There’s now a RuPaul’s Drag Race card game, and it’s sickening

It’s time to play your best hand, kitty girls.

If you’ve ever found yourself debating which RuPaul’s Drag Race contestant is the ultimate queen – and let’s be honest, who hasn’t? – then this brand new Top Trumps-style card game may be just what you need for your next kiki.

“Drag Chumps is a card game that allows you and your fishy friends to battle it out with some of your favourite queens from the show,” explain the creators of Pop Chumps’ new Drag Race-themed edition.

“Each Ru-Girl has been illustrated in their most iconic moments with categories such as Runway Rating and Lip-sync Level, the game puts you straight into the workroom to see if you can become America’s Next Drag Superstar.”

There are two packs of Drag Race themed cards, each priced at £9.99 on the Pop Chumps website, containing all of your favourite queens.

Volume one features fan favourites including Shangela, Adore Delano, Bianca Del Rio, Laganja Estranja, Sharon Needles, Valentina, Bob The Drag Queen, Jujubee, Tatianna, Latrice Royale, and the iconic Stacy Layne Matthews.

Meanwhile, volume two introduces Alaska, Chad Michaels, Sasha Velour, Violet Chachki, Courtney Act, Trixie Mattel, Willam, Peppermint, Jasmine Masters, Katya, Gia Gunn, Jinkx Monsoon and many more to the game.

“We felt as if there wasn’t a brand out there that was using pop culture in a playable format that people could have fun with before a night out or on the mega bus up to Leeds,” the creators told Gay Times.

“We just wanted to merge the sense of nostalgia of card games that you grew up with, with something embedded in popular culture and Drag Race felt like something people would be gagging for. It’s the game for the new dysfunctional family.”

Well, we know what we’ll be doing during our Pride pre-drinks now…

Best Solitaire Apps for Android

Good Solitaire apps have a lot to offer, even if you have a Solitaire app installed on your phone already. Free Solitaire apps have modes and game types that you probably aren’t familiar with and don’t cost you anything up-front. The best paid solitaire apps also have new game modes and gameplay options. Because you pay for them, they don’t have ads or annoying in-app purchases.

Don’t get stuck without something to do on your commute or at the store. Download these best solitaire apps and best free solitaire apps to your smartphone or today.

Best Solitaire Apps for Android

These great Solitaire apps work on Samsung Galaxy phones or any Android smartphone with the Google Play Store installed. They also work on your Android tablet.

Solitaire by Zynga is the best free Solitaire app you can download on Android.

This Solitaire app includes 1 card draw and 3 card draw. That way, you can up the difficulty when 1 card draw gets repetitive for you. Two extra modes, Klondike Solitaire and Patience, let you mix things up when you’re ready to try something entirely different.

What Solitaire by Zynga lacks in extra modes, it makes up for with tons of features. You can undo any move you make and change the size of your cards. Leaderboards let you compare your stats with your friends and family.

Solitaire by Zynga is an ad-supported game in the Google Play Store. Because of that, it doesn’t have any in-app purchases.

Best Paid Solitaire App for Android: The Solitaire Megapack

If you don’t like ads and want more games, definitely buy the Solitaire Megapack.

You get tons of modes with this great Solitaire app. It includes Klondike, Patience and Windows Solitaire. You can play 1 or 3 card draw too. The Solitaire Megapack lets you change how you’re scored, so you can try something different when you’re ready.

Switch to another game when you grow tired of Solitaire. The Solitaire Megapack has FreeCell, Golf, Spider, 3 Towers, Canfield, TriPeaks, Clock and Pyramid. It’s also stuffed with fan-favorite card games that you don’t get in other Solitaire apps, like Poker Square, Bowling, King’s Corner, Grandma’s Game and Picture Gallery. Track how much your card game skills are improving with built-in stats tracking.

Here's What We Know About Artifact, Valve's New Card Game

Valve demoed its upcoming card game Artifact recently at its Seattle office and the details have begun pouring in. While Valve founder Gabe Newell reportedly called Blizzard’s Hearthstone the “benchmark” for online card games, Artifact sounds like it will be very different.

