Casual Games on Kickstarter: Winter Queens and Constellations

Winter Queen (CrowD Games) – A crystal holder is placed between each player. On your turn you can take one of three actions. You may take one crystal from either holder that is next to you and place it on one of the empty spaces on the map and take a spell book. You may take a crystal from the map and place it on one of your spell books. You may only have three spell books at a time, and each one is divided into two pages. When placing a crystal on one, you must decide which page to place it on. The final action you can take is to score one of your spell books. When scoring a spell book you score whichever page has a crystal on it. You may score both pages if they are both holding a crystal. Different books will score you points based on different patterns of crystals on the map, with the color crystal you had on the page dictating details of the colors those crystals have to be. After being scored, you discard the spell book.

Twinkle (V-Games) – Players are competing to build constellations. Each player chooses two matching stars on the board and will build their constellations out from those. On your turn you select three available dice and roll them. Available dice come in six different colors, and have four different numbers of sides. Each color has different scoring rules. You may then select one of the dice you rolled to connect to your constellation, or you may choose one of the eight-sided dice that are in the center of the board and add it to your constellation (without rerolling it). Your two starting stars and each die in your constellation can have two dice connected to them. When connecting a die to another die, the new die’s result must be lower than the die it is being connected to.

Momiji (3 Emme Games) – Each player starts the game with six cards. Four cards are then drawn for the display, with any matching leaf cards being placed as a stack. On your turn you may select a stack of matching leaf cards from the display, adding them to your hand and discarding any cards over your hand limit of eight. You may spend an acorn to draw four more cards for the display. Or you may play cards. Cards must be played to one of your three location cards. Cards must be played in order of zero to three in a stack, and each stack must be matching colors. On a single turn you may either play one or two cards of the same leaf color, or two or more cards of different colors.

Ugly Gryphon Inn (Button Shy) – In this solo game, you are managing an inn and trying to keep all the customers happy. At the start of the game you shuffle the patron cards and draw four, placing them face up in a row. These are the patrons at the bar. Each turn starts with you choosing one of the patrons at the bar to go to sleep. You then move this card to the top of the column that represents the rooms at the inn. You then draw a new patron card for the bar. Each patron has a list of preferences, attributes, and things that annoy them. After a patron has gone to sleep, you check all the preferences of the patrons that are sleeping. If a patron's dislike is triggered (this can be caused by the preferences or attributes of the other patrons and their position in the column of rooms) then a negative effect will occur, typically causing them or another patron to leave the inn and be discarded. The game ends once you go through the deck of patron cards. If you have seven or more patrons sleeping at your inn, you win the game. If you have fewer than seven, or if at any point you have eight patrons in the discard pile, you lose.

Colour MY Kritters (Simplicatus Games) – In this family friendly deck-building game, the three types of item cards are placed in the display at setup. The kritter cards are then shuffled and four are drawn and also added to the display. On your turn, you draw three cards from your personal deck. Some cards will allow you to draw even more. Your cards show colored splotches. The magic wand item can be used to change colors. Different cards cost different colored splotches and a different number of them. At the end of the game, you sort all your kritter cards by their color. You may then attach any mixing bowl and/or paintbrush item cards that you’ve purchased to your colored stacks of kritters. You may attach one copy of each to each stack. You score one point for each kritter card in a stack with one of these cards and two points for kritters in a stack with both of these cards.

Postcard Board Games (T. Charles Howser) – Each game is printed on a single, standard postcard, with the rules printed there as well. There are four games in total and each game can be replayed as many times as you want. There is Trezaam, in which players search for treasure and then must escape again, Aliena Bellum has players attempting to capture each other's spaceships, Snötåg, which is a cooperative or solo game, in which players make their way through the snow and past wild creatures, and Hettie's Revenge, an abstract puzzle game.