The Ninth World: A Skillbuilding Game for Numenera (2018)

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From Lone Shark Games and Monte Cook Games comes The Ninth World: A Skillbuilding Game for Numenera, an epic card game set in the far-future world of Numenera.

The Ninth World is a card game for 1 to 5 players. It can be played competitively, cooperatively, or in solo mode. Each player plays a Nano, Jack, or Glaive. Each character is described with an adjective ("I am a learned..."), noun ("...nano..."), and verb phrase ("...who rides the lightning").

Characters will explore one of the nine kingdoms of The Steadfast—or they may venture into the even stranger lands of the Beyond. Each kingdom is illustrated with a set of five region cards. Over the course of a quick five-round game, the characters will simultaneously explore the starting region on round 1, then continue out to the region on the far reaches of the kingdom. In a standard game of nine rounds, they'll then head back home on the other side of the card.

Each round, characters will choose how much time to spend performing actions with their five skills — scouting the wilderness, tinkering with cyphers and oddities, charming allies, combating creatures, and focusing on skill advancement — and then bid against the other heroes for the choicest cards. Each phase, a character can adventure in the town, where rewards are predictable and creatures not so dangerous. Or they can head out to the wilderness, where strange cyphers have unpredictable powers and the creatures look to bash you into oblivion.

Gameplay is simultaneous and every action is rewarded with victory points. Whoever has the most points at the end is the most legendary adventurer.

In co-op mode, characters can work together to defeat the creatures and garner the relics, but there's a catch: the wilderness is trying to kill the town. Cards flip off the wilderness deck, and the characters have to take them out before the creatures destroy the town locations and the relics and quests make it impossible for them to win. Or a character can go it alone in solo mode, which is like that except no one is there to help.