Previously, all we knew was that the game was inspired by Dota and as a result would have a board consisting of three different lanes. PC Gamer reports that in practice this means Artifact feels like playing three separate Hearthstone matches simultaneously. To make matters even more complicated, what happens on each of these separate lanes (which basically act like mini-game boards) can affect the others in various ways.

If you thought Artifact might be more straightforward and less complicated than Dota, I have some bad news: it seems like Dota crossed with Magic: The Gathering. It makes sense now that we know veteran MTG designer Richard Garfield has been working with Valve on the game since 2014. The game’s base set will consist of somewhere north of 280 cards and 44 different heroes, some of which will be straight from Dota. Valve has also confirmed to IGN that while you’ll be able to purchase card packs on the Steam marketplace, Artifact won’t be free-to-play. An actual price for the game hasn’t been announced yet, however. What we do know is people will be able to trade and sell their individual cards on the Steam marketplace, although Valve is trying to stress that the game won’t be pay-to-win.

Here’s what we know so far about how it will play based on reports by IGN and PC Gamer:

• Decks will consist of a minimum of 40 cards and have five heroes, with up to three copies of each card allowed.
• Cards will belong to one of four different colors—Red, Green, Black, and Blue—each set of which will have a distinctive style and can only be played in lanes where a hero of the same color is present.
• Games start with each player designating a hero for each lane accompanied by some ally creeps, two more of which spawn every turn after.
• Lanes start with a tower that has 40 health. When they die they’re replaced by an Ancient with 80 health. Lose two towers or one Ancient and it’s game over.
• Each lane also has its own mana pool, starting at three and increasing by one every turn, which you can spend to play cards which cast spells, summon more creeps, or do other cool stuff.
• When you play a card, your opponent will get a chance to respond with one of their own. After this back-and-forth, combat takes place, with whatever heroes and creeps you have on your side attacking the enemies directly in front of them (unless there’s nothing, in which case they attack the tower or Ancient).
• After combat in one lane, the action shifts to the next until all three lanes have been played and the round comes to an end.
• At the end of combat you collect gold for anything you’ve killed, which can be spent on items to equip your heroes during a shopping phase that occurs between rounds. You also draw two cards from your deck during this period.
• Like in Dota, heroes have a limited number of slots for equipment. A special cloak might add to their health stat, while a magic dagger increases attack or siege damage against buildings.
• Finally, when heroes die they aren’t gone for good. Instead they respawn after the next round and can be redeployed to whatever lane you decide most needs them.

Artifact is currently in closed beta on Steam, and it should go public by the end of this year. Then there’s an esports tournament scheduled for the first quarter of 2019, with plans to bring the game to iOS and Android sometime after that.

How Sushi Go's Designer Makes Board Games

When Phil Walker-Harding was a child he made silly little board games with his brother and cousin. Now he makes internationally successful games like Sushi Go and Bärenpark. They're still a bit silly.

We spoke with Walker-Harding about how he does what he does.
Making board games has always been a hobby for Phil Walker-Harding. He carries a notebook around to jot down ideas as they come to him, playing with the ideas until they coalesce into something real. About ten years ago he decided to take the hobby more seriously and started to self-publish his games under the Adventureland Games label.

"A couple of my early designs got picked up by bigger publishers and I slowly built up my design experience this way," says Walker-Harding.

One of these early designs was Sushi Go, a simple 'pick and pass' card game where players try to put together the most delectable -- and adorable -- sushi dinner. Fast, fun and easy to learn, Sushi Go is a joy to play.

After a successful Indiegogo campaign, Sushi Go came to the attention of publisher Gamewright. From there Walker-Harding has gone from success to success in the board game world. Last year he won Boardgame Australia's 2017 Best Australian Game and was nominated for the coveted Spiel des Jahres with Imhotep.

There is no rigid design process for Walker-Harding. He works on multiple designs at the same time and says that "most of my concepts are quite simple, they often shift around a lot and can merge into one another."

"Early on in a design, I try and articulate what the core concept of the design is and what the 'hook' will be for new players. This really helps focus my thinking."

From there he starts prototyping. These prototypes are little more than colourful scribbles on scraps of paper but they're enough to get things moving. Enough to find out if there's something more behind the idea. Successful prototypes get refined and tested further. Unsuccessful prototypes end up in the bin. Maybe the idea will come back in another form. Maybe it won't.

