Craft Illusions from Cards, Control the Sawgrass Sea, and Sew Your Way to Friendship

In the trick-taking game Illusions of Prestige, the magician players battle it out on stage with their best tricks, with the winner of a trick receiving points while losers gain support from apprentices and gather props to use for rule-breaking illusions.

The game lasts one or three hands as you prefer. At the start of a hand, shuffle the deck of 54 cards — the standard 52-card deck, plus high and low jokers — then deal 13 cards to each player. (With two players, each player draws two cards, keeps one of them, draws two more cards, keeps one, etc. until each player has 13 cards.)

The lead player of a hand plays a card, and everyone must follow suit if possible; if they can't, they can play any card. The highest card in the suit led wins the trick, and whoever played this card places it to the right of their player sheet.


Every other player looks at the props depicted on the card they played, marks off each prop on their player sheet, then places their card to the left of this sheet. A player sheet has a number of special powers (illusions) listed on it, with 3-5 props underneath each illusion. As soon as you've marked off all the props on an illusion, you can use it, whether now or in the future. What's more, each player who lost the trick takes an apprentice token and places it in their reserve, where they can have up to three tokens. You can add these tokens to cards played in future tricks to increase the value of your played card. Transform a 10 into a Jack, Queen, or King!

At the end of the hand, score points as follows:

—For each card used to win a trick, 5 points.
—For each completed illusion, 3-5 points based on the number of props.
—For each suit, whoever has the most cards of this suit to the left of their player sheet scores 2 points for each card; ties are friendly.

After you've played the proper number of hands, whoever has the highest score wins.

In the solo game of Illusions of Prestige, you deal two hands of 13 cards, look at them both, then keep one of them, shuffling the other one to represent your opponent. When you lead a trick, you flip cards from the opposing deck until you find one of the matching suit. When the opponent leads, you deal two cards and use the higher one. Cycle through discards as needed.

Each game, players draft two different units, adding those units' cards to their starting deck. Throughout the game, these units are moved around the board — a 4x4 grid of locations, each with their own effects — to attack opposing units and score points, while cards are used to manipulate the game a variety of ways.

The three action cards correspond to the three different unit types — Infantry, Cavalry, and Engine — and along with the turn sequence card, they drive the game through round-based game play in which each player in a round receives three turns, but never the same three actions as the other player.


Players score points for destroying an opposing unit, playing two or more cards during their turn, having both units survive the round, and controlling the vast inland Sawgrass Sea. The game ends when a player has scored 12 or more points at the end of the round, with the player who scores the most points winning.

You have been parted from a dear friend for a long time. Now, they have called for you. You are going to visit your friend, and the path is long and it will take many days. As you plan and trace your route on a cloth map (or paper), using needle and thread (or pen), you will use and answer story prompt cards to discover the stories and primary incidents behind your friendship, find strange and wonderful objects and people on your path, and build your own narrative of this particular journey and friendship.

A Mending is a solo story-building and keepsake game about two friends who have been parted for some time, using sewing, embroidery, and map-marking mechanisms.


This game is a reflection of my desire to make games that create physical gameplay artifacts and beautiful keepsakes, my love of maps, a deep respect of handiwork often categorized as "women's work", and many years of missing dear — and distant — friends.

You will play the game by planning your route, marking the map, and building a story by answering prompt cards. The prompt cards will ask you to consider your relationship with your friend, mark your map with beads or written notes, introduce you to delightful characters (including at least one dog), and will sometimes affect the path you have chosen. The gameplay time can vary between one hour (solo, paper and pen only) to two hours or more (collaborative gameplay, with hand-sewing). The game is designed to be played solo, but the game booklet will also include suggestions on how to play this as a two-person game (using a single game kit), or communally in a larger group. A Mending can be also played as a system-agnostic storytelling module for other roleplaying games.