Tag: Take That

Games with a “Take That” mechanic allows players to take actions that actively hinder an opponent’s progress in-game.

Dragon Farkle

| T3d-1978

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:

  • Mechanisms
  • Dice Rolling
  • Hand Management
  • Open Drafting
  • Push Your Luck
  • Re-rolling and Locking
  • Take That
  • Variable Player Powers

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 5 Players
  • 30 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.50

Doomlings

| T3d-1978

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:

  • End Game Bonuses
  • Events
  • Finale Ending
  • Hand Management
  • Move Through Deck
  • Set Collection
  • Take That

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 6 Players
  • 20 – 45 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.67

Don’t Talk to Strangers

| T3d-1978

School’s out but otherworldly STRANGERS are here! Mom & Dad haven’t caught on yet so you’re on your own, kiddo. Play your cards as efficiently as you can, helping to navigate your Kids one at a time from SCHOOL to a SCORING space–in order to score as many points as you can before the neighborhood is completely overrun with STRANGERS!

  1. At the start of the game, each player will draw a hand of 3 cards and place one of their kids in the SCHOOL space. Your goal is to get that kid into a valuable scoring space, at which point you’ll place a new kid in the SCHOOL space and repeat the process. Some spaces are worth more points at the end of the game, and some confer a unique bonus (for example, your hand size increases by 1 for each Kid you have in the Library).
  2. Remember, you want to score a good space, but you’ll have to Walk, Run, Skateboard, School Bus, and even City Bus to get there! Each turn you’ll play one card and draw a new card to replace it!
  3. But watch out! When any player draws a STRANGER card, they can abduct any kid on a “STRANGER SPACE!” Furthermore, now that a STRANGER is lurking in that space, it is impassable for all future movement…so you may just have to re-route your plans on the fly! SAUCER cards can abduct *any* kid–even one that has already scored–but your opponent will have to get lucky when they flip the SAUCER COIN or you’ll escape abduction!

—description from the publisher

Game Mechanics:

  • Take That

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 15 – 20 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.00

Doctor Who: The Card Game

| T3d-1978

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
  • Secret Unit Deployment
  • Take That

Game Specifications:

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

Dice Throne: Santa v. Krampus

| T3d-1978

Two new and original Dice Throne heroes battle in this exciting, accessible stand-alone dueling game.

Dice Throne is a game of intriguing dice, tactical card play, powerful heroes, and unique abilities.

It’s a fast-paced 2-6 player combat game (1v1, 2v2, 3v3, 2v2v2, or free-for-all). Select from a variety of heroes that play and feel completely distinct from one another. Attack opponents and activate abilities by rolling your hero’s unique set of five dice. Accumulate combat points and spend them on cards that have a large range of effects, such as granting permanent hero upgrades, applying status effects, and manipulating dice directly (yours, your teammate’s, or even your opponent’s).

Dice Throne: Santa v. Krampus introduces two new heroes that can play against each other or any other hero in Dice Throne. Also compatible with Dice Throne Adventures!

This is a stand-alone release supporting 2 players. Additional heroes are required to play with more than 2 players.

Game Mechanics:

  • Dice Rolling
  • Take That

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 6 Players
  • 20 – 40 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.06

Dice Throne: X-Men (Marvel)

| T3d-1978

In Marvel Dice Throne: X-Men, you become one of eight of Marvel’s iconic X-Men, including Wolverine, Storm, Cyclops, Rogue, Gambit, Psylocke, Iceman, and Jean Grey! Featuring all-new mechanisms and asymmetrical designs, these are some of our most innovative and exciting heroes yet!

Marvel Dice Throne: X-Men is a game of skilled card play and dice manipulation supporting multiple modes of play, including 1v1, 2v2, 3v3, 2v2v2, or free-for-all.

Attack your opponents and activate abilities by rolling your hero’s unique set of five dice. Accumulate combat points and spend them on cards with an extensive range of effects, such as granting permanent hero upgrades, applying status effects, and manipulating dice directly (yours, your teammate’s, or even your opponent’s).

All eight heroes are compatible with the entire Dice Throne ecosystem, and features a deluxe, highly functional, Battle Chest storage system, with a set of custom swirl dice for each hero!

