GTS News: At the GAMA Trade Show the Alderac Entertainment Group showed off a trio of fast-paced card games, Maximum Throwdown, Agent Hunter, and Card of the Dead that are all priced at a $20.00 MSRP and slated to be released this summer in time for Gen Con.

 

Maximum Throwdown, designed by Jason Tagmire for 2-6 players ages 12 and up is a fast-paced (30 minutes tops) party type game that pits players against each other in a battle-royale of card-throwing action.  Each player has his or her own deck of cards and takes turns throwing their cards onto a designated playing area.  The idea is to cover up the icons on the opponents’ cards.  Different icons, if they are not covered up allow the player who threw the uncovered card to draw more cards, steal cards from other players, score points, or earn the right to move cards out of the designated throwing space.  A spokesperson for AEG told ICv2 that one of Maximum Throwdown’s biggest attractions is the game’s striking card art, which draws its images from a number of AEG’s most colorful card games including Smash Up and L5R.

 

Mike Elliott’s Agent Hunter is an espionage-themed card game, a sort of cat-and-mouse number guessing game in which two players square off and duel in the murky world of spies and safe houses.  Agent Hunter is a surprisingly tricky and intellectually satisfying game that involves a number of "safe houses" where agents can hide, at least until their player/handlers are forced to reveal their locations.

 

The zombie-themed Card of the Dead was designed by Motohiro Nakamura and originally published in Japan.  Card of the Dead is, as one might expect from the title, a zombie survival game.  Players are trapped in a city full of the undead and must decide whether to attempt to flee the infected area, barricade themselves in buildings, or adopt other ploys to avoid being discovered by the brain-eaters and being bitten before the long night of the undead is over.  Designed for 2-5 players ages 12 and up, Card of the Dead takes a mere 20 minutes to play and should benefit from the current zombie craze.