Little Battle (2019)

Overview

Little Battle might be thought of as a child's first drafting game. The game includes a deck of 27 animal cards in blue, yellow, and red, with values from roughly 1-10. At the start of a round, each player gets a hand of five cards, places one of them face down on their longship, passes the cards left, chooses another card, etc. until they have five cards on their longship.

They then take these cards in hand, and everyone simultaneously chooses a card and places it face down on the table. You're using these animals to win treasure chests, which also come in blue, yellow, and red. The chests are shuffled and placed in two piles. You play your card by a face-up chest, then everyone reveals their card:

If your animal doesn't match the color of the chest, remove it from play. If only one animal is by a chest, that player's owner claims it. If multiple animals are by a chest, whoever played the highest number wins the chest.

Continue to play until you've played all five cards. If any chests remain, shuffle the animal cards and play another round. Once all the chests have been claimed, turn over the chest cards and count the coins on them to see who has the biggest treasure haul!

The game includes three animal chiefs that have a value of 0, but a unique special ability that can possibly win you a chest you wouldn't have got otherwise. Shuffle them into the animal deck for an additional challenge.