The winner of the micro design competition sponsored by Evertide Games for an expansion to Court of the Medici is:
Shadow Alliances by David Hampton
As a key component of the design, Shadow Alliances replaces the Inner Circle game zone with a set of three "shadow alliances" controlled by each player. These shadow alliances are beyond the reach of cards at court until they "Strike from the Shadows" and reveal themselves. As long they are outside of the game, they do not count towards a player's influence total and the game ends whenever one player uses his final remaining shadow alliance. So, the game only ends whenever one player can perform a finishing blow on his rivals. However, since each shadow alliance contains members from more than one house and one of the two cards is kept face down until the alliance is revealed, it is actually not so easy to finish off the competition and players are kept in a constant state of trying to figure out just who is going to strike from the Shadow Alliances.
Each game design which was submitted will be posted along with our feedback and assessment in subsequent posts. Once again, congratulations to David Hampton and his winning design.