Games undergo further testing with Walker-Harding seeking feedback from his players. "What is causing them to smile, laugh, or get frustrated? How excited are they for their turn to come around?" Feedback about the broad strokes experience the players are having is often far more useful than any specific fine-tuning offered up.

"How much a game changes during testing can vary a lot. Some designs, especially simple ones, may only have the details change as they develop. Other times, when I am trying to make quite an elusive concept work on the table, a game can shift in all sorts of different ways before it settles."

One of the simpler changes that happened over the course of development happened to Bärenpark. Originally the idea was to build an amusement park where players put together attractions for the guests. The game's publisher, Lookout Games, wanted the game to stand out more and changed it so that players were building enclosures in a bear park.

When the art samples came back, Walker-Harding noticed that there were koalas included in the art. "I felt it was my national duty as an Australian to call this out, and so there is now a fun disclaimer about it in the rules!" says Walker-Harding.

Bärenpark -- with its fuzzy definition of what is a bear -- does have a disclaimer in the rules, it reads: "Although koalas are not really bears, people like koalas, so we will be including them in our park!"

Designing games is an on-going process. Even after a game is done, there are still lessons to be learned from it. "Imhotep taught me a lot about player interaction, and how binding the fate of players together as the game develops can be really interesting and exciting. Sushi Go Party helped me learn how to deal with a large pool of different cards and how they all might possibly interact. A big lesson from Bärenpark was how valuable it can be to reward players constantly in small ways throughout the game."

Just as valuable are the lessons learned from failed designs. "Why something didn't work can be very valuable information for future designs. This knowledge can close off pathways in your thinking and force you to branch out in new directions."

The biggest tip Walker-Harding had for aspiring games designers was to get their work out there.

"You really learn so much by making your games available in some form to a wider audience. So I often recommend that new designers work on a small, simple to produce game and then make it available via print and play, or print on demand. Each completed design teaches you valuable lessons and grows your skills, so just keep at it!"

Gambling Expansion Could Go To Voters

Facing the prospect of a constitutional amendment that could put control of future gambling expansion in the hands of voters, legislative leaders are working behind the scenes on a pared-down plan to cement a deal with the Seminole Tribe and pacify cardroom operators.

The “Voter Control of Gambling Amendment,” largely bankrolled by a Disney company and the Seminole Tribe of Florida, will be on the November ballot after meeting petition requirements this past week. If approved, it would require voter approval for any proposed form of casino gambling, an issue now largely controlled by the Legislature.

Sen. Bill Galvano, a Bradenton Republican who has been a key player in crafting gambling legislation for more than seven years, told The News Service of Florida the constitutional amendment would give the Seminole Tribe a “a monopoly” over gambling in the state.

Galvano called the constitutional amendment “a game changer,” after industry insiders had predicted that gambling issues would be off the table during the legislative session that ends in March.

“It does require us to really look hard at any possible changes we can make in the gaming world at the pari-mutuel level and to solidify or make some final decisions with the Seminole Tribe. Because the way this amendment is worded, and it’s still being analyzed, but once it passes, if it passes, will mean the Legislature is divested of control of this issue, leaving a monopoly for the Seminole Tribe, and their continued payments to the state of Florida in jeopardy,” said Galvano, who is slated to take over as Senate president after the November elections.

The Seminoles have been trying to get the Legislature to re-authorize a deal, signed in 2010, that gave the tribe “exclusive” rights to operate banked card games, such as blackjack, at most of its casinos in exchange for a minimum of $250 million each year. The agreement — part of a 20-year deal called a “compact” — expired in 2015, but the tribe has continued to offer the games.

After the card games portion of the agreement expired, the tribe sued the state over wildly popular “designated player” card games offered by more than a dozen pari-mutuel cardrooms. A federal judge in 2016 ruled in favor of the tribe, and Gov. Rick Scott and the Seminoles reached an agreement this past year in which gambling regulators promised to take “aggressive enforcement action” against pari-mutuels that might be violating state law in the way they conduct designated player games.

The agreement expires in March, which could be problematic for state lawmakers trying to figure out how much money they have to spend in the future, according to Galvano.

“There is the possibility that, with the designated-player game issue not resolved, that the tribe may elect to stop paying. They have not told me that, but that’s a real possibility,” he said.

