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.

Dungeon Petz

| OTSG Staff

Become the leader of an imp family that has just started a new business – breeding and selling petz. Sound simple and safe? Well, we forgot to mention that those petz are for Dungeon Lords. This means magical, playful, sometimes angry monsters that constantly desire attention and at the very moment you want them to demonstrate their qualities to buyers they are sick or they poop. Sometimes you are even glad that you got rid of them – but the profit is unbelievable.

Dungeon Petz is a standalone game set in the Dungeon Lords universe. The game consists of several rounds in which players use unusual worker placement mechanisms (players simultaneously prepare different sized groups of imps in order to play sooner than others) to prepare themselves for the uneasy task of raising creature cubs and pleasing their different needs (represented by cards) in order to sell them as grown and scary creatures to Dungeon Lords. In the meantime, they also attend various contests in which they show off their pets, scoring additional points.

Game Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.63

Dungeon Mayhem

| OTSG Staff

In the action-packed Dungeons & Dragons card game Dungeon Mayhem, you win by being the last adventurer standing.

Play as one of four brave, quirky characters — barbarian, paladin, rogue, or wizard — battling it out in a dungeon full of treasure! With magic missiles flinging, dual daggers slinging, and spiked shields dinging, it’s up to you to prove your adventurer has the guts to bring home the glory!

Illustrations created by Kyle Ferrin in the four decks of cards represent Sutha the Skullcrusher (barbarian), Azzan the Mystic (wizard), Lia the Radiant (paladin), and Oriax the Clever (rogue). Pick one of these characters and play their mighty power cards such as Azzan’s Vampiric Touch to swap hit points with an opponent or Sutha’s Whirling Axes to heal yourself while dealing crushing damage to the rest of the party.

Game Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • ~10 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.16

Dragon Farkle

| OTSG Staff

Gather your courage! The long-enjoyed peace of Yon has been disrupted by a ferocious and mean-spirited dragon — he’s terrorizing the locals and eating their livestock without their permission! Fortunately, a few wannabe heroes (that’s you!) have risen to the challenge of slaying the beast. Get yourself a brave companion, gather a powerful army, and enter the Dragon’s Keep for cheese and country in Dragon Farkle!

To play, you gather an army of loyal soldiers or steal them from your opponents, hire suspicious-looking companions and gain allegedly useful items (most of which aren’t even cursed), then fight that dragon you’ve heard so much about — or don’t, if you hate winning…

Game Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 5 Players
  • ~30 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.45

Gnomi

| OTSG Staff

Gnomi is a quick strategy card game about mushroom-farming gnomes for 2-6 players. Steal mushroom cards from other players, and use your gnomes to enact special abilities. Once cards have been used, you flip them up-side-down in your hand. The last player with right-side-up cards in their hand wins.

Gnomi is designed so that you can play anywhere, since your hand is also your discard pile. After dealing, you can keep the decks in your pocket.

Deduction and resource management are needed to win.

Play a quick game while waiting in line, or as a filler at game night. Games take 10 minutes. 2-6 players.

Game Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 6 Players
  • ~10 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.25

Doomlings

| OTSG Staff

Somewhere on a doomed and distant planet, life has emerged, competing for supremacy until the world’s inevitable destruction. The object of the game is to score the most points by the time the world ends. Score points by playing Traits for your Doomlings’ species, making them more adaptable, resilient, and mischievous. As your Doomlings assert their dominance, Catastrophes will befall the planet, causing setbacks for each competing species. When the third Catastrophe inevitably strikes, the world ends, and the Doomlings with the strongest set of traits gets to look the Apocalypse in the eye and declare…“I scored the most points!”

Throughout the game, players draw Trait cards from a community pile, and then play them for points. Traits can also have special abilities and bonuses, allowing players to build a wide range of winning combinations. The game is played in rounds, using Age cards, which have different rules that players must follow. But be warned, hidden in the Ages are Catastrophes: special rounds with adverse effects that force players to adapt their strategy.

Doomlings adds a fun twist to hand management, by introducing the “Gene Pool” mechanic. Your Gene Pool is your hand size: it is unique to you, and it can increase or decrease through special Traits, or even Catastrophes. Doomlings includes 6 colorful Gene Pool counter cards, elegantly tracking how many cards you should hold at the end of your turn. There are opportunities to increase your Gene Pool (hand size), which can give your species a leg up by providing a larger pool of Traits to select from each turn.

A lightweight card game for 2-6 players, Doomlings can be played casually amongst friends, or competitively by the gaming enthusiast family. Because there are no duplicate cards, and Age cards are chosen randomly, no two games are ever the same. While the game itself can be learned in 5 minutes or less, don’t be fooled: with 100+ unique Traits—in Red, Blue, Green, Purple and Colorless—and rare, powerful Dominant Traits, there are countless combinations of play to be discovered.

A typical game takes between 20-45 minutes, depending on the number of players and sequence of events. Advanced-play expansion packs are also available, including a Hidden Objective expansion for a fun twist to the game. Doomlings requires no dice or additional pieces, just a jolly embrace of the inevitable end of the world!

