Hand Management

We Care: a Grizzled Game

A terrible pandemic is spreading through the population. Hospitals are filling up with patients in need of care. Acting as the front-line soldiers against the epidemic are scores of healthcare professionals. They must battle against limited resources and the twin dangers of getting sick and mental breakdown as they try and treat everyone. All hope rests on their capable shoulders.

We Care — based on The Grizzled and inspired by current world events — puts players deep in the trenches as healthcare professionals battling a terrible disease. Working together, players must use their limited resources wisely. The stress of the job is a constant worry, as is possibly contracting the illness themselves.

Part of the proceeds from sales of We Care will go to a healthcare NGO, letting players actually fight against the real-world pandemic.

Happy Little Dinosaurs

Lately, it feels like we’re all just dinosaurs trying to avoid the falling meteors. In this game, you’ll try to dodge all of life’s little disasters. You might fall into a pit of hot lava or get ghosted by your dino date, but the dino who survives it all wins the game!

In Happy Little Dinosaurs, the first person to reach 50 points, or be the last Dinosaur standing, wins the game! During each round, you’ll flip a Disaster card featuring a Natural, Predatory, or Emotional disaster. Each player will play a Point card in hopes of collecting points and avoiding the disaster.

You will work to avoid all of life’s little disasters and laugh as they happen to your friends. If you collect 3 Disaster cards of the same type OR 3 different types of Disaster cards, you will be out of the game. Point cards feature weapons, trinkets, and good luck charms that you use to collect points and avoid disasters. Each card has a point value between 0 and 9 that you will use when scoring a round. You can use Instant cards at different points during the game to tip the odds in your favor or save your Dinosaur from certain death.

Player boards include your Dinosaur's traits, an Escape Route you use to track your score, and a Disaster Area where you will collect Disaster cards. Player boards include your Dinosaur's traits, an Escape Route you use to track your score, and a Disaster Area where you will collect Disaster cards. You'll move your Dinosaur meeple along the Excape Route on your player board to track your score. Will you successfully dodge the disasters or get eaten by a prehistoric whale? Only the cards can decide.

Embarcadero

San Francisco, 1850. The Gold Rush is in full swing. Ships stream steadily in San Francisco Bay, brimming with would-be treasure hunters. Anchored off the coast of the boomtown lies a flotilla of abandoned vessels, their crews long since taken by gold fever. A few business moguls stake their claims on these derelict ships, towing them into the harbor to house their growing empires. Over time, this wharfside district, known as the embarcadero, would become the very heart of business enterprise in the thriving port city.

In Embarcadero, players step into the shoes of these savvy entrepreneurs. Build San Francisco on the hulls of these abandoned vessels and carve out a foothold in the city council. Do you have what it takes to rule the waterfront?

The game takes place over three rounds. In each round, players take turns playing cards and placing tiles to take control of wharves to earn points and influence.

—description from publisher

Stellar

Space! For millennia, humans have marveled at the cosmos. Modern astronomy gives us valuable insight about what’s happening in the universe, but there is still a sense of wonder to be had in looking up at the expanse above us.

In Stellar, you are stargazers, calibrating your telescopes to bring into view celestial objects of various types — planets, moons, asteroids, interstellar clouds, black holes, even satellites — as you create a beautiful display of the night sky!

You have eleven rounds to play cards to your telescope and notebook, building a night sky tableau. After that, you'll calculate your points, and the stargazer with the most point wins!

—description from the publisher

Red Rising

Enter the futuristic universe of Red Rising, based on the book series by Pierce Brown featuring a dystopian society divided into fourteen castes. You represent a house attempting to rise to power as you piece together an assortment of followers (represented by your hand of cards). Will you break the chains of the Society or embrace the dominance of the Golds?

Red Rising is a hand-management, combo-building game for 1-6 players (45-60 minute playing time). You start with a hand of 5 cards, and on your turn you will deploy 1 of those cards to a location on the board, activating that card’s deploy benefit. You will then gain the top card from another location (face up) or the deck (face down), gaining that locations benefit and adding the card to your hand as you enhance your end-game point total. If at any point you’re really happy with your hand, you can instead use your turn to reveal a card from the top of the deck and place it on a location to gain that location’s benefit.

—description from the publisher