Card games live and die by their decks, whether you’re playing a simple standalone set or diving into a collectible one where every booster pack might change your luck. Some are quick and self-contained, others are deep rabbit holes of deckbuilding and trading, but they all share that same thrill of drawing just the right card at the right time.
Some examples of card games are Duck & Cover, Walking in Osaka and La Cuenta.
Kinoko Kombat – An Educated Mushroom Guess
Every year, leaders from across the Mushroom Kingdom gather for a tournament, recruit Kinoko from different factions and try to put together the best team. Being individually strong isn’t everything here. What matters is getting the right group of mushroom fighters together. Whoever scores the most across the tournament gets to rule the kingdom for…
Jusayo – I’m Pretty Sure You Have One
In most card games, having useful cards in your hand is a good thing. In Jusayo, we’d often rather make somebody else play theirs. You ask another player for a card, watch what comes out of their hand, and try to remember it for later. Ask the wrong person, though, and you’re out of the…
Snowy Tricks – One Trick, Several Plans
Fresh snow has covered the mountain and a new season has started. In Snowy Tricks, we’re snowboard instructors trying to prove that we’re the best instructor around. Naturally, we do this by sending our students down the mountain while we remain safely at the top. They perform the tricks, we take the credit. I mean,…
Meow Heist – Surely Nobody Else Picked a 5
Put a pile of colourful gems in front of us and apparently our first instinct is to steal them. At least, that’s what Meow Heist expects us to do. We’re all cat burglars trying to empty a series of safes, collect the most valuable gems and, preferably, leave the black rocks for somebody else. The…
Echoes of Time – Waiting for Your Engine to Arrive
Building an engine is usually quite simple in theory. You play a card, it does something useful, and then you add another card that hopefully makes the first one even better. Echoes of Time makes one fairly important change to that idea: most cards you play aren’t actually yours to use yet. They first have…
Hiifuu – Two Tricks, Please
Winning tricks is normally the point of a trick-taking game. In Hiifuu, you need to be a little more restrained. Your aim each round is to win exactly two tricks. One isn’t enough, while a third means you’ve gone too far and won’t score anything that round. The original Japanese title, Hii Fuu!, means “1,…
Wingspan Pocket – Can Six Birds Really Be Enough?
If you’ve played Wingspan, you probably know the general routine. You collect birds, feed them, lay eggs and slowly build a collection where one bird’s ability can help another. Wingspan Pocket takes several of those ideas and rebuilds them around a much smaller game. There are no habitat boards, food dice or birdfeeder here. Instead,…
Parks & Potions – Every Potion Counts
Alchemy in board games usually involves wizards, ancient laboratories, and a suspicious amount of bubbling liquid. Parks & Potions takes a friendlier approach. Here, we’re park rangers using botanical alchemy to heal animals found across forests, wetlands, and other natural habitats. No monsters need defeating, and nobody is trying to turn the local beaver into…
The Phantom of the Opera – Following the Score Instead of the Tricks
The Phantom of the Opera takes Gaston Leroux’s story and turns it into a two-player trick-taking game. One player becomes the Phantom, trying to finish a composition for Christine. The other plays Christine, who wants to leave that composition unfinished and finally escape his influence. The music sheet between the players shows how close the…
Crops – Farming With One Eye on the Moon
In Crops, you have twelve turns to build a field of vegetables in a 3 by 4 grid. You place crop cards, connect matching family symbols, add goals to individual columns, and create moon phases between neighbouring cards. The problem is that a card rarely helps with everything at once. The carrot that completes one…
Kuroshio – Route Building on the Open Ocean
The Kuroshio Current carries warm water north through the western Pacific, along Taiwan and Japan. It attracts large schools of fish, followed by bigger predators, whales and fishing boats hoping to find a valuable catch. In Kuroshio, we add sea cards to the table, sail through fish schools and try to reach useful fishing grounds…
Countryside – Four Workers and Too Many Farm Plans
A small patch of land slowly turns into a proper countryside. A field appears, then a garden, perhaps a barn, and before long there are fruit trees, animals, crops, and people all trying to be useful at the same time. Countryside looks welcoming, with its hand-painted artwork and familiar farming theme. Underneath that presentation is…
Octobuns – Baking Orders With Eight Arms and Nine Spaces
The harbour is busy, the customers are hungry, and somewhere in the middle of all that chaos, an octopus is trying to run a bakery. That already sounds like a good start for a card game. In Octobuns, players are octopus bakers collecting ingredients, making buns, and completing orders for the local harbour visitors. It…
Carnuta – A Druidic Potion Puzzle With Sun and Moon Runes
Deep in the forest of Carnuta, a group of druids comes together for their yearly ritual. Not to hug trees, although I’m not judging, but to brew potions and decide who deserves the title of druid of the year. In Carnuta, you collect ingredients, manage sun and moon runes, and slowly build your own potion…
Moon Colony Bloodbath – Build an Engine, Then Watch It Break
Humanity has finally made it. We have permanent settlements on the Moon, rockets are arriving with supplies, colonists are ready for a fresh start, and robots are standing by to do the heavy work. It all sounds very promising, doesn’t it? A clean step towards the stars, with the Moon as our first real base…
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