Gather Mushrooms, Arrange Rings, and Avoid Barracuda with Helvetiq

In Kinoko, each player secretly draws a color card corresponding to a family of mushrooms — musicians, scientists, etc. — and gets a hand of three mushroom cards.

On your turn, roll the three dice, then choose one of them. The result of that die, whether a number or an icon, determines your action: exchange two cards, swap two sets of cards, pick at any card secretly, etc. To win the round, you must gather the three members of your family in one location during your turn. This reunion can happen in any player's hand or on the table.


Seems easy? The trick is you can see only the cards in other players' hands, and your decisions are limited to what you roll on the dice. What's more, each round one family of mushrooms turns poisonous, and having a card of that color in your hand when the round stops earns you a negative point...

The round's winner scores positive points, and the first player to 4 points wins.

Welcome to Cartagena, Colombia! The colonial houses in this historical town are a testimony to its colorful past. You, on the other hand, are more interested in old shipwrecks — more specifically, sunken Spanish galleons filled with gold. Time to embark on an old-fashioned underwater treasure hunt. What you didn't anticipate is that several of you have discovered the legends of these buried riches. To make matters worse, a barracuda is prowling through the shipwrecks.

The challenge in Barrakuda is to be the first player to have eight gold pieces in their vault, but before you can lock away gold in your vault, you need to find it on shipwrecks or steal it from others.

To set up the game, lay out shipwreck cards numbered 1-6 in some orthogonal arrangement, and give each player movement cards numbered 1-5, along with a barracuda card. On a turn, each player chooses a card from their hand, then they reveal them simultaneously. If you played a movement card, move your pawn to that shipwreck card; if you're the only player there (and the barracuda isn't), take both the special action and general action listed on the card. If more than one player is on the same shipwreck card, then whoever has the fewest movement cards in front of them has the initiative and can either take the special action or take all the gold from one player's bag; after this, all players take this card's general action.


If you're the only one who played a barracuda card, roll the distance die, then move it up to that many spaces in the direction of your choice. If a barracuda is on the same space as a player, they have to drop their gold on that shipwreck space; others can pick up that gold starting next turn. If none or more than one player play barracuda, roll the direction and distance card to determine where it goes.

Actions on cards let you pick up gold, move gold from your bag to your vault, protect you from the barracuda, take back movement cards, move the barracuda, and so on.

Each player starts with eight colored rings: two of each color, with four on each hand. Each turn, a card is revealed that shows one or two hands and a combination of colored rings. As quickly as you can, move the rings from finger to finger to recreate that pattern before anyone else. The fastest player to do so wins the card, and whoever first collects five cards wins.


Some constraints will make the task harder, such as treating one color as another or forcing you to switch rings without looking at your fingers.