Hand Management

Gadget Builder

Gadget Builder is a family card game from designer Tom Lehmann that riffs on the core idea of Crazy Eights: match number or color to play your cards and try to empty your hand first.

The twist is that you can use cards from a fifth suit to build various gadgets that persist from hand to hand and help you get rid of your cards. Which gadgets do you build? When do you use them?

You can use only one gadget per turn, and to go out, you must have no cards in hand and no unused gadgets. If you empty your hand but haven't used all of your gadgets, you draw one card for each unused gadget, so don't build it unless you're going to use it!

Forest Shuffle: Dartmoor

Forest Shuffle: Dartmoor is a stand-alone game within the Forest Shuffle family and introduces a brand new habitat and features new species with new abilities and bonuses to explore. As in the earlier original Forest Shuffle, in Forest Shuffle: Dartmoor players compete to build the most valuable environment by placing trees and shrubs, then attracting species to these locations to create an ecologically balanced habitat for flora and fauna.

What's new in Dartmoor is the introduction of TERRAIN cards that are played horizontally and serve as a home or feeding ground for different species than trees or shrubs. Due to the nature of the terrain, species can only be placed above and below a terrain card. Deer and other species stay clear from bogs or peat areas in the moorland. They need their drink, but won't feel safe at dwells or next to rivulets. So players have to be watch out, where to place their species.

Like its predecessor, Forest Shuffle: Dartmoor comes with a unique back side: Each of the 180 cards of the deck can be placed face down, creating a bog, if the action allows it. The caves in Forest Shuffle: Dartmoor now will be drafted at the beginning of the game and offer asymmetrical starting conditions. On top, the number of tree symbols has been reduced from eight to six to enable bonuses more easily.

The game mechanism stays untouched: To start, each player has six cards in hand, with cards depicting either a particular type of tree, shrub or terrain or two moor dwellers (animal, plants), with these latter cards being divided in half, whether vertically or horizontally, with one dweller in each card half. On a turn, either draw two cards — whether face down from the deck or face up from the clearing — and add them to your hand, or play a card from your hand by discarding other cards to pay the cost, then putting that first card into play. In the end, the player with the highest score wins.

Gwent: The Legendary Card Game

Experience The Witcher universe in an entirely new way with Gwent: The Legendary Card Game. Inspired by the iconic mini-game from The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, this official physical edition brings the strategic, faction-based card game to your tabletop.

In Gwent, two players build decks from factions such as the Northern Realms, Scoia'tael, Monsters, Skellige, and Nilfgaard, each with its own unique set of cards and abilities.

The goal of the game is to win two out of three rounds. The battlefield features multiple rows to which players will deploy their units and special ability cards to battle it out. Players must skillfully bluff, manage their resources, and read their opponent's moves in order to wisely choose when to push aggressively to win a round — and when to hold back and play for the long game.

Earthborne Rangers

Earthborne Rangers is a customizable, co-operative card game set in the wilderness of the far future. You take on the role of a Ranger, a protector of the mountain valley you call home: a vast wilderness transformed by monumental feats of science and technology devised to save the Earth from destruction long ago. The story of Earthborne Rangers is presented as a branching narrative campaign consisting of a main storyline and a multitude of side stories. In it, you can choose to follow the critical path or to strike off on your own to discover the Valley's many engaging characters, mysterious ruins, and beings both familiar and strange.

You begin by building a deck that reflects your Ranger's interests, personal history, and personality. Then, as you explore the open world and your story takes shape, you augment your deck with improved equipment, refined skills, and the memories of your journey.

Each game session represents one day in the Valley, and you'll pick up in the same location on the map where you rested the night before. Your goal is to either complete one of your available missions or to explore the open world. The session ends when you're either forced to rest (through either fatigue or injury), or you choose to rest for the night.

An individual game session is played in rounds, and those rounds consist of turns. On your turn, you perform one action: either play a card from your hand, or choose an action from a card on the table. Each action allows you to interact thematically and narratively with the world, and each time you take an action, the world comes to life around you. Predators stalk their prey, rain pours from the sky, rocks tumble down the mountain to block your path, and much more.

—description from the publisher

Zenith

In the far-off future, the solar system is inhabited by 3 races: Humans, Robots, and Animods.
Civilization runs off of Zenithium, a clean and renewable energy source, but coexistence is a struggle.
Your goal: unite the planets to gain control of the senate!

Players will struggle to gain Influence on the 5 planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, and Jupiter. This Influence is represented by discs in different colors.

In Zenith, there are 3 victory conditions:

Absolute victory: Gain 3 Influence discs from the same planet.
Democratic victory: Gain 4 Influence discs from strictly different planets.
Popular victory: Gain 5 Influence discs (from any planets).

The game ends immediately as soon as one player meets 1 of these three conditions.

—description from the publisher