Hand Management

Naishi

In Naishi, you will seek to improve your Japanese state as efficiently as possible. However, you will not be free to change the positioning of your cards at will. You must replace the cards in your hand and in your tableau with cards from the central river while respecting their positioning. You will also have the possibility to send your emissaries to reorganise states, create new opportunities or force your opponent into a trade

Lost Lumina

A certain something filled the air. While energizing the magic crystal in his wand, Orly suddenly felt a change he couldn’t name. Usually this ritual took only seconds before the crystal power kicked in. Not today … it took him minutes to obtain the desired power required to load his wand for the adventurous travel ahead of him. While waiting for the blessing of the crystal power he noticed something dark. Something was lurking in the mist absorbing the essential and much needed crystal power from the crystal fragments orbiting around their world, Amanaar. In light of the immense threat to their habitat, Orly decided to set off on a journey, visiting some of the remarkable creatures of Amanaar in order to seek out the dark power that threatens their very lives. Never in his humble existence would he have imagined that some of his friends would turn against him in a battle for the Lost Lights of Amanaar.

In Lost Lights, two players battle with their party of diverse animalistic characters for control over the Regions of Amanaar. In the beginning each player drafts 10 out of 27 beautifully and individually illustrated cards. On your turn you play a card from your hand and take a number of actions equal to the action point value on the card.

Actions allow you to reinforce your party with new followers or to move your followers between the Areas on the map. In Areas where both parties meet, you’ll battle each other. To resolve battles both of you secretly choose one character card from your hand as a leader in this battle, using their special ability. After the special abilities are resolved, your combined battle strength is added up. If you lose the battle, remove your party from the contested area. If you win you are now the dominant force in that area.

The game ends immediately if one of you has no party members left on the map or if both of you run out of cards. When the game ends you add up your scores for each Area. Whoever achieved the higher score wins.

—description from the publisher

Sunrise Lane

In Sunrise Lane, players take on the role of construction companies attempting to build up a residential neighborhood, and to do this, they need to pick prestigious plots of land on which to build houses and town structures.

In more detail, the game board depicts a grid of spaces that each show 1-5 dots in a single color, and each player has a set of colored House pieces, with the colors having no connection to the space on the board. On a turn, you either draw 2 colored cards from the deck and add them to your hand (with a limit of 5 cards in hand) or discard cards to place a building, then draw a card.

When you build, you must build adjacent to a pre-existing structure (or the central space at the start of the game), and you must discard 1 or more cards of the same color as the dots in the space on which you want to build. You can discard 1-5 cards, after which you place 1-5 of your House pieces on this space, then score points equal to the number of dots on the space multiplied by the number of House pieces you placed. You can build multiple buildings on a turn as long as you build your next one adjacent to the last one you built.

When a player has 2 or less House pieces in their supply, the game ends, then players score endgame points, with two of the districts awarding points for the highest buildings and the other two for the most buildings. Additionally, points go to the player with the longest group of adjacent buildings.

Duel for Cardia

Cardia is a fast paced, strategic card game for two players: Choose your card wisely to win each encounter against your opponent.
In gratitude for her liberation, a mighty djinn created the wondrous city of Cardia. Legend has it that whoever wins over the four factions and gains their five powerful signet rings will rule the city. Your goal is set!
Players will each pilot one of two Decks, made up of the same cards for each, with values from 1-16 and with each card having unique abilities. Play your cards at the moment your opponent does not expect them and use their abilities wisely to outwit them!

Gadget Builder

Gadget Builder is a family card game from designer Tom Lehmann that riffs on the core idea of Crazy Eights: match number or color to play your cards and try to empty your hand first.

The twist is that you can use cards from a fifth suit to build various gadgets that persist from hand to hand and help you get rid of your cards. Which gadgets do you build? When do you use them?

You can use only one gadget per turn, and to go out, you must have no cards in hand and no unused gadgets. If you empty your hand but haven't used all of your gadgets, you draw one card for each unused gadget, so don't build it unless you're going to use it!