Cast Spells, Create Quilts, and Lose Fingers in These Pre-2020 Games

In my non-stop quest for game announcements and information, I often run across older titles that might have received little to no coverage and think, "Well, that's neat. Too bad it was overlooked." Then I realized that I could post about these games anyway in the spirit that anything you haven't heard of previously is news to you.

With that thought in mind, here are a few pre-2020 game releases that I've come across only recently:

• SPELL from designer Jesús Fuentes and Spanish publisher Perro Loko Games, which debuted in 2019, seems to cover familiar ground in its setting and the basics of gameplay, but the cover is fresh and eye-catching.

Here's a summary of what the game's about:

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Every hundred years, the catacombs of the Council Palace tremble with unleashed magic, invoking powerful creatures and even changing the terrain itself. A challenge takes place between two powerful sorcerers to determine who presides over the Council for another century. Will you defeat your rival in this magical challenge? Will you become the next Great Wizard?

SPELL is a dynamic game for two players who play powerful wizards in their quest to earn the respect of their peers through a logical challenge. You have to demonstrate your intelligence by completing more magical patterns than your opponent, using the creatures you summon, your powers to change the ground beneath your feet, and the advantages of the patterns you complete.

• In 2019, designer JinWoo Seo of Show House Games funded the publication of Jogakbo, a.k.a. 조각보 (which is Korean for "patchwork"), on the Korean crowdfunding site Tumblbug (link).

I know this game was sold at Game Market in Japan in 2019, but otherwise I'm not sure how you acquire this game. No matter! The game exists, so now I'm writing about it. Here's how this 2-4 player design works:

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In Jogakbo, you are a member of the Seolbo Artisan Group — "설" (seol) referring to both harmony and a piece of silk — and your group has been challenged to assemble a beautiful quilt from whatever silk pieces they have available in their shops. Who will create the most harmonious quilt that satisfies the client's demands?

To set up, each player receives their own 8x8 game board, playing on either the easy or normal side of the board. The board features a 2x2 central space as well as a number of holes and spots for ornamentation. You lay out two main order cards and one secondary order card at random, along with 5-9 pieces of silk cloth in the four colors, adjusting the quantity based on the player count. Additionally, you have high-quality silk patches that cover either a 1x1 or 2x1 space, with these pieces being of a fifth and sixth color. Place one piece of silk of the main four colors on the matching spaces on the market board. Give each player three coins, with the start player taking an additional coin.

On a turn, you can either move the token on the market board to a different color and take the silk piece and any coins from this space, or pay 2 coins to choose any silk piece from the main four colors, whether from the market board or in the reserves. (The start player can place the token on any of the four colors on the first turn.) You then place the silk on your board. Your first piece must cover at least one square in the center of your game board; each subsequent piece must lie orthogonally adjacent to a piece already on your board, and pieces of the same color cannot be adjacent to one another!

If you cover an ornament space on your board, you can pay a coin to take a high-quality silk piece and place it on your board. If you cover another ornament space, you can do this again. To end your turn, (if needed) choose a silk piece from the reserve of the same color that you took and place it on the market board, then place a coin from the bank on any market space that doesn't have the token in it.

Whenever you achieve a secondary order during play, such as covering a hole with high-quality silk or placing a second piece of the same shape, you receive a bonus immediately.

After eight rounds, the game ends. You receive a bonus based on how well you completed the main orders, such as creating a silk-filled square or filling the diagonals of your board. Additionally, each filled vertical or horizontal line is worth 3 points, each uncovered ornament 1 point, each hole -1 point, and each coin 1 point as long as you have at least three coins. Whoever has the highest score wins.

• In 2018, Japanese publisher DELiGHTWORKS released a co-operative game from Seiji Kanai for 1-4 players titled Chain Somnia, a.k.a. チェインソムニア, and based on this Facebook post from Japanime Games' Eric Price, the game seems likely to appear in a new edition. Here's a quick take on the game:

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In Chain Somnia, children become trapped in the castle of Akuma and must work with others to escape. If any player is on the "wake up" tile when all nightmare cards are removed, they escape and win the game; if all the characters are caught or the event cards run out with anyone waking up, then everyone is defeated.

• At Spielwarenmesse 2020, BGG recorded a video overview of Tatamokatsu, a tiny dice game for 2-5 players coming from Swiss publisher Helvetiq that contains three, even tinier dice. On a turn, you roll all three dice with whichever fingers you have accessible to you on one hand, then take the action shown on the dice, with that action often being to cut off another player's finger. (Not really, of course, since this game is not adapting Roald Dahl's story "Man from the South".)

Whoever still has at least one digit when everyone else has none wins. Here's the video we recorded should you care to see the game in more detail:

• As unbelievable as it might sound, Tatamokatsu is not the only finger-amputation game on the market. In 2018, Thai publisher Wizards of Learning released Last Hand Standing from designer Perus Saranurak. Here's how it works:

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You awake in a survival game, and your right hand is trapped. Only the final player who still has a finger left will survive this game...

Last Hand Standing is a quick math game for 2-5 players with a survival theme. Each player rolls the dice, then attempts to cut another player's finger by using the number on the dice and a card in the player's hand and adding, subtracting, multiplying, or dividing to create a number from 1-5.