Foretales and Cardpocalypse

Games with card based mechanics!

Foretales

A simple job to steal a magic lyre very much goes sideways when the thief Volepain (that's you) starts getting visions of the future after touching it. From then on its a race to try beat the many "doom clocks" by undertaking story based missions and the way it works is really clever. Each party member has their own deck of cards and your hand is made up of a combination of them, and as they function both in combat and in exploration it becomes a balancing act of spending things to advance your mission or hanging on to others for upcoming fights (which you can often win without fighting - depending on your foe).

Nice bright art, nice tutorial, good characters, and interesting puzzles are a big draw for this one - but then they had to go ruin it. Instead of being a branching story based on your choices, you are eventually made to go back and repeat missions to... extend the game time? Sorry, that one design choice killed this for me - but I did enjoy it quite a lot before that point. Not sure if I would recommend...

Cardpocalypse

As a new student in school you quickly discover that all your peers play the uber popular Pokemon PowerPets card game that involves two players battling each other using an animal themed card deck with the objective of defeating the opponents "champion" card who always starts on the table. On each of your turns you can add minions with varying powers to the board (depending on the amount of pet food available). The tutorial is pretty good in this one too in introducing basic mechanics but the art style is weak compared to Foretales, and the main gameplay loop of constant battling gets tiring quickly.

Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader

An excellent example of how the Warhammer 40K universe should be.

This amazing RPG is set in the Warhammer 40K universe where you play as a scion to a titular Rogue Trader house - "noble" individuals granted a relic from the Emperor that charters them as freelance explorer, merchant and conquistador all in one. It's also set just far enough from the Imperium to give you problems which ever route you go: be it the traditional dogmatic "all heretics and xenos must burn", the nutjob heretical "I will gladly obey your cruel whims demons of the warp", and the foolishly hopeful iconoclast who "strives to treat all people and races with equality and respect".

While you can create your own custom party, you are provided a bunch of companions all eager to betray you or be betrayed by you at every turn story wise but are also very handy when it comes to the XCOM type turn based combat that you will frequently find yourself in, despite of or because of your best and worst intentions. Some of these combats are super tricky too, and that goes doubly so for the space combats where you pick what stations your companions are manning and are often outnumbered with your one ship to however many the enemy fleet has ready for you. 

I especially loved that comparing my play through to that with Jim's was a totally different experience which means your decisions actually have impact on the story, as any good game should. Player agency, tick! The game is also pretty lengthy with a lot of side stuff that is interesting, rewarding and fun (especially for masochists in some combats).  Awesome game, highly recommended!

Age of Mythology: Retold

As many would know, strategy games aren't really my forte but this one has somehow made it into our Friday night game sessions and has probably become my most played strategy one for awhile. Obviously the co-op component helps a lot, though you can only co-op two players if going through the campaign story. That's ok though as there are many other modes that you can play through which is good, given my graphics card bombs out on some of the maps too.

A standard game round has you selecting your civilization (Norse, Greek, Egyptian, Atlantean, etc) followed by a major deity in that civilization - so for a Norse player you'd be choosing between Loki, Odin or Thor for example, each giving you slightly different "god" powers and "tech" trees in the form of minor gods who you get to pick as you advance from age to age.

Usually you get a town center, some peasants and some form of scout of your civilization type and from there have to collect food, wood, gold and favor to expand up through the ages. Favor is your battery for magical powers or making magical creatures and you how you gain it depends on your civilization. Atlanteans gain it by having their oracles stand as far apart from each other as possible. Greeks gain it by having as many people worshiping at the temple. Norse get it by killing enemies, and so forth.

AI wise, the fun bit is getting the mix n match of their personality types. A few examples are the defender who only defends, an attacker will constantly harass you, a humanoid will ignore all magic-related things and just fight you with men and machines, and an overwhelmer will just mass a big ball of troops and then throw it at you if you wait too long. You can also up the "difficulty" by letting the AI cheat basically if you really want a challenge (your peasant hits a tree once and gains 1 wood, their peasant hits a tree once and gains 1-3x wood).

It's simple enough to learn and fun enough to keep playing. Coming from me, a non strategy game player whose PC can't even run 1/4th of it properly, that's saying something so it must be doing something right! :)

Hazbin Hotel Live on Broadway and Songs of Conquest

Entertainment with a focus on music!

