The Frozen Passage

Your expedition is threading a ship through the ice of the Northwest Passage, and everyone at the table is on the same side. The route is built from cards in three colours numbered 1 to 9, laid out as an upside-down pyramid that widens from the bottom toward the goal cards at the top. Each card you add has to sit correctly against the cards beneath it. If everyone places every card in hand, the voyage succeeds. One card with nowhere legal to go sinks the whole thing. You cannot tell your partners what you hold, so the game is about reading what they play, inferring what they must still have, and spending the few item cards at the right moment. Twenty minutes, works solo, and suits a couple or a trio who enjoyed Hanabi or The Crew and want something that fits in a jacket pocket.