New Game Round-up: Deinko Games – 7 Kingdoms, DoReMi, Food Chain & Magic Cat

In 7 Kingdoms, players are royal agents who want to collect as many followers as possible. Whoever does this best will win the game.

The deck in 7 Kingdoms consists of 49 cards in seven types, with each type having seven cards in a particular number range: king (1-7), bishop (8-14), etc. up to peasant (43-49). Each number range has seven cards in it, with each being a different color and bearing a crest of that color. Each player starts with three cards in hand, and one crest card of each type is laid in a row, with one card placed face up next to each crest.

Each round, players take turn laying one card face up in front of them, then they resolve the cards from high to low. Whoever played the highest card places it on the opposite side of the leftmost crest card, then takes 1-4 cards from those on display next to the crests as determined by the power of the card played. Then the player with the next highest card goes, etc. Any cards unclaimed are placed to the right of played cards, then the row is filled with cards from the deck until seven cards are on display once again.

With each card claimed, the player can either add it to his hand (up to a maximum of three cards in hand) or place it in his scoring pile. Kings, for example, let you take any four cards on display, while generals let you take cards from three consecutive spaces, princesses let you take any two cards, and peasants let you take one of two cards from specific spaces. Thus, the low cards let you claim first, but put more restrictions on what you claim or have you claim fewer cards. The bishop scores himself, then let you place one of two bonus tokens on the leftmost crest card, reveal another bonus token, then claim one card.

When the deck runs out or each crest card has a bonus token, the game ends and players score any cards remaining in hand. Each card claimed is worth 1 point (except for kings, which are worth 2), and whoever has the most cards of a crest claims the bonus token on that crest, thereby earning bonus points or doubling his score.

In practice DoReMi is akin to a musical Jungle Speed, with players trying to rid themselves of cards in hand as quickly as possible — but they can do so only by listening to the scale.

The deck in DoReMi consists of eight cards each of the seven notes — Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Si — and six bonus cards in three types: Mute, Stereo and Doremi (keyboard). Shuffle the deck and deal it out facedown to all players.

Each player takes his deck in hand, and on a turn she says the next note in the scale while revealing a card and slapping it on the table (ideally revealing the card away from her). Thus, the first players says "Do" and reveals, the next player "Re" and reveals, etc. If the note being said matches the card being revealed, players must race to slap the card stack, with the last player to do so gaining all of the cards. When a keyboard is revealed, everyone must slap, regardless of the note. With "Stereo", the two players on the immediate right and left of the player must slap, regardless of the note. Once a "Mute" has been played, everyone must quietly track the notes in their hand and slap the stack at the right time.

If you slap the card stack at the wrong time, you must take all of the cards, with the next player starting again with "Do". Whoever first rids herself of cards wins.

The 36-card deck in Food Chain consists of six animals in six colors with each color having 1-6 animal icons on it. At the start of a round, each player receives a hand of six cards. In the first round, each player simultaneously reveals a card and places it in the center of play. For rounds #2-4, players then do the following: Simultaneously reveal one card from their hand, take turns claiming one card from the center of play in food chain order (tigers, wolves, raccoons, snakes, frogs, butterflies, with more animals of the same type beating fewer), then they all place their cards in the center of the table.

After each has claimed three cards, they use their final two cards in hand to try to make poker combinations using either animal type, number of animals, or card color. Players score 1 point for a single pair up to 15 points for a five-of-a-kind. The best combination earns 3 bonus points, and each butterfly card is worth 1 extra point. If someone has reached fifty points, the game ends and this player wins; otherwise shuffle the deck for a new round.

To win in Magic Cat, you need to complete potions and you need to do it quickly — sort of.

Each player starts the game with an empty potion bottle and a magic spell card, while all of the ingredients, other potion bottles, magic potion tiles and curse tiles are shuffled together face down, then placed in four stacks, with the top of tile of three stacks being turned face up.

One player starts as the first magician and says a spell of some kind starting with the word "Start" and ending with whatever she wants to say, e.g., "(werewolf howl)". The other players, in any order, try to say "First (werewolf howl)", "Second (werewolf howl)", etc., but they can't say something at the same time as another player; if they do, or if someone says that wrong thing, then the round ends and those magicians receive a curse token worth -1 point.

As magicians answer correctly, they throw their magic spell cards into the box in the center of the table. Once the round ends, in the order that they threw their cards in the box they claim one ingredient from a stack, revealing the next ingredient if they took a face-up tile. If someone reveals a curse tile, then she must take that, too.

When two stacks are empty or all of the curse tokens have been taken, the game ends. Players then score 3, 7 or 10 points for their completed potions (which take 3-5 ingredients), 1 point for each magic potion, and -1 for each curse (with an additional -4 points for whoever has the most). Whoever has the high score wins.