古狼の荊 (Korou no Ibara)

Polygonotes's 7th card game, 古狼の荊 ("Thorns of the Ancient Wolves"), was made around the themes of distrust and reading other people. Though the rules are simple and easy to learn, it has a high ceiling for strategy and will bring you back to play it again and again. —description from the publisher (translated) In Thorns of the Ancient Wolves, players are hunters caught between the conflict of a mad king trying to exterminate the ancient wolves of the nearby forest, and the wolves ready to go to war to protect their home. Each faction is represented by a suit of cards- red for the wolves and blue for the kingdom. When it is your turn, you draw a card from a face-down pool of 3 and choose a card to play from your hand. Cards are worth points and have special effects. When it is the end of a player's turn and they have 10 or more points from a single faction in their play area, the round ends and that faction is scored as positive for all players- with the losing faction being scored as negative for everyone as well. Players tally their points and add (or subtract) them to victory points that persist between rounds, then begin a new round. If at the end of a round a player has 15 or more points, the player with the highest victory point total wins. —user summmary