Hazbin Hotel Live on Broadway

Celebrating the release of Season 2 of Hazbin Hotel, this live performance on Broadway by the voice actor/singers is absolutely brilliant - my only complaint is that it is too short! Even my wife, who doesn't watch the series, enjoyed it. Highly, highly recommended (but just like the show its not for kids), and I hope they do more of these live shows as there are many more songs they could do in the series (and that's not even going into Helluva Boss songs). I suppose they could do Hellaverse Live on Broadway? :D Here's a little sample for you all to enjoy. Five out of five!

Songs of Conquest

This pixely turn based strategy game plays a lot like the old King's Bounty game, where you have a leader or leader(s) marching around the map to capture resources and towns (where you can spend resources in building structures to recruit more folk for your army) while fighting enemies (usually static ones) via armies in hex grid maps. After you've exhausted your move, then your opponents leader(s) take their turn to wander around. I'm very thankful for the auto combat button in this one to make lopsided fights just finish in a single button press.

While that's all well and good the main draw for me was the nice story and the songs which play at the end of each mission. Very cool. I was sad when the extra "story" missions didn't have this. :P

Ouroborus King and Rogue Waters

Two different roguelikes.

Ouroborus King

The weak story about a King reclaiming his lands doesn't cover up the fact that this is simply chess with a variety of unique pieces. You start with only four, and on your journey can "recruit" more, "upgrade" the ones you have, or find relics that do some neat stuff like take back your previous move. Not recommended unless you really like chess.

Rogue Waters

This roguelike has a lot more effort put into it with the art and animation and tells the story of an undead pirate seeking revenge. Combat starts with three rounds of exchanging cannon fire where you either target enemy cannons so they don't wreck you, enemy soldiers so you don't have to fight them later, or "modules" that provide many buffs to their owners.

Afterwards it becomes tactical grid combat with a focus on pushing (and some cool abilities). While you will lose a lot at the start, especially to annoying cut scenes, it really gets addictive once you start upgrading your ship and crew. Thumbs up for this one!

Paradise Killer Trash Goblin Sunderfolk

Three chillaxing games.

Paradise Killer

In this first person detective game you need to find out who killed a bunch of people on Paradise island. With easy controls, a very beautiful 3D map and a cool sound track it really makes it an inviting place to explore. I do wonder then why the place is populated only by a dozen or so 2D anime sprite characters who don't move? There's a bit of backtracking to talk to people and find things but my main problem is that in the game's narrative the world is about to end and reset anyway so it feels like its all for naught and doesn't matter. This one is an odd duck for sure.

Trash Goblin

In this game you are a newbie goblin tinkerer in a fantasy city with an endless supply of junk that you need to chisel the grime off, clean and possibly put together to then sell to visitors that come by (or at the market when you unlock that) - and then you can upgrade your tools and little basement shop using said funds. So its a lot like Toy Tinkerer which I really enjoyed until they put so much grind into it. While this one also has a bit of grind, there's also a story to follow which I very much appreciate - and there's no real negative consequences to deal with. Can't supply what someone is asking for? It's ok, they'll come back another time. Run out of money? No problem, you'll be able to sell stuff eventually and your shop somehow has ZERO expenses (all expenses are just to make your life easier) so you can just ignore everyone / close the store window and focus on assembling stuff if you like. I really like this one. :) 

Sunderfolk

This game feels like Gloomhaven light. In it you play a fantasy party who take turns strategizing and battling on hex maps using your available "cards" to move. Unlike Gloomhaven those cards aren't "two sided" and don't get removed from your deck. The story and art is pretty cute and the town interactions are fine, but most of the game is the combat itself which is pretty decent - until they slowly but surely push every encounter more into the "puzzle" territory rather than keep it tactical. Once it got to the bit where I had to position enemies and characters on pressure plates at the same time,  which is easy enough but freaking annoying, it no longer was fun for me.

Mongil: Star Dive and Girl's Front Line 2: Exilium

F2P games with gacha fanservice!

Mongil: Star Dive

This game is set in a fantasy land where fauna are starting to exhibit violent tendencies and its up to a squad of monster -hunter- tamers to sort it out. Good graphics, excellent animation, an interesting actiony fight system and a good dose of humor are all very welcome surprises in here (as well as being simpler than some of its competitors). The humor especially as the game plays out much like a comedy, including the "taming" process itself. 

That said it is still very "new" with lots of empty unused spaces that you can just tell will be for future content. Also the leveling up system for your random party and their gear, is quite a grind once you hit those level walls which you'll get to sooner than you think. Again, it might just be a case of being new but that killed the game for me.

