Tschak! is a small card game where players are trying to gain treasure and avoid monsters but the gameplay offers something rather clever.

The 40 cards consist of wizards, warriors and dwarves with different values on them.  Each player is dealt 3 of each, plus one artefact card making a hand of 10 cards.  Players will assault 4 towers (one per round) and the player with most victory points (VPs) at the end wins.

Each tower has 3 levels played in order and each level has a random treasure and monster placed on it.  For each level, players play a total of 3 cards and the player with the highest combined value of cards gets the treasure (VPs) and the player with the lowest gets the monster (negative VPs).   A couple of the cards have special abilities: one wizard’s value is only the same as the most powerful wizard played by another player, and the artefact card doubles your weakest card.

Each level is played slightly differently.  On level 1, players simultaneously play 1 card at a time from their hands three times to make their total.  On level 2, players simultaneously play 2 cards and then 1 card.  On level 3, players play all 3 cards simultaneously.  This leaves each player with 1 card and these earn their owners 3, 2 and 1 gold based on the highest card values (gold being worth 1 VP each too). Read the rest of this entry »

I have been very impressed by GameWorks’ games as they’re always so beautifully produced with real attention to detail.  The box inner for Tikal II not only had specially moulded sections for all game parts but each section was numbered and these matched the numbers in the rules.  Last year they released: Tikal II, Water Lily and Sobek.  This year GameWorks have two new games:

	Tschak   Tshcak is a trick taking game where players go through 3 levels in each of 4 dungeons. The images of the cards released show various adventurers, monsters, spells and so on.  One of the green adventurers looks to be inspired by a certain laser disc videogame adventurer which is cool. The info on the game revealed so far doesn’t give much away but the goal  is to get all the treasures and no monsters.  However, Tschak is designed by Dominique Ehrhard who designed the superb, and superbly simple, Water Lily and Lascaux, so I will definitely give this one a try. Plays 2-4 players in 30-40 minutes.
	Bonbons  This is a memory game to get candy but with a twist because it seems you can also steal back some of the candies other players have won.  I don’t know much more than that. Plays 2-6 players in 10-20 minutes.