Creatures: Fairies / Elves / Pixies

Devious

Devious is an anti-set collection card game. Build the strongest faerie alliance over five rounds and claim the crown. To do so you must play and hold in your tableau a single faerie from each of the faerie tribes, of the highest rank possible. But be wary, a second faerie of a given tribe negates your score - and more than two plunges your score into the negatives. Seek only the highest ranking faerie from each tribe for the strongest alliance possible. But each tribe has a unique power and the ability to manipulate faeries from around the table, including your own. Gaining the upper hand will be both chaotic and devious.

To set up before the game, players decide which six faerie tribes to use in the game from the 13 suits included in the box. They can be mixed and matched so game play varies from game to game.

In each round, all players are dealt three cards. But interestingly, they are not yours, they are your opponents. You look at them, decide the order in which to stack them - and therefore in which order your opponent will later encounter them, then pass that stack in the direction of play. Likewise, you'll receive your stack in the same way.

Then look at the top card of the three-card stack and announce your intention to keep the card for your tableau or discard it, hoping for a better card your opponent may have buried deeper. If you choose to keep, discard the remaining stack of cards, without seeing them. If you choose to discard, look at the second card and choose to keep or discard. If the first two are discarded, the third card MUST be played. Did your opponent trick you into playing the worst card at the bottom of the stack. Was the best card the first card, which you discarded?

Once everyone has chosen their faerie card for the round, they are played in order of their Rank. The highest Rank plays their card into their tableau and executes the faerie's ability. Some Faerie Powers are only important for scoring purposes at the end of the game. Others have effects that target one or more faeries in play. A cunning player may choose to pass on a high ranking faerie for an ability that is more powerful when played later.

After the fifth round, players score each faerie suit in their alliances:

1 card of a Tribe: Score its Rank (from 1 to 5, depending on the card).
2 cards of the same Tribe: Score 0 points.
3-4 cards of a given Tribe: Lose points equal to the highest Ranking faerie in the Tribe.
5 or more cards of a Tribe: Score the summed value of all the fairies in the Tribe.
The player with the highest favor score wins.

Then, change the faerie bands in the deck, with their own unique powers for a new challenge and constant variety in play.

Wispwood

Is that a light at the end of the… branch?

A curious cat prowls into the forest, lured by flickering lights of all colors dancing through the trees. What are they? Oh, the wisps from the old tales! Each one sparkles with charm and mischief, carrying a unique personality. Can you guide them just right and make your forest the brightest?

Welcome to Wispwood, a magical place populated by glowing wisps. On your turn, choose a wisp tile and a shape to place in your personal grid — your very own growing forest. Each wisp has desires about where it wants to shine, and even the magical trees have preferences! You'll aim to meet their expectations across three scoring rounds. Between rounds, the forest shifts — fading and expanding — yet the wisps you've already placed remain, shaping the possibilities ahead.

With each game, new goal cards redefine the wisps' whims, ensuring your forest grows in a unique way every time. Enter the forest and explore the magic of Wispwood!

12 Rivers

You are the leader of a tribe whose people explore the fabled twelve rivers flowing from a mystical lake high in the mountains. Your goal? To find the magical coloured pearls that roll down the rivers in the current. Perhaps a helpful fairy may help you on your quest! Where the rivers converge there is a village where many people and animals live in harmony. There you can make life-long friends and deliver the pearls you have collected, to be used to heal, grow, and ensure another prosperous year for all.

In each of 5 rounds of play, take turns paying camp cards (resources) to place your 3 tribe tokens into various slots along the rivers, to get the magic pearls you need. Pay more camp card resources to place higher up the rivers to pick pearls earlier. However, with clever placement and use of camp card powers, you can still get valuable pearls efficiently downstream. Use your Tribe tokens to block then collect magic pearls that flow down the 12 rivers. Collect pearls needed by villagers to ensure prosperity for the village at the bottom of the 12 Rivers.

Once all tribe tokens are placed, release the magic pearls to roll down the rivers. Then collect a pearl at each tribe token you placed, and store it on your Alpaca for now. Remaining pearls roll downstream to be blocked and picked at other tribe tokens, or end in the lake.

Along the way you will pick up helpful fairy tokens, and try to match Alpaca goals that reward you with points for collecting sets of particular pearl colours first.

To score the pearls you collect, transfer them to villagers you recruit from the village, and strive to score their bonus goals too. After 5 rounds the player with the most points wins.

—description from the publisher

Disney Villainous: Introduction to Evil

Disney Villainous: Introduction to Evil features the same gameplay as Disney Villainous, but this game features only four villains instead of six — Maleficent, Captain Hook, Ursula and Prince John – in a limited-edition version that features streamlined gameplay crafted to help first-time players.

In the game, each player takes control of a villain with its own villain deck, fate deck, player board, and 3D character. On a turn, you move your character to a different location on your player board, takeing one or more of the actions visible on that space (often by playing cards from your hand), then refill your hand to four cards. Cards are allies, items, effects, conditions, and (for some characters) curses. You need to use your cards to fulfill your unique win condition, which sometimes involves overcoming the hero from your villain's particular Disney film.

Disney Villainous: Introduction to Evil is meant to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Disney, with the new box design featuring Ursula, lustrous movers, and platinum rainbow-foil packaging as well as a Disney100 sticker.

Woodcraft

In Woodcraft, you play as forest people running competing workshops in the woods, with you gathering wood and crafting goods for your customers. Along the way, you hire helpers, improve your workshop, and buy different types of wood and other tools to create the best workshop you can.

During the game, players complete their projects with wood (dice) that can be cut down to size, glued back together, and adjusted using dice manipulation to be as efficient as possible with their resources.

Whoever builds the best, most successful workshop wins.

—description from the publisher