Industry 2013

An immensely popular card game, and one praised for its depth of strategy and options, is Race for the Galaxy, by Tom Lehmann. While the game has numerous interesting innovations, the one that piqued my interest was the idea that cards in this game have multiple functions; they can be spent as money, laid to the table as improvements to the player's tableau, or even turned face down as resources. Race for the Galaxy is a higher- level entry game, and one whose complex iconography can be a scarecrow to new players. Indeed, the complexity of each card would be impossible to replicate in a deck of just suits and numbers, so instead, only the decision of which function of a card to employ is explored here in Industry, a game about quickly erecting a town. The game employs what is called a positive feedback loop; early clever plays are rewarded, and the game snowballs as it progresses.

—description from the designer

This game is part of Femtitva, a collection of 10 games by Scott Huntington that were inspired by popular modern games but can be played with a traditional deck of cards.

In Industry, each player has 3 cards which can be used to build Offices (Spades), Factories (Diamonds), Housing (Hearts), and Banks (Clubs). On your turn you pay to play cards face up into your City, discarding other cards as money. Buildings have a base cost of $10 each, and at the end of their turn draw cards equal to the number of Offices they have. When the final card is drawn from the deck, players get points for different buildings, and the player with the most points is the winner.

—user summary