A standalone festival for Tidal Blades
A new standalone game in the Tidal Blades universe is coming from Druid City Games and Lucky Duck Games. In Tidal Blades: Banner Festival, two to five players compete to be the best merchant at the festival by making sales, racing their watercraft, and collecting fruit. The game revolves around a trick-taking action selection mechanism. Each turn, players will select a card from their hand and simultaneously reveal it. Each card is one of four suits, has a numerical value from one to nine, depicts a piece of merchandise for sale, and has a special ability. The circular board is divided into four quadrants. Each quadrant orders the strength of the four suits differently.
When the played cards are revealed, the player with the strongest card based on the active quadrant moves their watercraft around its circular track. Completing laps with the watercraft will score points. The player with the weakest card resolves the special ability on their card. Any players with cards in the middle will complete a sale of the depicted merchandise, allowing them to place a banner in the active quadrant. There is also a pile of fruit at the festival. Various effects will enable players to take a fruit. When the fruit pile empties, a scoring phase is triggered based on the amount of fruit each player has. The game is played over three rounds. At the end of each round, players will score points based on area majority check of banners for each half of the board.
Tidal Blades: Banner Festival is designed by J.B. Howell and Michael Mihealsick. Its art is by David Forest and Lina Cossette, who work under the studio label Mr. Cuddington, and also did the art for the first game in this setting, Tidal Blades: Heroes of the Reef. The components feature silkscreened wooden tokens, watercraft meeples, and squishy fruit. Tidal Blades: Banner Festival is scheduled for pre-orders later this summer and a retail release in late 2022. You can see the components in action in this overview video from James Hudson with Druid City Games. You also can sign up to be notified by Druid City Games when pre-orders open.
