Hand Management

Silencio

In Silencio, all players form a team together, a team that cannot speak to one another.

You each start with a hand of cards from four suits, and your goal as a team is to discard as many cards as possible — but each card played must have a higher value than the previously played card of the same suit. If a newly played card is the direct successor of the card last played of that color, then you orient the card to show its dark side and suffer the penalty from that card, with the green penalty, for example, forcing the next card played to be green while the blue penalty requires you to give another player one of the face-up cards available from the Oracle.

If a newly played card is not the direct successor of the card last played of that color, then you place the card with the light side face up, taking the bonus depicted on that half of the card if you desire, such as ignoring the next penalty or placing a card from your hand face up in front of you so that anyone could play it.

Five shrines are play — one multicolor shrine and one of each color — and before or after your card play for the turn, you can choose to flip a shrine face down to use the bonus of that color.

If you can't play or have no cards in hand, you must pass, and if all players pass in turn, then the game ends. Your score is based on the number of cards in all players' hands, with 0 being the best score possible. If you find the game difficult, you can include the tavern card that a few times each game allows a player to give limited information about their hand; if the game is too easy, you can remove some or all of the shrines to eliminate those "extra" bonuses.

Trajan

Set in ancient Rome, Trajan is a development game in which players try to increase their influence and power in various areas of Roman life such as political influence, trading, military dominion and other important parts of Roman culture.

The central mechanism of the game uses a system similar to that in Mancala or pit-and-pebbles games. In Trajan, a player has six possible actions: building, trading, taking tiles from the forum, using the military, influencing the Senate, and placing Trajan tiles on his tableau.

At the start of the game, each player has two differently colored pieces in each of the six sections (bowls) of his tableau. On a turn, the player picks up all the pieces in one bowl and distributes them one-by-one in bowls in a clockwise order. Wherever the final piece is placed, the player takes the action associated with that bowl; in addition, if the colored pieces in that bowl match the colors shown on a Trajan tile next to the bowl (with tiles being placed at the start of the game and through later actions), then the player takes the additional action shown on that tile.

What are you trying to do with these actions? Acquire victory points (VPs) in whatever ways are available to you – and since this is a Feld design, you try to avoid being punished, too. At the Forum you try to anticipate the demands of the public so that you can supply them what they want and not suffer a penalty. In the Senate you acquire influence which translates into votes on VP-related laws, ideally snagging a law that fits your long-term plans. With the military, you take control of regions in Europe, earning more points for those regions far from Rome.

All game components are language neutral, and the playing time is 30 minutes per player.

War of the Ring: The Card Game

Inspired by the best-selling and award-winning War of the Ring board game, War of the Ring: The Card Game allows players to journey to the world of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings and create their own version of the dramatic conflict between the Dark Lord, Sauron, and the Free Peoples of Middle-earth.
In War of the Ring: The Card Game, up to 4 players compete in two teams, the Shadow against the Free Peoples, each player using a specific and different card deck representing the strengths and weaknesses of the different factions involved in the war.
The Free Peoples desperately try to complete their quest to destroy the One Ring, while at the same time defending their homelands from the encroaching hordes of Sauron and from his evil allies.

The Shadow players must strike quickly and decisively, before the Ring-bearers can complete their quest; or try to slowly corrupt Frodo, burdening him with wounds, toil, and the sorrow for the loss of his Companions.

During the game, players will take turns playing cards representing the characters, armies, items, and events of the War of the Ring. Each card they play will help or hinder the journey of the Fellowship as it progresses on its Path; or be used to defend or conquer the strongholds of Middle-earth, as they fight to control the new Battleground cards activated in each round.

With more than 100 original illustrations from the greatest Tolkienian artists in the world, including an amazing gallery of landscapes from The Shire to Mordor by John and Fataneh Howe, War of the Ring: The Card Game is more than a game – it also a memorable collection for all lovers of the world imagined by J.R.R. Tolkien.

This is your chance to forge the destiny of an age, like you never did before!

—description from the publisher

Horizons of Spirit Island

Horizons of Spirit Island features the core mechanisms of Spirit Island, but features a new double-sided game board with a streamlined set-up, punchboard components, and five new Spirits designed to be ideal for those playing a Spirit Island game for the first time. These new Spirits are compatible with all existing Spirit Island components, but to play with expansions like Jagged Earth, you would need a copy of Spirit Island itself.