Game Mechanic: Trading

"Crossroads" is a game series from Plaid Hat Games that tests a group of survivors' ability to work together and stay alive while facing crises and challenges from both outside and inside. Dead of Winter: A Crossroads Game, the first title in this series, puts 2-5 players in a small, weakened colony of survivors in a world in which most of humanity is either dead or diseased, flesh-craving monsters. Each player leads a faction of survivors, with dozens of different characters in the game. Dead of Winter is a meta-cooperative psychological survival game. This means players are working together toward one common victory condition, but for each individual player to achieve victory, they must also complete their personal secret objective, which could relate to a psychological tick that's fairly harmless to most others in the colony, a dangerous obsession that could put the main objective at risk, a desire for sabotage of the main mission, or (worst of all) vengeance against the colony! Games could end with all players winning, some winning and some losing, or all players losing. Work toward the group's goal, but don't get walked all over by a loudmouth who's looking out only for their own interests! Dead of Winter is an experience that can be accomplished only through the medium of tabletop games, a story-centric game about surviving through a harsh winter in an apocalyptic world. The survivors are all dealing with their own psychological imperatives, but must still find a way to work together to fight off outside threats, resolve crises, find food and supplies, and keep the colony's morale up. Dead of Winter has players making frequent, difficult, heavily-thematic, wildly-varying decisions that often have them deciding between what's best for the colony and what's best for themselves. The rulebook also includes a fully co-operative variant in which all players work toward the group objective with no personal goals.

Quarantine Z is a survival card game for 3-5 players. It takes place in a town, city or neighborhood that has been infested with a Zombie outbreak. The Department of Inexplicable Events has placed the area under quarantine; nothing can get out of the area until the zombie threat runs its course. One player plays as the Zombies, whose goal is to kill all Survivors. The remaining Players are Survivors, whose goal is to collect supplies and find shelter to outlast the zombie threat and the quarantine. Survivors win if they are still alive when the Zombie Player runs out of cards in the Zombie Deck, and the Zombie Player's hand is empty. Each Survivor has 3 life, and they can be hurt by either Zombies, or other Survivors. By playing Supply cards while they are at a Shelter, Survivors "wait a week" and the Zombie player is forced to discard cards. Survivors travel from location to location collecting Supplies and Munitions and killing or evading zombies placed in their path by the Zombie player. They must also watch out for the other Survivors who may at any time, betray them to steal their food and supplies, or use them as a distraction to save themselves.

In Zooligans card game players take on the role of zookeepers trying to find animals to complete their exhibits. In so doing, they attract visitors to make the best zoo. The game is set up with a three exhibit goals, such as "4 or more reptiles" or "3 or more rainforest animals" that are central to all players. In addition, players have a secret continental theme, scoring them bonus visitors for animals from their continent. When the game begins, players start with a hand of three animal cards. Each turn, players can bid on a worldwide animal in the auction. Then they play a card adding it to their zoo. When a player has all the animals to complete an exhibit goal, they can form the exhibit, attracting a number of visitors. At the end of the game, the points are tallied, and the player with the most visitors wins.