Put Winning Pairs Together in Twin Palms, and Spot Birds of a Feather...Again

Put Winning Pairs Together in Twin Palms, and Spot Birds of a Feather...Again
Board Game: Birds of a Feather
• Designer Teale Fristoe released the card game Birds of a Feather through his own studio, Nothing Sacred Games, in 2015, and new U.S. publisher Snowbright Studio plans to release an updated version of the game as Birds of a Feather: Western North America, with a crowdfunding campaign to start in Q2 2022.

Here's an overview of the game for those unfamiliar with the original release:
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You and the other players explore different habitats to spot birds. In the first round, each player chooses and reveals a card from hand, then marks off on their score sheet or the app the bird they played as well as all other birds played in the same habitat. The deck contains cards from five habitats, with some birds being more common than others. In the second round, you each play a card again, then you mark all birds in your current habitat as well as all cards played the previous round in that habitat. Apparently word spread about all the great finds! Remove all cards from the first round, then keep playing additional rounds in the same manner.

Board Game: Birds of a Feather: Western North America
Non-final cards in the new edition

When each player has only one card left in hand, the game ends. For each ace bird you've seen in a habitat, you score 2 points; for each other non-common bird you've seen, score 1 point; and if you've seen all seven types of birds in a habitat, score 3 bonus points for a total of 10 points in that habitat. Whoever has the most total points wins.

Birds of a Feather: Western North America differs from Birds of Feather thanks to new graphic design, a mini-expansion, and improved rules for two- and three-player games to make them more strategic.
Board Game Publisher: Bink Ink LLC
Twin Palms will be the first published game from designer Kristi B., with publisher Bink Ink — which debuted in 2014 with Trekking the National Parks — crowdfunding the design on Kickstarter.

Here's an overview of this trick-taking game in which you have the freedom to play any cards you wish:
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At the start of each of the game's 5-8 rounds, you bid the number of tricks (0-5) you think you'll claim with the ten cards in your hand. Wait, ten cards = five tricks? Yes, because each time you play to a trick, you play two cards at once!

You play the game with 1-3 suits of cards depending on your desired level of difficulty and the number of players at the table; each suit has cards numbered 0-10 and a wild, with each card appearing twice. The strongest play is a pair of cards that are the same number, with high numbers beating low ones, and with palm trees beating dolphins, which beat sunglasses, which beat pairs that are of different suits. If no one plays a pair, then whoever played the highest single card wins the trick. After five tricks, you score points if you've met your bid exactly. (If you bid a non-zero number of tricks but missed, you still score 1 point per trick taken.)

From gallery of W Eric Martin
Non-final cards in a pre-production copy

What's more, if you want to play risky, you can place bets on your bids, giving you an additional way to win (or lose) points. Whoever has the most points after the designated number of rounds wins!
Board Game: GOSU
The original
• In a February 2022 Facebook post, publisher Sorry We Are French noted that the Gosu X — its updated version of Kim Satô's card game GOSU, which debuted in 2010 — should debut at FIJ 2023 in February, with a retail release in April/May 2023.

I loved GOSU back in the day, so I'm curious to see how it's changed, especially since the developer mentions that it's been in testing for three years. Here's a link to my May 2019 post about this new version of GOSU.

From gallery of W Eric Martin

From gallery of W Eric Martin
Teaser images from the SWAF Facebook page

Board Game: Cat in the box
• Japanese publisher Hobby Japan has previewed the new edition of Muneyuki Yokouchi's trick-taking game Cat in the Box, which will have an expanded player count from 2-5 instead of 3-4.

In this trick-taking game, cards don't have suits, so if someone leads with a 6 and says it's green, you can play any non-6 card and say it's green to match the suit. If you claim not to have green cards, then you can never play a "green" card in the future. The challenge is that you're trying to win the number of tricks you bid, while also trying to create an orthogonally connected block of played cards on the shared grid, while also not causing a contradiction by being forced to play a card that's already been played.

This second edition of Cat in the Box was originally scheduled for release in April 2022, but the manufacturing situation has caused a delay to an unspecified date, which is a shame as I've played the game three times and love its odd challenge and the different ways you think about playing cards.

From gallery of W Eric Martin

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