Whether the Seminoles continue to pay “is contingent on their satisfaction” with how well state gambling regulators police the games, the senator said.

For the past several years, lawmakers have repeatedly attempted —- and failed —- to reach consensus on a revamped gambling deal. While the Senate has been more amenable to an expansion of gambling, the House has been reluctant, and ultimately the deals died.

Best Card Games 2018

We live in the golden age of board games, but one of the downsides of lavishly designed modern board games is that they tend to be expensive - and many of them come in massive boxes, too. If you'd rather have something that won't break the bank and can be easily chucked in a bag, your best bet is to go for a card game instead.

Card games tend to be simpler, lighter, cheaper and quicker to play than their board-based cousins, but that doesn't mean they lack depth or quality: the ones in this article are all strategically rich and beautiful to look at.

In truth most board games involve cards of some kind (Cosmic Encounter, Pandemic and Celestia are all based around them) but when putting together this guide we chose to restrict ourselves to ones where cards are the only significant component. A few of these come with tokens to tally scores or money, but that's it - no pieces moving around a board (no board, for that matter), and no dice.

Finally, note that we've ignored traditional card games here, simply because they are too immense a subject. But a standard 52-card deck is the most cost-effective purchase of all.

1. Coup

There's more than a touch of Poker about this game, from the starting deal (two cards to each player) to the I-don't-believe-you-oh-no bluffing/challenging mechanism.

It's super-simple in concept. The deck contains only 15 cards: three each of ambassador, assassin, captain, contessa and duke. On your turn you can take any one action (such as swapping your cards, or assassinating another player), many of which can only be taken if you've got a specific card - but you can lie about what you've got. Many actions can be blocked by certain cards, and you can lie about that too.

The only downside to all this lying is that if you get challenged and caught, you lose one of your two lives. If you get challenged and were telling the truth, your challenger loses a life.

And the result is a tense and mind-bending game where you spend half an hour or so climbing inside each other's heads and driving yourself mad, in a good way.

2. Love Letter

Love Letter is simple, and pure, and pretty much perfect for short gaming sessions and for warming up before something more demanding.

Here's what you get: 16 cards; a handful of counters; the rulebook; and a little red bag to store it all in. But from these ingredients an exceptionally compelling game has been cooked up - one which can be grasped by drunks in 10 minutes, but keeps revealing new depths and subtleties for months after.

The aim of the game is to end the session with the highest surviving card (the highest of all is the princess, whom everyone is trying to woo) but there are numerous sneaky ways to knock out your opponents before it gets to that point. Brilliant stuff.

3. Sushi Go

An antidote to the stressful brain workout of something like Coup, Sushi Go is a gentle collecting game with a touch of strategy to keep things interesting.

The (beautifully illustrated) cards each show sushi or related food items: sashimi, wasabi, maki rolls, dumplings and whatnot. You're dealt a hand of these cards and have to decide which one you want to add to your collection - and then pass the rest of the hand on to the player on your left.

Complication one: the value of each card varies depending on what else is in your and others' collection. Some items only give you any points at all if they are part of a set, for example; some are competitive - whoever has the most gets the points; and some are never worth points themselves but modify the value of (certain) others. So your decisions call for prediction and risk assessment.

Complication two: because of the passing-on of the hands and the fact that others players' collections are visible, canny players quickly build up information about the sort of round it's going to be: the card types that are rare or common, and the ones that are likely to be snaffled by other players.

It's potentially quite a deep game, really, but there's still room for players like me who always collect the same thing, and constantly refer to themselves as the "dump-king".

4. Cards Against Humanity

Cards Against Humanity is not a game you would want to play with younger children, but marketing itself as "a party game for horrible people" is perhaps taking things a step too far. We'd suggest Cards Against Humanity is a game for people who have a wicked sense of humour, and who are not easily offended.

There are various rules you can use, but in Cards Against Humanity's simplest form each player takes 10 white cards (answer cards), picking up another card for each hand they play. You then take it in turns to read out a black card (question cards), starting with the last person to go for a number two (an interesting question in itself).

Having heard the question you match what you think is the funniest answer you have to hand, then the 'Card Czar' chooses their favourite and it gets an Awesome point. Whoever gets the most points wins the overall game, which can go on for as long as you like.