Girl's Front Line 2: Exilium

This game is set in a post apocalyptic land where fauna ARE violent, just like the numerous PMCs you go up against with your squad of combat "dolls". Yep, its very Ghost in the Shell here with disposable bodies, body parts, and consciousness backups and uploads. Combat here plays more like XCOM and has a puzzle challenge component to it (kill 3 guys in the first round etc) which is neat - though you can also get one support "doll" from someone else and just deploy a level 60 each time to power your way through. :P

The story pieces come in fully voiced (no English dub) visual novel style which I find annoying, but the stories themselves are pretty neat and the art is quite good. While there's also a grindy component to level up your squad its easier to do so here than in Mongil, and because its an older game there are many game modes available to play through even if you find yourself lacking resources or levels to forge on through the main story. Recommended, but be careful as this is an addictive time sink!

Hyper Echelon and Haven Dock

Two games starting with "H" that aren't great. 

Hyper Echelon

Despite the name and the obvious attempt to show "hey, you can customize your space ship!" in the tutorial, this pixel game is just another top down, bullet hell space ship shooting the bad guys and/or obstacles while the background scrolls from the top of the screen to the bottom at a steady and fixed pace. Oh, then you can redo the same missions at harder difficulties to get medals. Yay? Hard pass.

Haven Dock

This base building game has you stranded on a small island but don't worry, by somehow collecting the absolute truck fulls of garbage that float by you can magically create (using stone tools according to the voice over) wooden platforms to establish a base, build equipment to pump and filter sea water, make farms, etc. What kills it for me is you often have to wait for materials you need to drift by close enough for collection. Not a lot you can do to mitigate that and "having to wait to have fun" is always garbage design. Not recommended. 

Keep the Heroes Out!

This cooperative board game has players each taking control of one group of dungeon denizens (all of whom are cute) as they try to do what the title says: keep the heroes out! Especially from the treasure room, because if they loot the treasure, the game is lost! This is a campaign style game, so the dungeon tiles are arranged based on the scenario you are attempting (20 provided). 

On your turn you have five cards in front of you from your own deck which you can then use to command your things around. Move, attack or action which means use the room's special action like get a gold coin from the treasury or use your group's special power. The mercenary gnolls can attack more, the imps can just pull traps out of their butts, the singular dragon can regenerate HP and the ratkins can spawn more ratkins as an example.

After that, you pull hero cards which determines who spawns where. Each hero type has one special power that only applies when they first appear, afterwards they all behave the same which keeps it simple. Rogues disarm a trap where they spawn. Warriors destroy resources. Archers shoot towards the treasure room. Wizards wake up people in the prison. What? Prison!? Yes, on your turn you can "push your luck" and draw three more cards for the low cost of putting a "tired" hero in prison. Unless you pull a wizard in which case, they all wake up!

Managing tired heroes is all part of the game. After the special spawn move any active hero will first try "wake up" all tired heroes who then all get to do stuff! This will be try kill a monster on their tile or try open a chest on their tile. If they do any of those they get "tired" and are basically dormant until another hero (or special effect) wakes them up. Active heroes with nothing to do all advance to the next tile leading towards the treasure room and repeat this process.This can cause a hero cascade if you have too many dotted around the place which is dangerous. At the same time, the only way to win is to go through the ENTIRE hero deck 2-3 times (depending on your difficulty level).   

It's a pretty fun game, though you might only have a few turns depending on the player count and not all the monsters are equal, both in complexity and usefulness. 

Songs of Silence and Samorost 3

Two games beginning with "S" that I didn't enjoy.

Songs of Silence

This fantasy RTS sees you command armies and cities across a map, with battles being "zoomed in" to both your forces and the enemy forces just doing their thing with the only input from you being their initial formation, and playing "cool down" cards to do special actions like healing a cluster of allies, telling all horses to charge somewhere etc. 

The art is pretty nice but that "detachment" to your forces, and the theme that you MUST do x by doing these steps in order (like, conquer this land BUT you must beat the RED guys first before the GREEN guys or get from point A to point B BUT you must sneak through forests or the enemy will smash you) is a bit too railroady for me. Guess I didn't expect that from an RTS? 

