Trick-taking

Fox in the Forest Duet

In the innovative, two-player co-operative trick-taking game The Fox in the Forest Duet, players team up, helping each other move through the forest.

Work together to play tricks and move through the forest. Use the special abilities of the characters to exchange cards with each other, to let your teammate follow with any card, and more. Win as a team by collecting all the gems, but be careful to stay on the path and not get lost in the forest!

—description from the publisher

Time Chase

You've done it! You've cracked the code to unlock time travel! Your breakthrough invention has the potential to revolutionize the world as we know it, and undoubtedly your genius will be celebrated across the globe. However, it appears that some of your scientific colleagues within the laboratory are trying to use your invention to travel back in time and claim the credit for themselves. You must stop them and claim your rightful place in history!

Time Chase is a trick-taking game with a twist. You are allowed to travel back in time to previous tricks, known as events, and change their outcome. The first player to control three events in the timeline wins!

—description from the publisher

Claim

The King is dead! What happened? Nobody really knows, but he was found face down in a wine barrel this morning. It could have been either foul play or his own thirst that did him in. Regardless, the King is dead without any known heirs, so it's up to the five factions of the realm to decide who will be the new king: Will it be you or your opponent? Do you have what it takes to win over the realm's factions?

Claim is played in two distinct phases. In phase one, each player gets a hand of cards that they use to recruit followers. In phase two, they use the followers from phase one to compete and win over the five factions of the realms. Each faction has a special power that effects play, and powers can be different in each phase! At the end of the game, the player who has the majority of followers of a faction wins that faction's vote, and whoever wins the vote of at least three factions wins the game!

Pirate Tricks

The Landor Syndicate, a pirate alliance in an area of space controlled by the Lunar Orion Order, needs a new leader. The outgoing Supreme Admiral is looking for his replacement. Players take on the role of rival captains recruiting crews, capturing rival pirates, and collecting treasure.

Pirate Tricks is a trick-taking game for 3 to 5 players with a unique scoring system. The game is played over three hands. Each hand has different scoring goals. Once the scoring cards are revealed, the players are dealt five cards. Then players each bid on another 7 cards to complete their hands.

As the players bid for cards, they will look to gain certain cards that will boost their scores. While taking tricks, the players will need to be mindful of the different factions of pirates as some will score higher than others or may be worth negative points. At the end of the hand the players will collect treasure based on how well they matched the treasure scoring card. During some hands the players will want to get as many tricks as possible, other hands they will want to have few to no tricks, or they may have to match a predicted number of tricks taken.

Play continues for three hands. New scoring cards are revealed before each hand. After three hands, whichever player has gathered the most treasure will be proclaimed the next Supreme Admiral of the Landor Syndicate.

Tichu

Tichu took much of its rules and mechanics from Zheng Fen. It is a partnership climbing card game, and the object of play is to rid yourself of your hand, preferably while scoring points in the process.

The deck is a standard 52-card pack with four special cards added: dog, phoenix, dragon and Mah Jong (1). When it's your turn, you may either beat the current top card combination — single card, pair of cards, sequence of pairs, full house, etc. — or pass. If play passes all the way back to the player who laid the top cards, he wins the trick, clears the cards, and can lead the next one. The card led determines the only combination of cards that can be played on that trick, so if a single card is led, then only single cards are played; if a straight of seven cards is led, then only straights of seven cards can be played, etc.

The last player out in a round gives all the cards he won to the player who exited first, and the last player's unplayed cards are handed to the opposite team. Fives, tens and Kings are worth 5, 10 and 10 points, with each hand worth one hundred points without bonuses — but the bonuses are what drive the game. At the start of a round, each player can call "Tichu" prior to her playing any card. This indicates that she thinks that she can empty her hand first this round; if she does so, her team scores 100 points, and if not, it loses 100 points. Cards are dealt at the start of a round in a group of eight and a group of six; a player can call "Grand Tichu" after looking at only her first eight cards for a ±200 point bonus. If both players on a team exit a round prior to either player on the opposite team, then no points are scored for cards and the winning team earns 200 points (with Tichu/Grand Tichu bonuses and penalties being applied as normal).

The first team to 1,000 points wins.