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.

Codenames: Duet

Codenames Duet keeps the basic elements of Codenames — give one-word clues to try to get someone to identify your agents among those on the table — but now you’re working together as a team to find all of your agents. (Why you don’t already know who your agents are is a question that Congressional investigators will get on your back about later!)

To set up play, lay out 25 word cards in a 5×5 grid. Place a key card in the holder so that each player sees one side of the card. Each player sees a 5×5 grid on the card, with nine of the squares colored green (representing your agents) and three squares colored black (representing assassins). Three of the nine squares on each side are also green on the other side, one assassin is black on both sides, one is green on the other side and the other is an innocent bystander on the other side.

Collectively, you need to reveal all fifteen agents — without revealing an assassin — before time runs out in order to win the game. Either player can decide to give the first one-word clue to the other player, along with a number. Whoever receives the clue places a finger on a card to identify that agent. If correct, they can attempt to identify another one. If they identify a bystander, then their guessing time ends. If they identify an assassin, you both lose! Unlike regular Codenames, they can keep guessing as long as they keep identifying an agent each time; this is useful for going back to previous clues and finding ones they missed earlier. After the first clue is given, players alternate giving clues.

Game Mechanics:

  • Cooperative
  • Deduction
  • Limited Communication
  • Memory
  • Push Your Luck
  • Word Game

Game Specifications:

  • 2 Players
  • 15 – 30 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.36

Codenames: Disney – Family Edition

In Codenames, two teams compete to see who can guess all of their words correctly first — but those words are hiding in plain sight in a 5×5 or grid that includes the words of the other team, neutral words, and an game over card that will cause you to lose the game immediately if you guess it. One person on each team is a spymaster and only these two know which words belong to each team. Spymasters take turns giving one-word clues that can point to multiple words on the board. Their teammates try to guess words of the right color while avoiding those that belong to the opposing team — and everyone wants to avoid the game over card. This version also comes with 4×4 grid cards with no game over spot to make it more accessible for families and children.

The Disney Family Edition of Codenames combines the hit social word game with some of Disney’s most beloved properties from the past 90 years. Including both pictures and words, it’s family fun for Disney fans of all ages.Codenames: Disney Family Edition keeps the Codenames gameplay, while featuring characters and locations from over 90 years of Disney and Pixar films..

Game Mechanics:

  • Deduction
  • Limited Communication
  • Memory
  • Party Game
  • Push Your Luck
  • Team-Based Game
  • Word Game

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 8 Players
  • ~15 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.23

Codenames

Codenames is an easy party game to solve puzzles.

The game is divided into red and blue, each side has a team leader, the team leader’s goal is to lead their team to the final victory.
At the beginning of the game, there will be 25 cards on the table with different words. Each card has a corresponding position, representing different colors.

Only the team leader can see the color of the card. The team leader should prompt according to the words, let his team members find out the cards of their corresponding colors, and find out all the cards of their own colors to win.

Game Mechanics:

  • Deduction
  • Limited Communication
  • Memory
  • Party Game
  • Push Your Luck
  • Team-Based Game
  • Word Game

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 8 Players
  • ~15 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.26

Cindr

Date Dragons, Without Getting Burned!

Are you a dragon looking for companionship?
Or just the adventurous type, looking to join the exciting dragon dating scene? Cindr is a ‘push your luck’ dice and card game that allows players to set up a dating profile and then thumb through potential matches, seeing if a given dragon sounds compatible.

If so, Meet Up and say hello – and if that goes well, push your luck, and take the Next Step. You never know, before the date is over you may just take things to the Next Level! The better the dates go, the more Love points you earn – but watch out, just 3 Flames will leave you burned, scoreless and searching for love all over again. Will you be the first of your friends to find love and fulfillment?

  • A 30-minute, push your luck dice game for 1-5 players, where the more compatible you are, the better the odds get of not getting burned.
  • A fun, light-hearted send-up of dating apps like Tinder, with tarot-sized cards as the app deck and date locations with special bonuses provided by the “Whelp” app deck.

Game Mechanics:

  • Dice Rolling
  • Push Your Luck
  • Re-rolling and Locking

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 5 Players
  • 30 – 40 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.33

Can’t Stop

In this Sid Sackson classic, players must press their luck with dice and choose combinations tactically to close out three columns. The board has one column for each possible total of two six-sided dice, but the number of spaces in each column varies: the more probable a total, the more spaces in that column and the more rolls it takes to complete. On their turn, a player rolls four dice and arranges them in duos: 1 4 5 6 can become 1+4 and 5+6 for 5 & 11, 1+5 and 4+6 for 6 & 10, or 1+6 and 4+5 for 7 & 9. The player places or advances progress markers in the open column(s) associated with their chosen totals, then chooses whether to roll again or end their turn and replace the progress markers with markers of their color. A player can only advance three different columns in a turn and cannot advance a column which any player has closed out by reaching the end space; if a roll doesn’t result in any legal plays, the turn ends with that turn’s progress lost.

A predecessor from 1974, The Great Races, exists as a paper-and-pencil game.

Game Mechanics:

  • Dice Rolling
  • Push Your Luck
  • Racing

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • ~30 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.15

Key to the Kingdom

Key to the Kingdom

Key to the Kingdom

Key to the Kingdom is a restoration of the 1990 classic game. The new version features the classic hole-in-the-board mechanism to hop through portals and explore the Demon King’s domain.

As the kingdom’s not-so-mightiest heroes — Pitiless Pixie, Knovice Knight, Unique Unicorn, Merciless Mercenary, and Gnarled Gnome — you’ll go on adventures to gather the three pieces of the magic key, then hop through a portal to defeat the Demon King once and for all.

This new version gives players greater control over the whims of the dice. You’ll use your collection of items to tweak your rolls. But make sure you have the right item ready when you go on an adventure to give you an easier path through. You’ll get magic items and companions along the way as well. It also adds a new endgame in which you need to face a series of mini-challenges to win the game.

Game Mechanics:

  • Push Your Luck
  • Racing
  • Take That

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 5 Players
  • 20 – 90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.20