Tag: Open Drafting

Games with Open Drafting mechanics allow players to choose new resources from a shared pool. The pool of resources is public, meaning all players will see available options.

Newton

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Newton

Newton

The middle of the 17th century was a period of great changes; with the advent of the scientific method came what we now call the Scientific Revolution. Many great scientists, with their theories and ideas, changed and shaped our perception of the universe: Galileo Galilei, Copernicus, Kepler, Bacon and, above all, Sir Isaac Newton.

In Newton, the players take the role of a young scientist who wants to become one of the great geniuses of this era. To reach their ultimate goal, they travel around Europe, visit universities and cities, study to discover new theories, build new tools and work to earn money.

The game is played over six rounds. Each round, every player plays five cards from their hand, and each played card allows the player to perform one of the many actions of the game. An action can have a variety of effects, which depend on the symbols on the board. At the end of the round, a player can take back all the cards except for one. One card has to remain on the board, which means that you give up one possibility of doing that action, but also that that very action will be carried out with greater strength. Fortunately, you can acquire new cards with additional powers to perform more actions.

After six rounds, you calculate your final score, and the player with the most VP wins.

Game Mechanics:

  • Closed Drafting
  • Deck Building
  • Hand Management
  • Open Drafting
  • Tableau Building
  • Tile Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • ~90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.40

Near and Far

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Near and Far

Near and Far

Four wanderers search for the Last Ruin, a city that legends say contains an artifact that will grant the greatest desires of the heart. A lost love, redemption, acceptance, a family rejoined– these are the fires that fuel the wanderers’ journeys, but can they overcome their own greed and inner demons on the way?

In Near and Far, you and up to three friends explore many different maps in a search for the Last Ruin, recruiting adventurers, hunting for treasure, and competing to be the most storied traveler. You must collect food and equipment at town for long journeys to mysterious locales, making sure not to forget enough weapons to fight off bandits, living statues, and rusty robots! Sometimes in your travels you’ll run into something unique and one of your friends will read what happens to you from a book of stories, giving you a choice of how to react, creating a new and memorable tale each time you play.

Near and Far is a sequel to Above and Below and includes a book of encounters. This time players read over ten game sessions to reach the end of the story. Each chapter is played on a completely new map with unique art and adventures.

Answer the call of the ruins and begin your journey.

Game Mechanics:

  • Campaign
  • Dice Rolling
  • Narrative Choice
  • Network Building
  • Open Drafting
  • Set Collection
  • Storytelling
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 90 – 120 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.87

Mosaic

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Mosaic

Mosaic

Mosaic is an action selection game. On your turn, you will perform one of seven actions and acquire components.

Acquiring Components is important in creating the unique mosaic of your civilization. They are used as prerequisites for many new technologies, as well as for scoring. Also, by pursuing specialization in one or more Civilization Components, you may be able to claim a ‘Golden Age’ of that type.

As the game goes on and your Civilization grows, scoring cards are eventually revealed from the four decks. Each time a scoring card is revealed, your Civilization will score for each region that you dominate with your cities and military units. After the third scoring card is revealed, there is one final turn and the game ends. You will then score for your cities and towns, your wonders, projects, and golden ages, and for all of your cards that score for your unique Civilization Components.

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Control
  • Civilization
  • Hand Management
  • Open Drafting
  • Set Collection

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 6 Players
  • 90 – 120 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.79

Mobile Markets

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Mobile Markets

Mobile Markets

Congratulations! You are the CEO of a multinational consumer electronics company ready for the new mobile technologies generation. Compete with other smartphone manufacturers for selling as many goods as possible by planning technology researches, marketing campaigns, production and sales for the whole year. Gain advantages while resolving your plans for victory!

Mobile Markets is a standalone game in the line of Smartphone Inc. providing a similar game experience, but it offers players new mechanisms, more complexity, and strategic planning, interaction, and competition.

Join the race to satisfy the various demands of different types of customers all around the world!

Game Mechanics:

  • Deck Building
  • Economic
  • Open Drafting

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 40 – 80 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.75

The Magnificent

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The Magnificent

The Magnificent

The Magnificent is a tightly designed Eurogame from the creators of Santa Maria set in a mystical world beautifully illustrated by French artist Martin Mottet.

In the game, players are competing to attract the largest audiences to their shows, featuring magnificent performers. In the process, you must expand your camp by placing Tetris-style tiles on your player board, gather elements needed for the shows, and set up performances in your tents.

On your turn, you take one die from the supply. The value of the chosen die is your strength. Add to this the value of all dice of the same color that you have already collected, then use this strength to carry out one of three main actions: build, travel or perform. The more strength you have, the better the action will be, but at the end of the round, you must pay — in coins — the total of your highest-valued dice color. Thus, taking dice of the same color makes for better actions, but will cost more coins.

After each player has taken four turns, the round ends. Each player must discard one of their ringmaster cards and score points according to its requirements. After three rounds, the game ends, and the player who has collected the most points wins.

In more detail, players start the game with four ringmaster cards and a unique trainer tile. Each ringmaster card provides a special ability (which is triggered when you place a die on it) and a unique end-of-round scoring opportunity. When you choose a ringmaster card to discard and score at the end of the round, you must therefore also take into consideration which special abilities you want to keep.

In addition to your main action, you may use trainers on your personal unique trainer tiles or on common trainer spaces on the game board for various benefits.

At the end of each round, in order of the players’ highest-ranked performances, players choose a new ringmaster card and a trainer tile, providing new abilities and scoring opportunities for the next round.

