A local game store had a bunch of demo games available near me today, so I got to try 3 I hadn't played before.
Splendor, 2-4 players
The coolest thing about this game is the heavy poker chip tokens. They are quite satisfying to collect and trade in.
Each player takes turns doing one of four actions. They can pick up tokens (3 of different colors, or 2 of the same color as long as they draw from a stack of 4+ tokens), reserve a card to their hand (so no one can buy it), or buy a card (from the table or their hand).
Each card you buy costs certain gem color combinations, but also gives you a discount for a specific color. This means that eventually, you can start getting cards for free because of your collection. Some cards also give prestige points, and if you get the right combinations you can earn "noble" tiles that also give prestige points. Once a player reaches 15+ points, the game ends once everyone has had an equal number of turns.
The rules are only 2 pages and were pretty easy for 3 people completely new to the game to read and pick up. It seemed like a decent balance between the luck of card deals, and which cards you start collecting, reserving, and planning to buy. A relatively short play time is cool too.
Overall this was a neat game, but $20-30 neat, not $35+ neat. It's on sale for $29 on Amazon right now so I -might- pick it up, but I should probably control my spending since I bought a bunch recently.
Dead Man's Draw, 2-4 players
One way to understand this game might be to think of it as everyone taking turns playing Blackjack with themselves.
On their turn, each player starts turning over cards from the top of the deck. Each card belongs to a different suit, and each suit has a different effect. For example, a "kraken" card forces you to draw 2 more cards. You can stop after each new card gets drawn and resolved, collecting all the cards for your own "bank". If you keep going and end up with two cards of the same suit, you lose everything that was drawn on that turn, however, aside from certain rules -- for example, an anchor lets you keep everything up to that point even if you bust.
Each player gets two "trait" cards at the start of the game and picks one. That modifies the game rules slightly so each game will be a bit different. There were also some other cards (expansion? special edition?) that provided variants of the game. We played once with normal rules, and once with a special rule that if you went bust, the person on your right got all your cards. That seemed cool.
This game's experience was hindered by the person next to me having HORRIBLE body odor. =( Overall, an interesting game idea for people who like flipping cards, and each game was quick, but even after 2 games it seemed like we ended up checking reference cards a lot to remember what the various trait powers and suit powers mean. If you play 3-4 games you'll probably memorize everything but it could throw some people off. For $20 this game might be decent but I'm personally not an enormous fan of that lucky-card-streak gameplay style.
Red Dragon Inn, 2-4 players (or up to something ridiculous like 16 players if you spend lots of money on expansion packs)
This is yet another relatively quick game with 4 players, maybe 30-60 minutes. Each player picks a character with their own themed deck of cards. Everyone (in the base game) has a set amount of gold, starts with no alcohol, and full fortitude. You are adventurers in the inn, trying to be the last one with gold who hasn't passed out drunk.
Each turn you can trade in cards, then play an action card (it might do something bad to another player, or start a gambling minigame), then add a drink card to someone's stack, then flip your own top drink card. The drink cards are from the base game and range from coffee (lowers alcohol) and water (no effect), to crazy high alcohol content drinks.
If you run out of gold, you're kicked out of the game. If your fortitude and alcohol counters evere meet (you're hurt too much, or your drink too much), you pass out drunk and are kicked out of the game.
I'm not sure how important the gambling minigame is. In our 4-player game, I think everyone passed out drunk before anyone got close to running out of gold.
Different character decks have different focuses. One character might be great at the gambling game, with various ways to cheat. Another might be good at tavern brawls, so they attack other players. Yet another might be good at healing and protecting themselves, but they don't have a good way to avoid drinks or lower their alcohol content.
I ended up buying this after playing and winning a 4-player game, and I might not have bought it had I not tried the demo copy, so kudos to the store for having it out.
Antidote, 2-7 players
Lastly, I blind-bought Antidote. They wasn't a demo copy out, so hopefully I haven't made a horrible decision, but it looked kind of neat. I like the idea of a deduction game and I enjoyed classic Clue.