—description from the designer

Game Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 6 Players
  • 20 – 45 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.65

Agent Avenue

| OTSG Staff

Agent Avenue is a competitive card game that combines bluffing, strategic set collection, and a race to uncover your opponent’s identity. Set in a colorful anthropomorphic world, players assume the roles of retired spies in a suburban neighborhood, outsmarting each other with cards that can score points or trigger special effects. The game’s art brings to life a quirky neighborhood of animal spies.

Use a unique “I split, you choose” mechanic to play one card face-up and one face-down each turn. Your opponent chooses one, influencing both your strategies. Cards feature different agents and tools that impact scoring and game progress on a track, advancing the “catch me” race to uncover the opposing spy.

Outwit your opponents by strategically collecting agent sets and effectively using spy tools. The game ends when a player successfully uncovers their opponent, combining both strategic depth and bluffing elements.

Perfect for those who love a mix of strategy and lighthearted competition, “Agent Avenue” challenges you to think like a spy and act like a friendly neighbor.

Game Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 10 – 20 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.30

Dominion: Rising Sun

| OTSG Staff

We journey now to the islands to the east – or west, depending on where you are relative to them. Here your title is Emperor. They tell you you’re just a figurehead, though you can still order whatever breakfast you want. They may be right; you did get that breakfast. Your ceremonial sword and armor are made of paper. The samurai never let you into their tea parties, and the ninjas are always tying your shoelaces together. And the epic poem they wrote about you is only 17 syllables long. Rice has been adopted as currency, and no-one seems to even be trying to get your face onto the grains. But when you wake up each morning and look out over the land, life doesn’t seem so bad. Now, what’s for breakfast?

This is the 16th expansion to Dominion.

It has 300 cards, with 25 new Kingdom card piles. There are Shadow cards that leap out from your deck, and Prophecies that will someday happen and change everything. Debt and Events return.

Game Mechanics:

  • Deck Building
  • Hand Management
  • Open Drafting

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • ~30 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.00

Doctor Who: The Card Game

| OTSG Staff

Daleks, Cybermen, Sontarans – The list of threats is endless and no place in the universe is ever truly safe from danger, but there is one man who has made it his mission to defend the defenseless, help the helpless, and save everyone he can: a mysterious stranger, a force of nature who has seen his own planet die, a madman with a box.

In Doctor Who: The Card Game, players act as the Doctor and his companions to defend specific locations while sending the Doctor’s enemies to conquer locations your opponents are trying to protect. Each player starts the game with one location, and cards in the deck consist of attackers, defenders, locations and support cards. To start a turn, you draw two cards, pick up any cards banked from a previous turn, and take the three cards passed to you earlier by the player on your left. You play or bank cards until you have only three in hand, then pass those to the player on your right and end your turn.

Attackers target specific locations and earn points for the player wielding them if they’re in play at the end of the game. Defenders try to remove attackers so that the location owner scores points for protecting the location. Support cards provide different abilities, such as enlarging your bank or providing time points (which can be used to draw additional cards). Whoever has the most points at the end of the game wins!

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Majority / Influence
  • Hand Management
  • Open Drafting
  • Take That

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 20 – 60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.97

Defrag

| OTSG Staff

It’s 1995…you’ve got a paper due first thing in the morning and your trusty computer has chosen tonight to slow to a crawl. You reboot, you task kill, you pet the monitor gently, no dice. You’re filled with dread as you realize you have only one option left. That’s right.

Clear your schedule, baby, it’s time to D-D-D-DEFRAG!

Defrag is a hand management grid puzzle game in which you are attempting to rearrange and consolidate various file fragments before exhausting your resources. Defrag has several solo and multiplayer game modes, including a series of increasingly difficult challenges with unique goals.

Game Mechanics:

  • Cooperative
  • Hand Management
  • Set Collection
  • Solo / Solitaire Game

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 2 Players
  • 15 – 25 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.00

Cat Between Us

| OTSG Staff

Do you understand what the cat wants? Try to get as close to the cat as possible without passing it by.

Each round in Cat Between Us, you first draw a card from the deck, then place the cat token on the numbered space on the track matching the tiny number on the card. Shuffle the deck, then deal all players their current hand size.

Starting with the player who won the previous round, players take turns playing one card at a time under the six items laid out on the table until each item has two cards below it. The sum of these two cards is the value of this item. Each player sums the value of each item remaining in their hand to determine where they should place their token on the track. Whoever is closest to the cat without passing it has won the round; multiple winners are possible. (If all players have passed the cat, whoever passed it least wins.)

Winners move their personal token forward on their playing card, which indicates how many rounds they have won and how many cards they receive. Each time you win, you start the round with one more card in hand, making your next victory harder! Whoever first wins three rounds wins the game.

Game Mechanics:

  •  Hand Management

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 6 Players
  • 15 – 40 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.67