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.

Ascension: Deckbuilding Game

| T3d-1978

Ascension: Deckbuilding Game — originally released as Ascension: Chronicle of the Godslayer — is a fast-paced deck-building game designed by Magic: The Gathering Pro Tour champions Justin Gary, Rob Dougherty, and Brian Kibler, with artwork by Eric Sabee.

Ascension is a deck-building game in which players spend Runes to acquire more powerful cards for their deck. It offers a dynamic play experience where players have to react and adjust their strategy accordingly. Each player starts with a small deck of cards, and uses those cards to acquire more and better cards for their deck, with the goal of earning the most Honor Points by gaining cards and defeating monsters.

Game Mechanics:

  • Deck Building
  • Hand Management
  • Open Drafting

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • ~30 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.14

ArchRavels

| T3d-1978

Experience the colorful and crafty world of fiber arts with ArchRavels! Play as one of four characters, each with their own unique crafting specialty. Hit the Yarn Bazaar to build up your stash. Follow the patterns to make cuddly bears, warm blankets, and cozy scarves. Along the way you’ll get some unique special requests. Turn in your completed items to master a pattern, complete projects, and score points. When the project list runs out, the crafter with the most points wins!

Game Mechanics:

  • Economic
  • Open Drafting
  • Pattern Building
  • Set Collection

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 30 – 45 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.92

Aquatica

| T3d-1978

Aquatica is a deep, but easy to learn family engine builder about underwater kingdoms.

In the game you will become one of the mighty ocean kings, struggling to bring glory to his realm. To win the game, you need to capture and buy locations, recruit new characters, and complete goals; each of these actions gives you victory points at the end of the game. To do so, you need to play cards from your hand (each with a unique set of actions) and combine them. Don’t think it’s simple! With a good strategy during your turn, you can take up to ten actions in a row.

You will encounter plenty of mysterious ocean creatures and take them to your hand. With their help you will explore the unknown locations and raise found resources from the ocean depths to your kingdom. Mechanically this is represented with the help of three-layered player board and the unique mechanism of card-rising.

Game Mechanics:

  • Deck Building
  • Hand Management
  • Open Drafting
  • Solo / Solitaire Game
  • Variable Player Powers

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 30 – 60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.30

Abyss 🟢

| T3d-1978

The Abyss power is once again vacant, so the time has come to get your hands on the throne and its privileges. Use all of your cunning to win or buy votes in the Council. Recruit the most influential Lords and abuse their powers to take control of the most strategic territories. Finally, impose yourself as the only one able to rule the Abyssal people!

Abyss is a game of development, combination and collection in which players try to take control of strategic locations in an underwater city. To achieve this, players must develop on three levels: first by collecting allies, then using them to recruit Lords of the Abyss, who will then grant access to different parts of the city. Players acquire cards through a draft of sorts, and the Lords of the Abyss acquired on those cards grant special powers to the cardholder — but once you use the cards to acquire a location, that power is shut off, so players need to time their land grabs well in order to put themselves in the best position for when the game ends.

  • Auction/Bidding
  • Hand Management
  • Memory
  • Open Drafting
  • Push Your Luck
  • Set Collection

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 30 – 60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.34

3000 Scoundrels 🟢

| T3d-1978

“The Traveler brought much change to our small frontier town in the last five years. He showed us marvels beyond imagination and taught us how to use his strange machines. Now that the Traveler has vanished, a storm is coming. Who will control the destiny of the American Frontier?”

In 3000 Scoundrels, players assume the roles of rival leaders attempting to steal precious technology left behind by the Traveler. By overlaying clear cards, you create unique scoundrels and use them to outsmart your foes. In short, hire scoundrels to build powerful combos, steal technology, and outsmart your foes.

Each turn, you play a poker card from your hand face down in front of your player board, then use all abilities matching your claimed number. You don’t need to tell the truth when claiming a number, but if an opponent catches you bluffing, it will damage your reputation and decrease your odds of winning the game.

Each leader has a unique perspective and motivation in the conflict of Graystone Gulch. Are you driven by money, fame, or the deep-seated desire to improve the world? Advanced rules add unique strategies to each leader that reflect their unique strengths and cunning tricks.