Samorost 3 

We're back in the funny hand drawn asteroid or our point and click protagonist who comes across a magic space trumpet and embarks on a quest to... do something with it? Definitely not as easy/obvious as the previous Samorost and the clue section pictograms also requires deciphering as there is still no language anywhere. Didn't enjoy this one very much.

Lost Eidolons and Godzilla Voxel Wars

Two puzzle games posing as strategy ones.

Lost Eidolons

This game has an RPG component where you can level up various characters into a wide choice of classes and arm people with an assortment of gear sorted by rarity. It also has a very nice story that gets a somewhat loose threaded towards the end but is still enjoyable and there's LOTS of talking to be had though the still cut scenes are a little strange. The main game play though? You are fielding armies (and the troops don't count, only your characters do) to face other armies and must do your best to spread out damage with the rock/paper/scissors system they have with weapons vs armor on your people while completing whatever the map objective is (sometimes it changes half way) within the time limit (usually 20 turns). This is made harder when enemy named characters appear since they get super BS armor as long as any little enemy goon is within 5 squares or so. 

By putting the time limit this falls squarely into a puzzle game, though there is an option (which I took) to turn that off to pull it back into a more strategic one. Though limited, I did appreciate being able to undo moves due to misclicks and the like. It's good but its a strange one so research it first if you're thinking of getting it.

Godzilla Voxel Wars

The main game play of this little voxel graphic game is quite the same as Lost Eidolons, only you play as Godzilla and have to save the little buildings from other kaiju (I hope your Godzilla knowledge is up to scratch). Simple controls and a decent tutorial gets you right into the puzzle mode where you need to do things by the time limit (usually 2-3 turns at the start, which also has unlimited undo moves). Alas, the puzzle part isn't strong enough to keep my attention unlike Lost Eidolons which has a decent story driving the whole thing.

Samorost 2 and the Battle of Polytopia

A pair of super simple games.

Samorost 2

This funny point and click hand drawn adventure sees you journey through space to save your dog who has been captured by aliens. It's a short upbeat game (unlike Happy Game) and while there are some obtuse trial and error bits to it, its not nearly as bad as Machinarium. This is a fun short ride if you can get it for free. 

The Battle of Polytopia

This is basically a boiled down version of Civilization with block graphics. You spend turn based action points to grow your villages, move your troops and basically try to either wipe out all the other civilizations on the map or just be the "best" after [x] amount of turns (usually 30 in the base mode). It is super simple to learn and quite fast and relaxing to play - but it does feel a bit... hollow? Not a bad little game, but it probably only serves as a bridge to actual Civ games.

Two Point Hospital and Legion TD2

Games about managing currency.

Two Point Hospital

In this game you are a hospital administrator who has to look after building each hospital room, hiring staff (obviously more expensive people are more skilled) and... decorating the place? Yep. The tutorial is really good for this one, explaining how your build will need a reception area followed by a GP room to determine people's sicknesses, then a room to cure whatever each sickness is. What killed it for me is that you need to also put every minutiae of detail in, like vending machines, benches, toilets. And you can just build a "toilet". You build the room, put the porcelain throne, need to find a spot for the sink, hand dryer, blah blah blah. Waaaay too detailed for me, but others who like being precise in their positioning of fire extinguishers and bins might enjoy this one.

Legion TD2

This tower defense game has you purchasing units from your specific race to defend your "lanes" to prevent enemies from reaching your king, and also purchasing mercenaries (global list not tied to what you chose) to help attack enemy lanes and kings (NPC raiding units will always spawn and attack per wave, its still tower defense). Last king standing wins! While the game play is decent some of the units look very odd and having the kings side by side is ... different? Not that I play many lane defense games. Alas the loading time for this one is... not quick. Some of the tutorial missions play shorter than the time it takes to load them. If that doesn't bother you and you like tower defense (and PvP) then you might want to try this one out.

Garden Story and Humankind

Of fruits and men...

Garden Story

This cutesy action RPG has you playing a fruit who is called to the service of guardianship against the night time appearing rot monsters that threaten each of the four seasonal themed villages in your grove. Easy controls and nice art make this nice to get into, but doing random quests from a board and grinding out money for gear, and then wrangling inventory space for said gear gets old fast. Ironically a victim of the Epic free games scheme because on its own I probably would have played more of it, but given a choice with a steady stream of things to try sorry - this one is left to rot.

