Tag: Push Your Luck

In games with a Push Your Luck mechanic, players must decide when to settle on existing resource gains for a turn, or risk those gains for further rewards.

Hunger, the

| OTSG Staff

The Hunger is a race in which each vampiric player must optimize their card deck, hunt humans to gain victory points, fulfill secret missions, and eventually acquire a rose and return to the castle before sunrise. The more you hunt, the slower both you and your deck become, which will make it harder and harder to get back before daybreak. Can you become the most notorious vampire without burning to ashes at sunrise?

During the game, players spend “speed” to move their vampires around the map, hunt humans worth victory points, and add new cards to their deck.

The game ends at dawn, after which the surviving player with the most victory points on their cards wins!

—description from publisher

Game Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 6 Players
  • 60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.32

Hot Lead

| OTSG Staff

Lead the undercover investigation against five criminal groups to gather enough evidence to convict them. However, if you investigate too aggressively, the criminals will smell a rat and go dark!

In each round of Hot Lead, criminal cards are displayed in a column equal to the number of players. Players then make their bid by simultaneously revealing an investigator card from their hand. The highest investigator bid takes the criminal card closest to the deck, the second highest takes the second closest, and so on. These cards are worth points equal to their face value (0-5).

Gather enough evidence on one criminal organization to convict them when the game concludes after ten rounds; in game terms, by having exactly three of a suit, you earn 10 bonus points. Ten bonus points are also awarded to those who acquire criminal cards of all five suits. If you investigate too aggressively and grab the fourth card of a suit, those criminals will sense a rat and you’ll scare them underground, thereby losing all of those cards. The player with the most points at the end of the game wins.

—description from publisher

Game Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 5 Players
  • 15 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.25

Hit Z Road

| OTSG Staff

In the fast-paced and morbidly kitschy game Hit Z Road, you and your fellow players embark on a road trip going south from Chicago along America’s famous Route 66 — now infested by zombies. As you travel though a deck of adventure cards rife with dangers, you battle zombie hordes, drive abandoned school buses, scavenge for gas and bullets, and explore a darkened, tainted American countryside full of shambling undead, haunted carnivals, and plumes of toxic gas. Your goal is to stay alive until you reach the safe, sandy beaches of the California coast.

Three different stages of adventure cards create an experience of increasing difficulty and ensure that each playthrough is unique. Each round begins with an auction that determines both player order and which cards you will encounter. Since the resources used for bidding are the same as those used to battle the oncoming zombie hordes, your survival depends as much on your resource management as it does upon winning those bidding wars. The player who either accumulates the most points or survives the longest wins.

Zombies of all types await, with cannibals, anti-personnel mines and radioactive wastes also being among the hazards awaiting the players. Who will survive the zombie onslaught?

—description from the publisher

Game Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 30 – 60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.86

Grizzled, the

| OTSG Staff

The Grizzled is a cooperative game about survival in the trenches during the first World War where players win or lose together.

Each round, the current team leader will choose how many cards every player draws. Then, going around the table, players must either play a card in their hand or back out of the mission. Each card represents either threats to the team (such as mortar shells and weather conditions) or negative personality traits (such as frightened or obsessive). At the end of the round, more cards are added to the draw deck. The game ends only if the players can deplete the draw deck as well as their hands without letting time run out.

If one threat shows up too many times, the team fails the mission. The team must play their threats correctly in order to gain any progress. However, most of the information in a players hand remains secret throughout the game.

Planning, teamwork, and a little luck are the tools you’ll need to win this cooperative game for two to five players.

Game Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 5 Players
  • 30 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.97

Ghosts Galore

| OTSG Staff

In Ghosts Galore you’re helping monsters to build a fun ghost train in an abandoned mineshaft. Every monster want’s the track tiles laid their way – so YOU have to keep them calm, coordinate and optimize their track. Over the course of 8 rounds, each player builds a unique track on their 3×3 playground for the ghost train.

This family friendly tile placement game comes with a unique drafting mechanism and is quick to play while offering various strategies​: Will you stick with your drafted tile or go for a bold move which brings you even more scares?

