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.

Jamaica

| T3d-1978
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

| T3d-1978
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

| T3d-1978
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

| T3d-1978
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

Flamme Rouge

| T3d-1978
Flamme Rouge

Flamme Rouge

The excitement in the air is electric as the leaders round the last corner and head for the finish line. Each team has used cunning and skill to position their sprinter for this moment, but only one has done enough to pull off the win!

Will your team lead from the front and risk exhaustion? Should you play it safe in the middle of the pack? Could you surprise everyone by striking from the back? Can you time your move perfectly?

Anyone can race, few become champions!

Flamme Rouge is a fast-paced, tactical bicycle racing game where each player controls a team of two riders: a Rouleur and a Sprinteur. The players’ goal is to be the first to cross the finish line with one of their riders. Players move their riders forward by drawing and playing cards from that riders specific deck, depleting it as they go. Use slipstreams to avoid exhaustion and position your team for a well timed sprint for the win.

Game Mechanics:

  • Hand Management
  • Programmed Movement
  • Racing

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 30 – 45 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.69

Downforce

| T3d-1978
Downforce

Downforce

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

Century: Golem Edition

| T3d-1978

Century: Golem Edition is a re-themed version of Century: Spice Road set in the world of Caravania. In Century: Golem Edition, players are caravan leaders who travel the famed golem road to deliver crystals to the far reaches of the world.

Game Mechanics:

  • Contracts
  • Deck, Bag, and Pool Building
  • Hand Management
  • Open Drafting
  • Set Collection

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 5 Players
  • 30 – 45 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.71

Canvas

| T3d-1978

In Canvas, you play as a painter competing in an art competition. Players will collect art cards, layering 3 of them together to create their own unique Painting. Each card contains a piece of artwork as well as a set of icons used during scoring. Icons will be revealed or hidden based on the way players choose to layer the cards making for an exciting puzzle. Paintings are scored based on a set of Scoring cards which will change each game. Once players have created and scored 3 paintings the game ends.

On your turn you may take an Art card or make a painting. Art cards are selected from a row of cards in the center of play. Each of these cards has a cost associated with their position. After selecting an Art card you must pay its cost by placing an Inspiration token on each of the cards to its left. If you do not have enough Inspiration tokens, you may not select that card. Any tokens on the card you have selected are kept for future turns. The far left card costs no Inspiration tokens to take.

If you have three or more Art cards you may choose to make a painting. Select 3 of your art cards, arrange them in any order and then score them by comparing the visible icons on your painting to the Scoring conditions.

Once all players have made 3 paintings the game ends.

The player with the most points wins!

Game Mechanics:

  • Hand Management
  • Open Drafting
  • Set Collection
  • Solo / Solitaire

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 5 Players
  • ~30 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.71

Blokus

| T3d-1978

Blokus (officially pronounced “Block us”) is an abstract strategy game with transparent, Tetris-shaped, colored pieces that players are trying to play onto the board. The only caveat to placing a piece is that it may not lie adjacent to your other pieces, but instead must be placed touching at least one corner of your pieces already on the board.

There is a solitaire variation where one player tries to get rid of all the pieces in a single sitting.

Game Mechanics:

  • Hand Management
  • Tile Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • ~20 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.74

Apples to Apples

| T3d-1978

The party game Apples to Apples consists of two decks of cards: Things and Descriptions. Each round, the active player draws a Description card (which features an adjective like “Hairy” or “Smarmy”) from the deck, then the other players each secretly choose the Thing card in hand that best matches that description and plays it face-down on the table. The active player then reveals these cards and chooses the Thing card that, in his opinion, best matches the Description card, which he awards to whoever played that Thing card. This player becomes the new active player for the next round.

Once a player has won a pre-determined number of Description cards, that player wins.

Game Mechanics:

  • Hand Management
  • Player Judge
  • Simultaneous Action Selection

Game Specifications:

  • 4 – 10 Players
  • 20 – 30 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.15