Ladder Climbing

The gray morning has arrived, and the vampires of the ancient clans must now hurry back to their tombs. For the high and mighty this is easy, but the smaller, weaker vampires have the strength to do this only in groups. Thus, you as the vampire lord might want to play out several with low values together in order not to be surpassed. Whatever you do in Vampire Queen, though, be sure to rid yourself of an intrusive vampire hunter because no one wants to get stuck with that!

The deck consists of cards numbered 1-13, four vampire queens that have variable value, and two vampire hunters. Players start with a hand of 9-13 cards depending on the player count, and the start player for a round plays from their hand either a single card, multiple cards of the same value, or a vampire hunter. Vampire queens on their own (or in a pair, triplet, or quartet) are valued at 14, but they can be played with other cards and adopt the value of those cards. For a single card or a set of cards (e.g., three 6s), each other player in turn can either pass or play the same number of cards but of a higher value (e.g., three 9s). Whoever plays the highest card(s) wins the round and leads off the next round.

If the round's start player leads a vampire hunter, it counts as value 0 and each other player must play exactly one (non-vampire hunter) card of whatever value they want. Whoever plays the highest card takes all played cards into their hand, then leads off the next round, but they cannot lead with the same vampire hunter they just won.

When one or more players have emptied their hand at the end of a round, the round ends. Players then score points for all cards still in hand, with number cards being worth their face value, queens being 14, and vampire hunter cards being 15 or 20, as indicated. Players with vampire hunters in hand keep them, then shuffle all cards and deal new hands to all players, with the player who holds the 20 starting. After five rounds, whoever has scored the fewest points wins.

The latest edition of the Seers Catalog has everything you need for stopping werewolves. Can you limit yourself to the essentials in time to save the village?

Seers Catalog is an almost-shedding card game in which each player tries to get rid of almost all of the cards in their hand. Each round, players have a unique set of artifacts that give them asymmetric abilities to help manage their hand of cards. When one player runs out of cards, the round is scored: Each card is worth -1, but if you have five or fewer cards in your hand, the lowest value on those cards is worth positive points! However, once you have five or fewer cards, you can no longer voluntarily pass, so holding on to a high-value card near the end of the round hoping for a big payout can result in total failure.

Haggis is a climbing game in the same family as Zheng Fen and Big Two. It borrows and recombines elements from its parent games - card combinations, bombs, scoring for cards in hand, scoring for cards collected in tricks - and it mixes in equally distributed wild cards and betting that you'll be the first to empty your hand of cards.

The card game Velonimo allows you to depict the merciless struggle in the animal world for the distinctive and highly prized "petits pois-carottes" jersey rewarded to the best climbing cyclist. This trick taking game features ultra simple rules for an absolutely addictive play experience.

Goal of the Game: Race to the summit to score as many points as possible and win the covered jersey. To win a race, you must be the first player to get rid of all your cards. Racer cards may be played alone or in specific combinations of the same color or same value. There are also breakaway specialist cards which work alone to speed ahead of the pack.

Victory: The game has 5 rounds, each representing the ascent of a different mountain summit by riders in a cycling race. To win the round, yo need to get rid of all of your cards before any other player. Even if you are not the winner, you can still score points for your position. Keep playing until there is only one player left. At the end of each round, the player with the highest points total is the leader and received the coveted jersey. The player who receives the jersey at the end of the last round, after the final scoring, is the winner.

SCOUT is a ladder-climbing game in which cards have two potential values, players may not rearrange their hand of cards, and players may pass their turn to take a card from the current high set of cards into their hand.

More specifically, cards are dual-indexed, with different values on each half of the card, with the 45 cards having all possible combinations of the numbers 1-10. During set-up, whoever is shuffling the cards should randomize both the order of the cards in the deck and their orientation. Once each player has been dealt their entire hand of cards, they pick up that hand without rearranging any of the cards; if they wish, they can rotate their entire hand of cards in order to use the values on the other end of each card, but again they cannot rearrange the order of cards in their hand.

On a turn, a player takes one of two actions:

• Play: A player chooses one or more adjacent cards in their hand that have all the same value or that have values in consecutive order (whether ascending or descending), then they play this set of cards to the table. They can do this only if the table is empty (as on the first turn) or the set they're playing is ranked higher than the set currently on the table; a set is higher if it has more cards or has cards of the same value instead of consecutive cards or has a set of the same quantity and type but with higher values. In this latter case when a player overplays another set, the player captures the cards in this previous set and places them face down in front of themselves.

• Scout: A player takes a card from either end of the set currently on the table and places it anywhere they wish in their hand in either orientation. Whoever played this previous set receives a 1 VP token as a reward for playing a set that wasn't beaten.

Once per round, a player can scout, then immediately play.

When a player has emptied their hand of cards or all but one player have scouted instead of playing, the round ends. Players receive 1 VP for each face-down card, then subtract one point for each card in their hand (except if they were the player scouted repeatedly to end the game). Play as many rounds as the number of players, then whoever has the most points wins.