Dragon Master (2004)

Overview

Dragon Master is designed by Reiner Knizia and originally published and released in Korea. Your aim is to create vertical lines that score lots of points. As you sit on neighboring (rather than opposite) sides of the playing area, your horizontal lines appear as vertical lines for your opponent, and vice versa. The game ends when both of you have played all your 8 cards into the playing area. The 4x4 grid is now complete. Count each of your 4 vertical lines individually and compare the weakest column from both players to determine the winner. Whoever has the higher score in this line wins. In case of a tie, compare all vertical lines. If all lines awarded the same number of points, the game ends in a draw.

Based on the early Reiner Knizia games Sono and Prisma, and then reworked as Robot Master

Note: the rules in the Victory Point Games promo edition are slightly different:

1) There are only 20 dragon cards in the deck. Players are each dealt 8 cards; the remaining 4 are discarded without the players knowing their values. 2) The grid size is 4x4. 3) Each column is worth the sum of its values. A pair of cards in the same column counts as 10x the value (e.g., 2 "2" cards in a row would be worth 20 points). Three or more cards of the same value in a column scores 100 points.