After only 8 rounds, all tracks are set and the project is done. Sounds easy? Well, only the master who lines up the best scares, wins!

Ghosts Galore is another addition to the Lookout GreenLine, manufactured 100% eco-friendly.

Game Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 5 Players
  • ~20 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.38

Gardlings

| OTSG Staff

Cleverly build your garden. Harvest gems and enrich your seed bag with new, amazing creatures so your next garden can grow even more abundant. Combine the unique abilities of your creatures, and be the first to acquire the victory trophy.

Each round in Gardlings, all players simultaneously build their garden in front of themselves. You do this by drawing and placing tiles from your bag. You may stop drawing tiles at any time because if you draw too many gnomes, they will steal gems from you. At the end of the round, use any gems you matched in your garden to buy a new tile, then return all of your tiles to your bag to prepare for the next round. Each tile features potential ways to match gems, as well as a creature with a special ability. Your garden will grow larger and better each round, and the puzzle of placing tiles will become increasingly complex.

The goal of the game is to match enough gems to buy the victory tile.

Game Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 20 – 45 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.47

Friday

| OTSG Staff

Friday, the second game in the Friedemann Friese Series: Freitag-Project (Friedemann Friese), is based on the story of Robinson Crusoe and his loyal partner Friday (Freitag). You play as Friday, and when Robinson Crusoe crashes his ship on your island, your peaceful times are disturbed. You must help Robinson to survive the island and prepare him to defeat the pirates that are coming for the island.

Friday is a solitaire deck-building game in which you optimize your deck of fight cards in order to defeat the hazards of the island. During a turn the player will attempt to defeat hazard cards by playing fight cards from their deck. If defeated, a hazard card will become a fight card and is added to the player’s deck. If failed, the player will lose life points but also get the opportunity to remove unwanted cards from their fight deck. In the end, the player will use their optimized fight deck to defeat the two pirate ships coming for the island, allowing Robinson Crusoe to escape the island and allowing you to finally have your peace back!

Game Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

  • 1 Players
  • ~25 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.15

Fortify

| OTSG Staff

It’s a hot summer and you see a new family just moved in across the street and you know what that means, boxes! You round up your friends and a giant bag of water balloons. You quickly split into teams, start stacking boxes, and fill your water balloons because everyone knows its time to Fortify!

Use the variety of boxes (Cards) to create a closed wall around your Base. The larger you make it the more friends can fit inside. The more friends you have the faster you can build or the more water balloons (Dice) you can toss at your opponent’s fort. Roll well and land your water balloons on boxes, rival friends, and ultimately their base to claim the day and the pride of the neighborhood!

Game Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

  • ~2 Players
  • 15 – 30 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.50

Flip 7

| OTSG Staff

Flip over cards one by one without flipping the same number twice.

Sound easy? Think again! This isn’t just any deck of cards… In Flip 7 there’s only one 1 card, two 2’s, three 3’s, etc plus a bunch of special cards that can score you extra points, give you a second chance, or freeze you or your opponents in your tracks.

Are you the type of player to play it safe and bank points before you bust, or are you going to risk it all and go for the bonus points by flipping over seven in a row? Press your luck meets strategy in this addictive card game that’s sure to be the greatest card game you’ve ever played!

Game Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

  • 3 – 18 Players
  • ~20 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.03

First in Flight

| OTSG Staff

First in Flight is a push-your-luck, deck-building game about the race to early flight. Players take on the roles of the Wright Brothers, Samuel Langley, and other flight pioneers, racing to build and pilot the “flyers” that preceded modern airplanes.

Each player’s flyer design is represented by a deck of cards that they can steadily improve and refine, and which may include unknown design flaws that threaten their success.

Flying is a blackjack-style challenge to test a design, break new records, and gain experience — hopefully without crashing. Then, players head back to the workshop to refine their flyers and improve their chances on future flights. There are dozens of available technologies, pilot skills, and friends in the field available for players to customize their own play style and strategy.

Game Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 45 – 75 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.31