Game Mechanics:

  • Dice Rolling
  • Take That

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 6 Players
  • 20 – 40 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.20

All Aboard!

| T3d-1978

“We sink!” shouts the elephant, “That mouse is too heavy!” “Don’t worry!” whispers the lion, “If I eat the giraffe, we can lose a little weight.”

In All Aboard! you must get your gang of animals to safety in the different boats, but be careful not to exceed their capacity, or else they will sink. Designed by Paco Yánez and illustrated by Monsuros, this fun card game can be played as a couple or in groups of up to 5 players, from 7 years old, in games lasting about 20 minutes.

Before starting, each player receives a set of 12 cards with the 12 different animals in the game (mouse, peacock, fox, octopus, monkey, sloth, elk, zebra, giraffe, lion, bear and elephant). The game is played over 4 rounds and each one consists of two phases: boarding the boats and setting sail. In the boarding phase, players will place one of the animals face up in any of the boats, taking into account that there can be no more than 3 animals in each one. In the second turn, they will place a new animal in any of the available boats, but this time face down; Finally, in the third turn a third animal will board the available boats, again face up.

At the beginning of the setting sail phase, all animal cards that have been played face down are revealed and then a check is made to see if there are two or more animals of the same species. If there are 2, they both fall in love (and the players will receive points for it). If there are 3, they fight and the boat sinks. Next, the animals activate their effects and finally the sum of the weight of the animals on board the boat is checked. If the weight of the animals is equal to or less than the weight that the boat can withstand, the animals manage to set sail and will score at the end of the game. Each player takes their animals and places them in a pile of saved animals in their playing area. If, on the other hand, the boat sinks, the animals are discarded.

Knowing when to play each animal is one of the keys to the game. However, depending on how your rivals play the cards, unforeseen situations can arise on the ships. Each animal has its own power, which can unleash chaos or balance the scales. Will you be able to save as many animals as possible?

Game Mechanics:

  • Hand Management
  • Push Your Luck
  • Take That

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 5 Players
  • ~20 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.60

Cover Your Kingdom

| T3d-1978

Cover Your Kingdom is an insanely fun, fast-paced, ruthless game based off of Cover Your Assets. In this game, each player will take on the role of a ruler to their own kingdom which, through some unfortunate accident, has lost all of its legendary creatures and therefore all of its magic. Your job is to recruit clans of these legendary creatures back to your kingdom, either in the Valley or the Mountains, by playing sets of the same creature. However, your rival rulers can lure your clans away from your kingdom by playing a matching creature, triggering a back-and-forth match battle until one person cannot or does not want to play another card. You can protect your existing clans by playing a new one on top of them, rotated 90 degrees from the previous one, as only the top clan in the stack can be recruited. 

Cover Your Kingdom also introduces Free Creatures, which do not join kingdoms but can be played to utilize their special abilities, giving you an edge over the other kingdoms. Whoever ends up with the most magic from the creatures in their kingdom wins the game!

Game Mechanics:

  • Hand Management
  • Set Collection
  • Take That

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 8 Players
  • 25 – 40 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.83

Cover Your Assets

| T3d-1978

In Cover Your Assets, you have one simple goal: be the first to become a millionaire. You will do this by stacking sets of valuables such as jewels or piggy banks. But be warned, your assets are very vulnerable! On their turn, other players can play a matching asset to steal your stack. You can play another matching asset card to prevent the thievery, sparking a back and forth battle until someone runs out of cards. Alternatively, you could cover your assets by playing a new set which always goes on top of your previous one (or stealing one yourself). Now, people have to steal your new assets before they can get to your true valuables. Be clever, be careful, and be sure to cover your assets!

Game Mechanics:

  • Hand Management
  • Set Collection
  • Take That

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 6 Players
  • 20 – 40 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.20

Coup: Deluxe Edition

| T3d-1978

Coup is all about who you know and how you use them. The game revolves around your “influence” – the face-down cards in front of you. Each card depicts a different character with their own powers that you can use. Each turn, a player will use their influence to perform various actions, all working towards removing other player’s influences. However, since no one knows what influences you have, you can lie to your hearts content – unless someone challenges you, making you lose an influence. Plan accordingly, avoid any coups, and be the last one remaining with influence left!

Game Mechanics:

  • Bluffing
  • Hidden Roles
  • Memory
  • Player Elimination
  • Take That
  • Variable Player Powers

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 8 Players
  • ~15 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.38