Casual Games on Kickstarter: Bottle Tops and Potion Bottles

Top Pop (Talon Strikes Studios) – At the start of your turn you check the city cards on the table. You claim any cards on which you control the tallest stack of bottle caps, moving the cards face down to your score pile. For each claimed card, you give all the caps from that tallest stack to the player that the card was in front of. Next, you choose a city card from your hand and either place it in front of another player (and take a cap of their color from the supply) or place it in front of yourself. Next you take a cap of any color from the center of the table. You may then play stacks of caps from your stock onto city cards on the table. When placing a stack on a card it must be the tallest stack on that card and it must have a cap of your color on top to show that you control it. If you already have a stack on a city card, you must add to it rather than placing a new stack on it.

Potion Panic (Rocket House Games) – On your turn you can prep, smash, and brew your potions. When prepping, you place a potion card face-down in one of your three potion slots. You can smash a potion in one of these slots to turn it face-up and activate its ability. The potion card is then discarded. When you discard a card, rather than placing it into a typical discard pile, you add it to one of the three potion stacks on the table. Cards can be drawn from these stacks, meaning used cards can come back into play quickly. To brew a potion, you must have three prepped potion cards that meet the requirements of one of the recipe cards on the table or in your reserve. Completing recipes earns you crystals, which you need in order to win the game. You can also take the reserve action on your turn to take a recipe from the display, to prevent other players from completing it before you.

Tranquility: The Ascent (Board Game Hub) – A standalone sequel to Tranquility, The Ascent is a cooperative game that has players working together to build a pyramid shaped grid. On your turn you must play one of your cards or discard two cards from your hand. Cards are numbered one through twelve and feature one of three different types of terrain. Cards of matching terrain may not be played next to each other and when playing two cards next to one another you must discard cards from your hand equal to the difference of the two numbers shown on the cards. The final restriction is that the number on a card must be equal to or higher than the number of the row it is being added to. Complete the mountain to win the game.

Méthodologie: The Murder on the Links (Gray Wolf Games) – There are three types of cards: characters, objects, and locations. Within each type are various sets, each with different colors. Every round, players select cards from their hand and play them face-down to present as evidence, always being careful to keep at least one of each card type in their hand. All players reveal their played cards simultaneously. Whoever played the highest number card of each type conducts an interrogation. When conducting an interrogation, each other player must truthfully say whether they have a card that is of the same set as the one which the interrogator played. Each player who does then states which card it is, however at this point they may lie. The interrogator may than choose to accuse one player. If that player did lie, the card they do hold is eliminated. All cards played at the start of the round are also eliminated each round. Eliminated cards are placed on a board, so that you can track which cards have already been removed from the game. At the end of the round players draw cards to replace those they played at the start. Once the decks run out, players enter the accusation phase, during which players then attempt to guess which three cards are in each other's hands.

A Kindly World (双子のライオン堂) – A Kindly World is published by a Japanese bookstore looking to bring their games to an international audience. With artwork inspired by manga, each player is a character inside the story, dealt a secret character card, each of which has a special ability. On your turn you choose to either take the top card of the deck or discard it. If you discard it, you must make the same decision for the next card. You can discard as many as you like but you cannot discard the same card type twice on your turn. The goal is to collect seven unique cards.

I'm Right You're Wrong (Jab Publishing) – I'm Right You're Wrong is a light card game with simple rules, all about arguments. The deck is shuffled and five cards dealt to each player. At the start of your turn you draw a card and then must play a card. It's now the next player's turn. There are three card types: attack, highroad, and traps. The first two are always played face-up while some trap cards are played face-down in front of yourself and kept hidden until an opponent accidentally triggers it. The goal of the game is to be the last player with any cards in hand. You are also eliminated from the game if you have no legal move to make or if you break a rule established by a card play. Many of the cards you'll have to play can hurt you, so it's about figuring out the least bad cards to play as well as limiting your opponents' options.