Hand Management

You have an invitation at 5 p.m. at the Mad Hatter’s garden. The table is ready, the cookies taste like buttery heaven, and the tea is strong and spicy. "More sugar?" asks the Mad Hatter, giving you a bizarre look.

"Yes, plea..."

"Time's up!" he yells, interrupting you. Sugar, cookies, and millions of hats fly everywhere. Tea spills all over the tablecloth as he proceeds with a huge smile on his face. "It's time to play a game."

•••

In Hats, two to four players compete to acquire the most outstanding hats by exchanging cards in hand with cards on the tea table board. Each card exchange influences how each hat is scored. Naturally, at the end of the game, the player with the highest score will be declared the maddest!

To play, everyone draws nine cards. You take your turn by performing one of the following two actions:

Exchange hats — Play a single card from your hand face up and exchange it with one of the same type (color) from the tea table board or exchange it for a card of any type but of a lower value. Add the card exchanged from the tea table board to your collection by placing it face up in front of you.

Create a black hat — Play a single card face down in front of you to add it to your collection as a black hat. Each black hat in a player's collection at game's end is worth 1 point.

Optional action: At any time during your turn, you may discard a single card of your choice to draw a new one from the draw deck. In a four-player game, players will exchange cards with their teammates.

END GAME SCORING

Hat Collection: Players earn points for the hat cards in their collection based on the position of the matching type on the tea table board. If two or more hat cards on the tea table board are of the same type, find the hat card of that type with the lowest position on the tea table board and keep it face up, while turning all other cards of that type face down.

Favorite Hat: Each player reveals the final card in their hand as their "favorite hat" type. Players gain points equal to the sum of all cards in their collection that match the type of their "favorite hat" minus the value of the final card in their hand.

The Last Cookie: There is only one cookie left at the table. Players compete for the cookie by having the most different types of hat cards in their collection. Black hats count as a type. During the game, pass the cookie to the player who has the most different types of hat cards. The chocolate chip cookie is worth five points at the end of the game.

—description from publisher

In It’s a Wonderful World, you are an expanding Empire and must choose your path to your future. You must develop faster and better than your competitors. You’ll carefully plan your expansion to develop your production power and rule over this new world.

It’s a Wonderful World is a cards drafting and engine building game from 1 to 5 players. Each round, players will draft 7 cards and then choose which ones will be recycled to immediately acquire Resources, and which ones will be kept for construction to produce Resources each round and/or gain victory points.

When a card is fully built, it’s added to the player’s Empire to increase the player’s production capacity for each round. The mechanical twist being that the production phase works in a specific order. You'll have to plan your constructions carefully!

For a deeper insight of the gameplay, please follow this link : https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2179801/its-wonderful-world-first-steps

In addition to the base game, players can also enjoy expansions boxes introducing an innovative Campaign mode. Each Campaign offers a storyline to follow and many gameplay twists. At the end of each campaign, players will open a reward booster to unlock new cards, enhance their base game and keep a memory of what happened during the campaign. All the campaigns can be replayed and don’t imply game components destruction.

More info on the Campaign mode : https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2188679/its-wonderful-world-campaign-mode

—description from the publisher

Each player is dealt a stockpile of 30 cards. The winner will be whoever manages to empty their stockpile first. Cards are played onto four shared building piles in numerical sequence from 1 to 12. On each turn, a player draws until they have five cards in their hand, and then plays cards from: their hand, a top card of their discard piles, or their stockpile. At the end of their turn, a player must discard onto one of their four personal discard piles. Strategy involves the organizing of cards into the discard piles, care in not setting up the next players for good plays, knowing when to play from which option, and especially the timing of playing a valuable "Skip-bo" wildcard.

Skip-bo is based on Traditional Card Games: Spite and Malice.

"I am very anxious to see the Galapagos Islands, -- I think both the Geology & Zoology cannot fail to be very interesting." -- Charles Darwin, Letter to his sister, Catherine in August 1835.

Assist Charles Darwin during the Beagle journey across the Galapagos Islands, discovering new species and researching them in order to improve your knowledge.

During their turn, the active player must choose between two actions:

Research: Put 2 research pieces on 2 different species tiles on the board, gaining the knowledge of air, land or water habitat.
Discover: use the acquired habitat knowledge to place new species tiles on the board, obtaining victory points and evolution, characters and objects cards. Additionally advance the Beagle on its track.

The game finishes when the Beagle reaches the last space of its trip, leaving the archipelago through New Zealand. The players score the evolution points according to the final goal card, adding them to the points obtained during the game. The player with more points in the scoring track wins.

—description from the publisher

Fort is a 2-4 player card game about building forts and following friends.

In Fort, you're a kid! And like many kids, you want to grow your circle of friends, collect pizza and toys, and build the coolest fort.

By doing this cool stuff, you'll score victory points, and at the end of the game, the player with the most victory points wins! Your cards not only let you take actions on your own turn, but also let you follow the other players' actions on their turns. Will you devote yourself to your own posse, or copy what the other kids are doing?

But be careful as your carefully constructed deck might start losing cards if you don't actually use them. After all, if you don't play with your friends, why should they hang out with you anymore?

—description from the publisher