Unboxing Thursdays: Small Game Day

Unboxing Thursdays we open, learn and play Love Letter, Siege Storm, Dog Lover, Popcorn Dice & Star Trek Flux.

Love Letter:

The noble Princess is looking for an ideal partner and confidant to help with her royal duties when she one day assumes the throne. You must prove your worth and gain her trust by enlisting allies, friends, and family of the Princess to carry a letter of intent to her. Can you earn the Princess' trust and become her confidant?

Playing cards one at a time, players in Love Letter use the abilities of these key people in the Princess' life to outwit their opponents and successfully deliver their letter and gain her favor. Players must utilize each character's special skill to avoid being caught and successfully deliver their letter to the Princess. Once a set number of favor tokens are acquired, that player wins and becomes the Princess' confidant.

This 2019 edition of Love Letter features new artwork by Citadels artist Andrew Bosley, screen-printed tokens, and two new characters (five cards in total) that allow for games with up to six players. When played, the Chancellor (value 6) allows you to draw two new cards, add those to your hand, then place two cards of your choice on the bottom of the deck. The Spy (value 0) wins you a favor token if you were the only player to play or discard a spy during the round.

Siege Storm:

Siege Storm is a deck-building game. You have cards, your enemy has cards. You both cast some creatures and spells, then one of you wins.

Close your eyes. Imagine you are a mighty lord commanding an army. Or a magician summoning creatures onto a battlefield. Or a farmer who grows his units on a cornfield right in the storm of battle. So you build your army, choose your enemy and try to bring the pain to him before he brings the pain to you.

Between you and your enemy, there are 2 tracks: one that your armies use to travel towards the enemy, and a similar one where your enemy’s units travel to you. Again, just imagine whatever you want – two epic castles in a war or a slow, magic-fest between old, smelly wizards with rheumatism.

Cards are everything here: your life bar, your mana, your library, and so on. When you draw them into your hand you can either play them or discard them to pay for some more expensive, fancy card’s cost. But there are even more decisions from here!

When you play a card, you can play it as an instant and get a trigger effect. Alternatively, you can play it as a creature on your track, then its passive ability will work. It will defend you at first, and once it moves up to the end of your track, it will be able to: a) Activate (attack and trigger its effect) b) Become your supporter (our fancy term for mana) c) Or stay in the middle of the track and make its passive ability work all the time

So, you can build powerful combos, you can zombie-rush, you can build your economy, and all sorts of other cool stuff. But whenever your enemy hits you, you will lose cards from your resources, so there is that. No cards to draw? You lose.

Dog Lover:

In Dog Lover, you fetch cards, collect bones, and gather food for your lovable dogs. You rescue them from the shelter, train them on new tricks, and cherish their unique traits. The player who takes care of their beloved dogs best will score the most victory points and win!

In more detail, you start the game with a random dog card — which come in small, medium, and big sizes — as well as a random "special trick" card. Shuffle the game cards, then lay out the top nine cards in a 3x3 grid. Next to that, lay out three dog trick cards in an adjacent column and three rescued dogs in another column. The player farthest from the start player places the watch dog token next to one of the rows or columns, then the game is ready to play.

On a turn, choose one of your trick cards, rotating it as you desire, then collect cards from the 3x3 grid that match the pattern on the trick card, e.g., common polyomino shapes. You can take at most one card in the row or column under the protection of the watchdog. You can play and tuck cards both before and after you collect cards from the grid. What do you do with what you collect?

Dog cards sit in front of you immediately. Good boy!

Food cards are exchanged for one of the four types of food.

Adoption cards go in your hand, and you can exchange two for a rescued dog, which comes with a special power or 

endgame bonus.

Favorite Things cards are dog toys that are more valuable when you collect them in sets.

Training cards can be tucked under a dog for bonus points, or you can exchange several of them to gain a new trick, which gives you more card-grabbing options each turn.

Walk cards are worth bonus points when tucked under a dog.

Bone cards give you a bonus for fed dogs if you collect enough of them.

Trait cards give an ongoing power and an endgame bonus, but you must attach it to a dog the turn you claim it; otherwise, you must usually discard multiple cards.

When the "End Game" card appears in the deck, you complete the round so that each player has the same number of turns, then you tally points. Each dog has a food requirement. If you meet that requirement, the dog and all its traits and tucked cards will be worth points. However, if you don't give the dog the right type and amount of food, you score -2 points for that dog and ignore all tucked cards that would otherwise give you points (Don't let your dogs go hungry!). The player who scores the most points is the ultimate dog lover!

Popcorn Dice:

Popcorn Dice is a fast & fun dice game for the whole family! Roll your dice to pop your popcorn, but be careful not to let it burn. Each popcorn rolled is one point and double pops are worth two, kernels go back to be rolled again. If you roll 4 burnt popcorns you bust and don't score any points for the round, but you can mitigate them by using a double pop to cancel a burnt pop. After each roll, decide to stop and score or press your luck and roll again.

Score 30 points or pop the perfect bowl of popcorn (all pop or double pop results) to win!

Star Trek Flux:

Fluxx is a card game in which the cards themselves determine the current rules of the game. By playing cards, you change numerous aspects of the game: how to draw cards, how to play cards, and even how to win.

At the start of the game, each player holds three cards and on a turn, a player draws one card, then plays one card. By playing cards, you can put new rules into play that change numerous aspects of the game: how many cards to draw or play, how many cards you can hold in hand or keep on the table in front of you, and (most importantly) how to win the game. There are many editions, themed siblings, and promo cards available.

Now you can set a course for the final frontier with Star Trek Fluxx! Featuring Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and the rest of the original series crew, in this game you take command of the Enterprise and face Creepers like Klingons, Romulans, and the terrifying Doomsday Machine. You might even find yourself playing "Fizzbin" or "Venting the Warp Core" to explore new worlds and collect the Keepers needed for victory! Star Trek Fluxx will take you where no card game has gone before!

Join us Thursday, May 19th @ 6:00pm for our Unboxing Thursday Event as we open learn, and play Love Letter, Siege Storm, Dog Lover, Popcorn Dice & Star Trek Flux.

*This event requires a 1 - Day Membership, credit will be applied back for qualifying purchases. Current Members are always free for this event.*