Game Mechanics:

  • Deduction
  • Open Drafting

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 60 – 90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.18

The Whatnot Cabinet

| T3d-1978
The Whatnot Cabinet

The Whatnot Cabinet

THE WHATNOT CABINET
A Game of Rare, Unusual and Intriguing Objects

CURIOUS COLLECTIONS
Everyone enjoys discovering small, precious objects along beaches, trails, and the wilderness, but a special few have a knack for assembling those found objects into a curio collection. Leave your house, uncover intriguing objects, assemble them in your whatnot cabinet, and create a wonderful collection of curiosities.

OBJECTIVE
Collect tiny objects and score the most points by creating the best whatnot cabinet. Each round players travel away from home to find trinkets and doodads to add to their cabinets. As they do, they score curio points for sets of like objects, different, and various other unique setups.

Game Mechanics:

  • Open Drafting
  • Puzzle
  • Set Collection
  • Tile Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 20 – 30 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.73

Vivarium

| T3d-1978
Vivarium

Vivarium

1898, Siberia, the seismologist Edgar Vuntaf discovers a continent free of any human presence, sheltering a teeming life, in forms never encountered before! Unknown plants, colossal creatures… Faced with this shocking discovery, the world’s scientific elite, gathered in Paris for the Universal exposition, create the Vivarium Syndicate, and decide to send explorers into this new continent

An efficient and tense card collection game, with a great artistic direction! Each turn players use dominoes to create coordinates that allow them to build their card collection. After 7 rounds, the player that has successfully completed their objectives and collected the greatest creatures wins the game.

Cards are placed on the board. Each turn, players use pairs of dominoes to create coordinates and grab the corresponding card on the board. Among this grid of cards: fantastic creatures divided according to their species and biotopes, scientific objectives but also various equipment cards to facilitate the taking of future cards. After 7 rounds, the player that has successfully completed their objectives and collected the greatest creatures wins the game.

Game Mechanics:

  • Open Drafting
  • Set Collection

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • ~30 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.78

Traintopia

| T3d-1978
Traintopia

Traintopia

It is a truly wonderful day indeed as today we start our great competition! At the dawn of the nation of Traintopia — a country of clean, efficient, and fast transportation — we are looking for a new president, and we know exactly who we want for the job!

In Traintopia, you must create a futuristic train paradise with networks and routes for goods, commuters, and tourists. Exactly how do you do that? It’s simple! On your turn:

  1. Draft a tile, commuter, tourist, mailbag, or a train from the current offer.
  2. Expand your network by adding the newly drafted component to it.

Tiles expand your routes. Commuters and tourists score victory points when placed. Mailbags and trains provide end-game bonuses. In more detail, the game tiles feature train tracks passing through different types of districts sought after by different types of commuters. Additionally, along the route you will find various landmarks that draw tourists. You must strike the right balance to maximize your scoring potential.

After eight or nine rounds (depending on the number of players), the game ends, then players score completed routes and gain bonus victory points from individual goal cards.

Game Mechanics:

  • Open Drafting
  • Tile Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • ~30 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.80

Ticket to Ride: Poland

| T3d-1978
Ticket to Ride: Poland

Ticket to Ride: Poland

From the sea to the Tatras, as wide as Poland is long, there are beautiful areas just waiting to be discovered. Do you want to observe the bison in the shadow of the Bialowieza Forest? Or maybe you prefer to take a walk through the charming streets of Wroclaw?

Game Mechanics:

  • Hand Management
  • Network Building
  • Open Drafting
  • Set Collection

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 30 – 60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.56

Ticket to Ride: Germany

| T3d-1978
Ticket to Ride: Germany

Ticket to Ride: Germany

Ticket to Ride: Germany is a standalone game in the Ticket to Ride series. Over the course of the game, players collect cards in order to then claim routes on the game board between two cities. Ideally the players create a network of routes that connect the cities showing on their secret ticket cards. Players score points both for claiming routes and for completing tickets, with incomplete tickets counting against a player’s score.

In addition to scoring points for tickets, whenever a player places a route on the board, they claim a passenger from the two cities that form the endpoints for that route (assuming that the passengers have not already been claimed). At the end of the game, whoever has the most passengers of each of the six colors scores 20 points for that color; whoever has the secondmost passengers in a color scores 10 points. Whoever has the most points at the end of the game wins.

Game Mechanics:

  • Hand Management
  • Network Building
  • Open Drafting
  • Set Collection

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 5 Players
  • 30 – 60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.76