New Kingdom: Sowers

Step into the shoes of the sower in this fast-paced card game inspired by the Parable of the Sower from Matthew 13. Out-sow your opponent by making wise decisions about when and where you scatter seeds.

In the Sower, two players draw from shuffled identical decks, 'seed' cards 1 through 10 in yellow and black. Their goal is to play all ten black cards in order from 1 to 10 in the Good Soil area of the board. Playing cards into the other soil areas (The Path, Rocky Soil, Thorny Soil) will help players cycle through and reorder their draw decks and retrieve cards from the board.

You will start with three cards. On your turn, draw a card and play a card into one of the four soils. You will interact with each soil differently. Important to keep in mind is that The Path and Rocky Soil are areas shared by both players, while players keep their piles separate in Thorny Soil and Good Soil areas.

The interactions of each soil are as follows: Play a yellow card lower in number than any previously played into Rocky soil, then draw two cards and play any one from your hand into a different soil. Be careful, however, because once there are four cards in Rocky soil, they get moved to The Path and are out of the game. Play a black card into Thorny Soil to draw three cards from your deck and replace four cards either on the top or bottom of your deck in any order. Play any yellow card into The Path--those cards are gone for good--to draw a card and pick up a card from either the Rocky or Thorny Soil. Finally, play any number of black cards in order from 1 to 10 into the Good Soil to work toward winning the game.

The theming is this game is apparent in each of the four soils. Each soil's interaction is based on the Parable. Seeds that fall onto The Path are taken away by the birds. Seeds that fall on the Rocky Soil wither in the sun and blow away. Seeds that fall on the Thorny Soil are choked by the weeds. And the seeds that fall on the Good Soil flourish. The mechanics of the game are meant to reflect these ideas.

Players can expect to look for action combinations, dig through their deck as efficiently as possible, play tactically to to affect their opponent's choices--particularly in the Rocky Soil--and feel the mounting pressure as the bottom of the draw deck gets closer and closer.

-description from designer