Coming next February

The creator of Race for the Galaxy, Roll for the Galaxy and Jump Drive is working on a new project that mashes up the engine-building elements of his acclaimed sci-fi card game with the intense cardplay and combinations of Magic: The Gathering.

Tom Lehmann’s Res Arcana is the first game from new studio Sand Castle Games, and has an interesting hook: each match, every player (from two to four) will only have eight cards from the complete deck of 40 to use.

The aim is to claim 10 victory points by using your limited pool of actions to summon creatures, claim valuable places and monuments, earn magic essence – the mana-like resource required to play and activate cards – and more, using the interactions between cards to build up an effective points-scoring machine and stop your opponents from claiming points.

The game is explicitly described by Sand Castle having a ‘taste’ of Race for the Galaxy and Magic, and takes place in a fantasy setting full of dragons, swords and sorcery.

It’s due for launch next February – Sand Castle has confirmed that it will not be going on Kickstarter.