Open Drafting

Sydney's Royal Botanic Garden holds a special place in the hearts of locals. World renowned for its location, beauty, and historical and scientific significance, each of its 29 hectares are not only stunning, but a calming retreat from the city's streets.

In The Gardens, players draft cards depicting different features of the Gardens, using them to build their own portion of it in front of themselves. Players then score points based on what their visitors see as they walk past the Gardens' various flower beds, ponds, native trees, and statues. The tableau you build will have three rows — waterside, grass, and cityside — and you add one card a turn until the area is filled.

The game is accessible and simple to learn, yet offers strategic choices. Its included modules add variability and depth for experienced players, with landmarks such as the Opera House and Harbour Bridge that players can gain for extra points or special abilities, so join the picnickers, joggers, lorikeets, and bin chickens, and enjoy your day in the beautiful Botanic gardens.

-description from publisher

Spain, 1936: General Franco and his troops advance through the territories of Spain, giving way to a long period of civil war and repression. After the Spanish Civil War, a group of loyalists to the Republic continued the armed struggle, forming resistance groups better known as "Maquis". Hidden in the mountains, these men and women risked their lives to defend the ideals of democracy and freedom.

Fighting against them were the Army of Franco, the Civil Guard, and the Armed Police, but the Maquis perfected their guerilla warfare in France during the second World War and were determined to take back their homeland. In the head of each Maquis resonated the echo of the desire of many compatriots: Resist!

Resist! is a fast-playing, card-driven solitaire game in which you take on the role of the Spanish Maquis, fighting against the Francoist regime. Over a series of rounds, you undertake increasingly difficult missions, and completing missions earns you the points needed to win. Failing to defeat missions and enemies may cause you to lose. At the end of each round, you must choose whether to end the resistance or risk it and take on another mission.

At the beginning of the game, you assemble a team of twelve Maquis, which are represented by a deck of cards. At the heart of the game is the tension between keeping your Maquis concealed from Franco or revealing them to unlock their full potential. Unfortunately, revealed Maquis are removed from your deck, and you likely won't be able to use them for the rest of the game. While Resist! does have some minor deck-building elements, it is primarily a "deck-destruction" game in which you have to manage your deck, balancing the decision of defeating the immediate threat with trying to move on to the next mission.

It's a beautiful day at the beach, and the surfers are out shopping for new boards. Create the coolest and biggest longboards to establish your surfboard-shaping shop as the best in town. Surf's up!

In Longboard, players draft and trade surfboard pieces as they attempt to build the tallest and most surfboards. More specifically, on a turn you take two actions, with three types of actions being possible:

Add a card from the deck to your personal supply, that is, cards lying face up in front of you.
Take a card from your supply to start or lengthen a board; all cards in a board have to be the same color (or wild) and each new card on a board must be equal to or greater in value than the card below it.
Place one or more cards in your supply in an opponent's supply, then take a single card from their supply of value less than the sum of what you gave them and use this card to start or lengthen a board.

Each board card features 1-3 stickers, which count as points when the surfboard is complete, that is, when it contains at least four cards. When a player has 3-4 complete boards, at least one of which contains 7+ cards, they can choose to end the game. If that doesn't happen before the deck runs out, the game ends at that point. Players then score sticker points on completed boards, lose points for incomplete boards, and score bonus points if they have the longest completed board or the most completed boards or if they have completed any of the four random objective cards put into play at the start of the game.

In Circus Flohcati, players collect acts from the flea circus to score points, with the game containing ten types (colors) of acts, with acts being valued from 0-7 points.

On a turn, you can choose one of the face-up cards on the table and add that to your hand or flip the top card from the deck and add it to the cards on display. If you flip an action card, you must take that action — often stealing a card from an opponent — then your turn ends. If you flip a card of the same color as any face-up card, then you instead discard the newly revealed card and your turn ends with you getting nothing. Otherwise, you again face the same options: Collect a face-up card or reveal a new card.

If on your turn you have three cards of the same value in hand, you can play this trio on the table for a guaranteed 10 points. The game ends either when someone reveals that they have all ten acts in hand or when the deck has been exhausted. You score only for the highest-valued act of each color, so either avoid taking duplicate colors or ditch them in trios. If you have all ten acts in hand, score a 10-point "gala show" bonus. Whoever has the highest score wins.

Editions of Circus Flohcati bear a player count of either 2-5 or 3-5, but they don't differ in the rules or nature of the components.

The young monarch has no knack for governing. Take advantage of this by taking on all the most prestigious government duties! Share cards, choose the most high-profile jobs...then experience an auction phase as belligerent as it is clever!

In For the King (and Me), you wish to become the most valuable minister by collecting the right cards while lowering the value of your opponents' objectives. The game plays the same as the designer's earlier game Biblios, while allowing for play with up to five people at once.

The game lasts multiple rounds with players first collecting cards, then bidding for cards. During the collection phase, as the active player you draw cards one at a time, keeping one for yourself, placing one in an auction pile, and placing the others face up for the other players to draft. Once you take a card, you can't take another, so sometimes it's a tough call to decide when you want to take something. Once you've had multiple collection phases, the cards in the auction pile will be auctioned one by one.

Some cards are worth points depending on their color, some are worth gold, and some allowing you to manipulate the value of the various colors. Once all the cards have been auctioned, players reveal their hands and tally their points to see who wins.