TINY DECKS
It’s not how big they are, it’s what you do with them: eight
more card games that manage to pull off a lot with a littlemore card games that manage to pull off a lot with a littleLOVE LETTER
The most obvious suggestion for small card games is still
one of the best. Love Letter is a blindingly fast, stupidly fun
knockout competition. Draw a card, then decide which to
discard between that and the one in your hand, performing
its action as you do. From comparing values with an opponent
to grasping the highest-value card, Love Letter is packed
with moments of air-punching wins and unlucky losses. It all
passes so quickly, but you’ll instantly be up for another round- or five.
COUP
A game where you’ll only have two cards in front of you
for most of the game, Coup is a tense social deduction
experience with a clever hook. Players can choose to perform
any action to gain coins and try to assassinate their rivals,
but if someone calls them out and the cards they have don’t
permit that action, they lose a card – lose both and you’re
out. There’s plenty of room for bluffing your way to the top,
and the 15-minute pace means you won’t have to pretend
you want to play again right away.THE MIND
Last year’s viral sensation, The Mind follows in the steps
of The Game in its so-basic-it-sounds-ridiculous premise:
everyone is working together to play the cards from their
hands in order from one to 100. The catch is that you can’t
speak or communicate at all, and anyone can play a card at
any time they want. It takes a bit of luck, a bit of intuition and
a bit of practice to get it right. When it all comes together,
the result is just a little bit of magic.RED7
Just 49 numbered cards make up the deck of Red7 – you’ll get
only seven of them in your hand. The goal is straightforward: the
highest card wins. But there’s a subtle strategy that emerges
as you play, which can change their win condition as more and
more cards get played. Quick to learn and play, Red7 is a filler
game that will leave you hungry for more.13 MINUTES: THE CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS
A tense microgame in the Cold War vein of Twilight Struggle or
its bigger sibling 13 Days, but with the minimalist gameplay of
Love Letter, 13 Minutes brings down the battle of Kennedy and
Khrushchev down to just five strategy cards played by either
side, tussling for control of global battlegrounds. Each decision
is a hard one, trying to gain a foothold over your opponent while
avoiding nuclear war – a lot of pressure for such a small box.EXPLODING KITTENS
As silly as it is simple, Exploding Kittens is a blast with the rest
group. It’s a fast, cat-filled spin on Russian Roulette, as players
nervously draw cards from the deck in the hope of avoiding
the explosive kitties within. You’re helped by cards that let you
peek at what’s coming up, ways to make your rivals draw more
potentially volatile cards or even dodge the feline fireballs.COLORETTO
A simplified predecessor to the bigger Zooloretto, this quick-
playing animal card game boils down to two options: draw a
card and add it to a row, or claim a row. It sounds simple, but
with the pressure to collect only three sets – or risk losing
points – and the tension of adding to rows that your opponents
can swipe first, it makes for some surprisingly tricky decisions.HANABI
Like The Mind, Hanabi is another easy but tough co-op challenge.
This time around, it’s the complication that everyone can see
your hand of numbered cards except you, so you’ll need to
judge by their hints which card is the best one to play next. All
you need to do is place the cards in coloured rows from one to
five – but it soon turns out that’s much harder than it sounds.“In games like Magic, a Rochester draft can easily
take all afternoon,” Lehmann says. “In Res Arcana,
two players can draft two eight-card decks in less than
10 minutes. ey then play a second game with these
drafted decks and, if tied after that, a third game for
the match.”
He points out the mode as a particularly good way
of playing for couples, letting them dive deep into
the endless combos possible with the decks, 16 cards
at a time.
“With two experienced players, a game of Res
Arcana takes 15 to 20 minutes,” Lehmann adds. “A
three-game match, with drafting, can be done in less
than an hour.”
ENDLESS FANTASY
On paper, Res Arcana seems an obvious hit.
Understandably, Lehmann is con dent that its
fantasy setting and original approach to cardplay will
enchant players when it’s released later this month
- still, with years of experience under his belt, he’s
remaining realistic.
“We’re optimistic, but we’ll have to see how well Res
Arcana does in the market,” he says.
e designer reveals that he’s currently testing
expansions for the game, potentially set to build on the
impressive number of combinations and deck make-
ups players can make in the main game – all without
changing that magic number.
And if Res Arcana’s world manages to leave players
spellbound, Lehmann is keen to explore further into
his fantasy creation.
“I have ideas for other games in its setting, assuming
I can get them to work!”