Hand Management

In CODEX Naturalis, you must continue the work of the illuminating monk Tybor Kwelein, assembling the pages of a manuscript that lists the living species in primary forests. Can you put the pages together in the best order possible? And are you prepared to sacrifice a species to develop your manuscript?

In the game, each player starts with a single card on the table, a card that shows some combination of the four possible resources in the middle of the card, in the corners of the card, or both. Players also have two resource cards and one gold card in hand, while two of each type of card are visible on the table.

On a turn, you place a card from your hand overlapping the corners of one or more cards you already have in play. Your starting card has four overlappable corners, while resource and gold cards have only three.

Resource cards have no cost to be played, and they often depict resource symbols in their corners.
Gold cards deliver points when played, but they often have a resource requirement, e.g., three fungi or two plant/one animal/one insect, and you must have those resources visible in your manuscript at the time you play the gold card. You score points from this card immediately, with some cards having a fixed value and others a variable one depending on how many of a certain symbol are showing or how many corners you covered this turn.

If you wish, you can play a card from your hand face down; such a card has four corners and one resource, but provides no points. After you play, draw a face-up card or the top card of either deck to refill your hand.

When a player reaches 20 points, you complete the round, and each player takes one additional turn. Players then score points based on how well they matched two public objective cards and one secret objective card, after which the player with the most points wins.

When offered a lucrative job, a lone bounty hunter begins a journey that will put his skills to the test and redefine his world.

The Mandalorian: Adventures allows players to experience a new part of the Star Wars universe on their tabletops. Navigating unique maps and missions, players must co-operate to accomplish their goals and avoid defeat. Play as one of eight unique characters, each with their own deck of cards and strategies that will help you fight enemies and solve dilemmas to complete mission objectives. All of the action takes place in an illustrated map book as players recreate iconic moments from season 1 of the hit Disney+ series. With an intuitive system that's easy to teach, the game grows with new rules, components, and mission types added over time – some even featuring a hidden traitor mechanism...

In Flowers: A Mandala Game, your goal is to collect flower tiles by achieving majorities through clever card play. Skillfully build mandalas to claim the best tiles, combining and multiplying them to create exquisite flowers of your own!

To set up, layout the game cloth showing three large "mandala" flowers. Shuffle the 36 half-flower tiles in separate decks — 18 each of black and white, with the black flowers being gray, purple, and red on the opposite side and the white ones being green, orange, and yellow — then place one black tile and one white tile face up in each flower. Each player starts with a hand of cards, with the cards coming in six colors that match the flower tile colors.

On a turn, a player lays down one or more cards of the same color onto one of the flowers. (Each player keeps their played cards separate, facing toward themselves.) If that color is already present in the mandala, the player then flips the card(s) face down; if not, the player leaves them face up. If the player laid down one card, they draw two cards from the deck; if they played two or more, they don't draw any cards.

After playing, if you have at least one face-up card on a flower and more cards than any other player, take that flower's "claim" token and place it on your cards. Then, if that flower now has all six colors face up around it, destroy the mandala. Whoever has the claim token on their cards places one of the flower tiles from this mandala in front of themselves; if they already have a flower tile of the same color, they flip this "complete" flower face down. Whoever has the secondmost cards on this mandala takes the second flower tile. Anyone who took a flower tile discards all of their played cards on this mandala; everyone else returns their played cards to their hand. Draw a black tile and white tile from the stack to create a new mandala.

Continue play until someone completes their third flower, then everyone scores their points. Each separate flower half is worth as many points as the number of flowers on it. For each complete flower, if one of the tiles is 3x, triple the number of flowers on the other tile; if both tiles have flowers, double the number of flowers on the tile with fewer flowers. Whoever has the most points wins.

Mantis Falls is a "sometimes cooperative" game of hidden roles, strategy and deduction for 2-3 players.

As witness to something not meant to be seen, you must escape the dark mob-ruled town of Mantis Falls alive. You are told another witness will join you, and together you must use cooperation to survive the increasingly dangerous roads of the night. Your ability to work with another could be your greatest strength, but what if they are not who they claim to be?

By the deal of hidden roles, each game could have only witnesses, meaning you must all survive together to win. Or there could secretly be an assassin hidden among you, subtly manipulating the situation and waiting for the right moment to strike.

Inspired by shadowy film noir worlds, Mantis Falls is a thematic journey that requires players to continually weigh the value of cooperation against the implicit perils of trust. Hand management and facedown card play combine with opportunities for betrayal to create a detailed blend of strategy, player interaction and suspicion. At every turn, players make concealed moves and develop hidden plans, but will also have thorough conversations as they discuss tactics, defend choices and bluff to protect carefully guarded secrets.

Mantis Falls is sometimes a game of competition balanced with indecision and sacrifice, and sometimes it is a game of cooperation challenged by doubts and distrust. With care, you may figure out which one you are playing before it's too late.

TRICKTAKERs is a...trick-taking game featuring role selection. After being dealt a hand of cards, the players choose from various characters (such as King or Gambler) that change how they will participate in the game.

The basic game consists of three rounds of trick-taking, and the winner will be the person that wins the most tricks in two of the three rounds. Alternatively, if no one achieves that condition, if a player has taken no tricks in all three rounds, they will be the winner.

Not mentioned above, the game also has a higher priority victory condition and a lower one. Each character in the game grants the player holding it a special "immediate victory" condition that could be achieved. The characters also give the players ways to earn points, and this is the lowest tier of victory determination: who has the most points.

To illustrate some of the character abilities, the Gambler can discard cards from the initial hand to draw replacements, and will bid for how many tricks they take, possibly granting them extra points if successful. The Resistance has the potential to cause a "revolution" which reverses the strength of the ranks, and earns more points if they can win tricks with what would normally be the "high" cards.