Game Mechanics:

  • Action Points
  • Dice Drafting
  • Dice Rolling
  • Economic
  • Grid Coverage
  • Open Drafting
  • Set Collection
  • Tile Placement
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 60 – 90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.14

Lorenzo iI Magnifico

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Lorenzo iI Magnifico

Lorenzo iI Magnifico

Lorenzo de’ Medici, also known as “Lorenzo il Magnifico” (Lorenzo the Magnificent), was one of the most powerful and enthusiastic patrons of the Italian Renaissance.

In Lorenzo il Magnifico, each player takes the role of the head of a noble family in a city during the Italian Renaissance to gain more prestige and fame — that is, victory points (VP) — than anyone else. To do so, you send your family members to different areas of town, where they can obtain many achievements. In one location, they get useful resources; in another development cards that represent newly conquered territories, sponsored buildings, influenced characters, or encouraged ventures; and somewhere else they activate the effects of their cards.

Family members are not identical. At the beginning of each round, you roll three dice to determine their value. You must choose carefully where to send your most valuable family members…

You can gain VP in several ways, and you must also pay attention to your relations with the Church. The game is divided into three periods, each formed by two rounds; at the end of each period, players must show their faith, and whoever hasn’t prayed enough will suffer hard penalties. After six rounds, you calculate your final score, and the player with the most VP wins.

Game Mechanics:

  • Dice Rolling
  • Open Drafting
  • Tableau Building
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 60 – 120 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.30

Lift Off

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Lift Off

Lift Off

1950/1960: The race into space is in full swing! We’re making great progress on the techniques for supplying astronauts and space-ready machines, for optimizing launch conditions, and of course for designing the much-needed rockets. All this to explore the sheer vastness of space.

But in Lift Off, not only are two superpowers competing for the most glorious milestones of space travel, no, we players are also very involved. In this game, we each play a private space agency that wants to develop in their own areas. We must hire specialists, improve our rockets, and expand our capabilities because soon we have to decide which missions we want to carry out and what we want to bring into space. Only those who plan ahead and properly manage the resources available will win this race to the stars…

Game Mechanics:

  • Open Drafting
  • Set Collection

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 60 – 120 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.81

Lacrimosa

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Lacrimosa

Lacrimosa

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is dead. His last conscious action on his deathbed was composing the Lacrimosa movement of his Opus Requiem. You, as one of his sponsors, will meet with the widow in order to participate one last time in the funding of the works of the Austrian genius. Also, you will reminisce and retell all your memories alongside Mozart in order to make sure that she portrays you under the best light when writing her memoirs in order to enter history as Mozart’s most important patron.

In Lacrimosa, players take the roles of patrons of the late musician, contributing with their fundings to the composer’s works one last time. During the game, you play in two different timelines: the present and the past. In the present, you commission the missing parts of the Requiem from other composers in order to complete it. When developing past events, the game takes place in five epochs in which you contribute by buying new compositions from the composer to sell or exhibit, accompany him on the different journeys through the main courts and theaters in Europe, and gather the resources you need in order to support the musician during his career.

During the game, you play cards from a limited hand that you will improve as the game progresses. These cards can be played either as actions or as resource generators, and players need to optimize their resources and finances in order to support their best version of the story and their relationship with Mozart.

Game Mechanics:

  • Action Points
  • Area Control
  • Deck Building
  • Open Drafting

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • ~90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.10

Khora

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Khora

Khora

In Khôra: Rise of an Empire, each player is the head of a blossoming city-state in Ancient Greece.

On your turn, you must take 2 of the following 7 Actions: Philosophy, Legislation, Culture, Trade, Military, Politics, or Development. Choose Actions that align with your strategy, but which also work with your dice roll.

You will need to adapt your strategy constantly and strengthen your Actions by moving your markers up on your Economy, Culture, and Military Tracks.

Move up on the Taxes Track to collect highly sought-after Drachmas, the Troop Track to Explore and gather Knowledge tokens, and the Glory Track to capitalize on your Knowledge.

Unlock Achievements and, above all, make sure you have the most points at the end of the 9th Round to be crowned with the laurels of victory!

Game Mechanics:

  • City Building
  • Dice Rolling
  • Economic
  • Open Drafting
  • Racing

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • ~75 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.79

Kemet

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Kemet

Kemet

In Kemet, players each deploy the troops of an Egyptian tribe and use the mystical powers of the gods of ancient Egypt – along with their powerful armies – to score points in glorious battles or through invasion of rich territories. A game is typically played to 8 or 10 victory points, which may be accrued through winning attacks, controlling temples, controlling fully-developed pyramids, sacrificing to the gods, and wielding particular magical powers.

The conquest for the land of Kemet takes place over two phases: Day and Night. During the day, choose an action amongst the nine possible choices provided by your player mat and perform it immediately. Once every player has taken five actions, night falls, with players gathering Prayer Points from their temples, drawing Divine Intervention cards, and determining the turn order before the start of the new day.

As the game progresses, they can use Prayer Points to acquire power tiles. Some of these enroll magical creatures and have them join their troops. In addition to intimidating enemies, these creatures provide special powers!

Detailed miniature components represent the combat units and the supernatural creatures that are summoned to enhance them. Combat is resolved through cards chosen from a diminishing six-card hand and enhanced by bonuses.

Game Mechanics:

  • Action Points
  • Area Control
  • Area Movement
  • Hand Management
  • Open Drafting
  • Wargame

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 5 Players
  • 90 – 120 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.00