The catch is these aren't the sort of questions and answers you might hear in pleasant company. When presented with a question such as 'What's that smell?' it's up to you to judge the temperament of the group and decide whether to select something like 'Grandma's knickers' or 'A pyramid of severed heads' as your answer.

(We went for a third option in the most recent game we played, but our choice was far too distasteful to publish on Tech Advisor. And yes, we did win the point.)

The standard deck costs £20, but you can also buy expansion packs. Should you find the cards too lame it's worth knowing you can also create your own deck: Cards Against Humanity is available for free under a Creative Commons licence. You can download the rules and blank question and answer cards from the website.

5. Bohnanza

If you like collecting gold and looking at anthropomorphic drawings of beans, this is the game for you.

The aim is to plant beans of a single type - chilli bean, dancing bean, coffee bean - in a 'field' (ie a row of cards on the table) and then swap them for pieces of gold when it gets numerous enough. The rarer the bean type, the better the exchange rate you'll get.

The problem is that you can only have two fields at once (at the start - it's possible to buy a third later), and you must play your cards in the order they were dealt. Which means that if you're unlucky, or plan badly, you could find yourself constantly having to plough up and discard fields of beans that haven't yet hit the payout point, so that you can free up the area for a new type that you need to play.

So it's partly about thinking ahead, and there's a surprising amount of depth to this. But it's also about convincing the other players to make an exchange at a key moment, which is often the only way to avoid disaster.

A Card Game About Unicorns Has Raised Almost $2 Million on Kickstarter

A new card game called Unstable Unicorns concludes its fairy-tale Kickstarter campaign tonight.

Creator Ramy Badie originally set out to earn $10,000 in one month to fund production of the game. He reached his goal in just 71 minutes and has, as of this writing, collected more than $1.8 million for the project from more than 30,000 backers—more than every other project that's currently live on the fundraising website.

“Tabletop games are huge on Kickstarter right now,” says company spokesperson David Gallagher. “We've really become an important hub for tabletop fans, and many of them keep coming back to find new and cool projects to support. It's also become much easier for independent game designers to get their games manufactured and shipped.”

Though the game seems built around Silicon Valley's obsession with the mythical creature (and its use of the term to denote startups with billion-dollar valuations), it's not. It's simply a game built for people—and perhaps magazines—who love unicorns.

Players of the game are tasked with building a "unicorn army." There are three types of unicorns in the deck—baby, basic, and magical—and the first person to have seven unicorns in their hand (a “stable”) wins. "Be warned," the game's Kickstarter page says. "If you get ahead too quickly, you'll become everyone's target." (Just like in Silicon Valley.)

There are several obstacles in the way of a player's victory. "Neigh" cards are used to cancel out opponents’ strategic moves. A “Pandamonium” card makes it so that “all your Unicorns are considered Pandas and NOT Unicorns.” (Oh, right.) The game's makers say it's suitable for two to eight players, ages 14 and older, and the latest donors can expect a February delivery date.

“If the thought of aggressive, violent and occasionally seductive unicorns appeals to you, we really appreciate your support on this project,” says Badie in the campaign video.

He later tells Fortune: "I've always had an odd obsession with unicorns, featuring them in a lot of our shirt designs and products. To me, unicorns have historically been mythical creatures that are associated with majesty and perfection, and I like turning that on its head." Or horn, if I may.

The St. Louisan, who is in his late 20s, designed the game’s mythical characters, which resemble My Little Pony- hued Pokémon. According to an article about him in The St. Louis Business Journal, while working toward his undergraduate degree in neuroscience, Badie entered t-shirt design contests to subsidize his tuition. In 2012, he delayed medical school to found TeeTurtle LLC, an e-commerce venture aiming to “scratch your insatiable itch for cute, funny, pop culture-y shirts.” TeeTurtle’s first year saw $750,000 in sales, and another $7 million in sales was projected for 2014.

Now Badie has a new addictive project. "Unstable Unicorns is a strategic card game about everyone’s two favorite things: destruction and unicorns," the project's website says. Who wouldn't want to scratch that itch?"It's been a thrilling ride," Badie says, "and I've already found myself thinking about a sequel."