Humankind

This civilization building game starts you out as nameless tribes in the Neolithic era and then as you collect "era stars" (which varies by era: in the first one its simply exploration and then moves to military or scientific achievements) and once you do you can progress to the next which lets you pick a culture to adopt which gives you specific bonuses. The Greeks are good at science, the Assyrians good at raiding and so on. While there are lots of systems running here none are immediately overwhelming thanks to the easy interface.

That is until you get to the "city cap". If you go over the city cap you start taking deductions that you might not even notice which can send you into an untenable position. A simple warning screen would have been nice. Eliminating enemy empires can also turn into a game of whack a mole (if you go via the conqueror route which I'm sure is everyone's first game :P) as they must be wiped out to the last city, outpost, and unit from the map which can feel unsatisfying - especially as that last unit will probably be hidden on one of their allies lands.

Still a decent game that I ended up playing more than I thought, even though its a type of game I generally dislike but yes, there are some nasty surprises that might catch you if you aren't looking out for them.

Beyond Blue and Jurassic World Evolution 2

Where wild life is the focus.

Beyond Blue

This is an exploration game where you play a diver swimming around and scanning ocean wild life. The controls are easy and its a pretty good looking game but there's no danger to be found here, just story. I think I might have preferred if the game been one big map with plenty to see and scan (ala Skyrim) rather than the medium sized swim zones per level, separated by bits of "down time" on your small sub where you do things like make phone calls. Not a game for me.

Jurassic World Evolution 2

I didn't like the first one of these so it's no surprise I don't like this sequel which retains the sim-zoo feel. Dinos are on the loose and like pokemon you need to catch em all and imprison them in specifically determined man made zones. They retained the semi first person helicopter / chopper shooting part (tranqs only) which is cool, but I drew the line at having to make the first dinosaur 95% content. I'd much prefer to slay the dragons than trap them, but that's not the target audience for this game.

Floppy Knights FIST The Falconeer Rawmen

A triple F from Epic (F for Failure)!

Floppy Knights

This turn based card strategy game with cutesy art is a mishmash of things that hurt my head. It starts out where you need to fight goblin bandits meddling with antennas by using your strap on computer (oh my) to create holographic flora based forces and send them forth into battle? And make no mistake battling is the only thing you can do as you are set on a railroad of them from the get go. Not recommended.

FIST - Forged in Shadow Torch

In anthropomorphic China, you are one of the oppressed masses - an angry bunny with a robot arm who must traverse this side scrolling and platforming game to beat up the bad guys to earn enough currency to unlock more skills to better traverse and platform previously passed routes. This leads to one of my most hated game designs... back tracking. I know that's just a me thing, it really killed what otherwise was a decent if somewhat dated game. Cool graphics though!

The Falconeer

On an ocean world, mankind is stuck in towns clinging to rocks save for being able to travel on the back of giant eagles and dragons with lightning guns (and also via ocean ships and flying ships, just don't ask where the wood comes from)! So yes - this is basically a flying simulator with some story attached and while the controls take some getting used to there are some cool ideas like flying into a storm to recharge weapons and diving into the water to cool down but the game play loop isn't great as most objectives are go here, fight stuff there and then repeat. Might still be something for flight sim enthusiasts but for everyone else, skip it.

Final Bonus: Rawmen: Food Fighter Arena - it doesn't start with "F", but it has a terribly long load time followed by failing to even start the tutorial so I'm not wasting any time with this trash.

Evil Genius and Evil Genius 2: World Domination

For those who want to take over the world! Muahahahaha!

Thanks to DL (and Wro as it was his idea) I was gifted these awhile back and have spent a decent amount of time with each of them now because yes, I like to pretend I'm a genius. :P These games are basically base builders with the twist that you are a bad guy trying to hide from the forces of justice while you build up your criminal empire. Usually I dislike such games with micromanagement but thanks to an excellent soundtrack and very easy controls where your minions run themselves based on what is available to them, this was rather enjoyable!

I did lose in the original Evil Genius though, as the super agents (among whom are basically copies of John Rambo and James Bond) smashed my minions and defenses to pieces and I could never recover because I could never find out of to actually kill them. The other forces of justice either are rogues who want to steal your stolen loot, saboteurs who blow up stuff, soldiers who kill your guys, or investigators who basically just scout and report back which spawns one of the earlier types to come raid you if they found something worth stealing / destroying / or murdering. :P

I do prefer Evil Genius 2 not only because I won it, but the graphics got a much needed upgrade and the tutorial actually helps you deal with those investigators and teaches you how to manage the "heat" (high heat = high level attackers). It's also slightly easier to avoid the super agents until you get the relevant side quests to take care of them. While there is violence ranging from "brutal" interrogations that can involve chucking people into shark tanks and all the way up to scorching parts of the globe with your doomsday device, all the violence is very comical with not a drop of blood to be found. All up very fun and one I recommend, though if you're only going to play one of these, Evil Genius 2 is the obvious pick with its much needed updates.

Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy and Marvel's Midnight Suns

Two marvelous games!

Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy (2021)

This very fun and very beautiful (graphically) take on a Guardians of the Galaxy adventure caught me by surprise a bit as it's quality is truly fantastic with top notch writing and voice acting to boot. While I do enjoy the "huddle" mechanic too (mid combat you can just call a time out to rally your team as the bad guys just stand around I suppose? lol) the fighting and QTEs are actually the weakest part of the game - yet the designers felt that throwing more and more fights was the best way to get filler to pad it out.  Still recommended, but expect a bit of a slog in some parts as wave after wave of the same enemy you fought before gets in your way of experiencing the next part of the story.

Marvel's Midnight Suns

When Hydra somehow raises the mother of demons it's up to a lesser known hero team to step up and save the world, but they've got help from more famous characters from the Avengers and X-men too. While the graphics in this one aren't the best it does also have a decent story, some excellent card and turn based combat, and a customizable "player hero" so that you can really feel you are with the more established ones. That might sound corny but it's actually done really well as it also ties into the story. Again the designers felt forcing you to do a "general" (extra) mission in between each story one was a good way to pad this out but I don't mind it so much here as the combat actually is very good. For long time readers who know how much of a scrooge I am with money, I actually enjoyed this so much that I bought (and finished) all four DLCs. Highly recommended!

King of Monster Island

Everyone gets to be a kaiju!

In this cooperative board game up to five players can team up to defeat one of three boss monsters (with 2 difficulty modes each) who are trying to claim the volcanic island. There is actually a volcano piece that gives the board some height and is used to determine what the bad guy does by rolling their dice through it which is pretty neat! The standees for each player kaiju is great too, but there is no difference between them other than flavor. You also all start on 10 health and 0 fame.

Should any player start their turn on 0 health everyone loses and it is the same should the villain or his minions complete three crystal pylons that secure his power. To win, players just have to bring down the villains HP to 0. Easy for the first monster who only has 15, quite challenging for the biggest one on 35. This is in part because you can't hit the main enemy should he have any minions in the same area, they all take hits first - starting with the somewhat resilient shield ones.

Of the nine player dice you can roll up to six on your turn and each face of the d6 has a different symbol. Walk, hit, heal, gain energy (used to purchase special cards), build support (which summons supply ships), and gain fame which is a main feature of the game. Getting 1 fame lets you take a ridiculous ally card and each of these are unique - ninjas let you stab shield things easily while scientists constantly inject you with energy for example. The more fame you get, the more powerful your ally abilities become. This is also true for the bad guy who gains more skills as his fame increases.

The crux of it is that you can leave rolled die on the board so that your allies can use whatever you rolled on their turn, but that requires both a measure of strategy and luck. All up its a very fun game that is pretty easy to teach and fast to get going. Recommended!

Fox in the Forest Duet

Designed for klepto couples? :P

In this two person, cooperative trick taking game the goal is to collect all the gems in the forest in time. Both players lose if you run out of forest tokens and need to put one or end the last round with any gems still on the board. How does that actually work? Well, the trick taking part is exactly the same like in Hearts or the Crew. In this game there are three suites and when one player puts down a card (usually the one that "won" the previous trick) the second player must put down a card of the same suite if they have it, or any other card if not.

If it is the same suite then the player with the higher number "wins", and it its not then one of the two happen: the trump suite card wins (randomly chosen at the start of each of the three rounds) and if its not a trump suite then the original suite wins. The cards also have footprint movement values and you use these to determine your movement on the map which consists soley of a single path. If you win the tracker moves that many steps towards you, if you lose it moves that many steps away.

If at any point it falls "off" the map then add a forest token to one end of the path, making it shorter and continue (if you can't its game over). If it doesn't fall off then you can collect any gems attached to that space, then play the next round. The odd number cards also have special powers in addition to nice art which let you do something special like move less, trade a card, switch direction regardless of winner etc. Despite all of those it's still a pretty tough game and one we're still trying to get the hang of. :)