psycho Killer. If they cannot, every player with a weapon card in their hand gets attacked.

When attacked, players must place their Weapon cards face up on the table in front of them. These are called Injury Piles.

Each Psycho Killer and Weapon card is worth a certain amount of points. When they are added to your injury pile they become Injury Points. The game ends when the last Psycho Killer card is drawn and the player with the lowest amount of injury points wins.

Psycho Killer satirises your favourite retro horror and slasher films. Use every cliche in the book to screw over your friends and survive the Psycho Killer!

Game Mechanics:

  • Hand Management
  • Party Game
  • Take That

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 6 Players
  • 15 – 30 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.00

The Princess Bride: Adventure Book Game

| T3d-1978
The Princess Bride: Adventure Book Game

The Princess Bride: Adventure Book Game

Inconceivable! Climb the Cliffs of Insanity, brave the Fire Swamp, and help Buttercup, Westley, Fezzik, and Inigo Montoya survive the dastardly machinations of Prince Humperdinck, Count Rugen, and Vizzini. Follow the incredible story of The Princess Bride through six chapters and work together to keep the plot on course despite Shrieking Eels, kissing, and constant interruptions! Will the forces of evil — or true “wove” — prevail?

In The Princess Bride Adventure Book Game, players work together to advance the plot and tell all six chapters despite interruptions from a sick grandson. Each chapter is represented by a new board within a “book” of game boards. Instead of each player controlling a single character, players cooperate to complete challenges by moving characters and discarding story cards from their hand.

Each chapter has a series of challenges that require characters to be in specific locations and specific story cards to be discarded from a player’s hand. All challenges must be completed before players can advance to the next chapter. A chapter can be interrupted by different story-based conditions or by the grandson. Players have one more chance to complete the story after an interruption, or they lose the game. Special story cards earned as a reward for completing challenges as well as miracle tokens give players more options and help them along the way.

The Princess Bride Adventure Book Game includes paintable miniatures for Westley, Princess Buttercup, Prince Humperdinck, Count Rugen, Vizzini, Inigo Montoya, and Fezzik.

Game Mechanics:

  • Action Points
  • Area Movement
  • Campaign
  • Cooperative
  • Hand Management
  • Move Through Deck
  • Pick-Up and Deliver

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 15 – 90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.92

Photograph

| T3d-1978
Photograph

Photograph

Time to walk about town and take some pictures! It’s the 1960s in Japan, and you have a half-size camera that lets you take half-size vertical pictures. Let’s see whether you can put together good shots…

In Photograph!, you’re trying to organize pictures on your roll so that they appear in the right order. Each player has a hand of cards, and on a turn, you’ll add 1-3 cards to the front of your hand (without changing their order), move one card in your hand closer to the front, then discard as many cards from the back of your hand as the number of cards that you added. When the sunset card comes out, you can take no more pictures, and everyone scores for what’s on their camera.

The cards all have numbers and colors on them, and you try to line them up in hand to score the most points possible.

Game Mechanics:

  • Hand Management
  • Open Drafting
  • Set Collection

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • ~20 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.07

Plague Inc.

| T3d-1978
Plague Inc.

Plague Inc.

Each player is a deadly disease and they must battle against each other to spread their plagues, develop new symptoms and ultimately wipe out humanity.

Starting with Patient Zero, you spread your infection across the world by placing tokens in cities – earning DNA points and preventing other players from becoming dominant. Players choose which countries are placed on the board but you must be both climate resistant and connected to a country before you can infect it. Eventually, as countries become fully infected – you try to kill them using the Death Dice.

Each player’s unique pathogen can be upgraded by evolving trait cards onto an evolution slide (with DNA points). At the start, your disease is weak and unspecialised, so you will need to add new symptoms to make it stronger. Choose carefully and plan ahead in order to react to the changing world and exploit opportunities created by other player’s actions.

A simple nosebleed could accelerate things early on, whilst diarrhea will help you thrive in hot countries. Sneezing can infect new continents by air but Total Organ Failure would allow you wipe out multiple countries each turn.

As countries start to fall, use powerful event cards to alter the balance of power. You might try to eradicate a dominant player by bombing their diseased cities, or hold the Olympics to cause huge numbers of infected people to travel to a healthy continent.

When the world collapses, who will be the ultimate plague?

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Control
  • Hand Management
  • Network Building
  • Take That
  • Tile Placement
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • ~60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.15