Winston’s Archive

We’re not sure who Winston is, but they left behind a great big pile of unsorted books. Thankfully, in this library, there are always archivists looking to sort things out, and someone’s already gone through this big stack to label and mark some things, which is helpful, but now the library wants the books sorted, and you’ve got your own projects to manage! What’s worse, the pile includes sections of an untranslated, unsorted manuscript, which is pretty important, except you don’t have the priority to do it, so now what?

Winston’s Archive is a drafting game designed to handle small groups of players, who want to draft but don’t have the time or the space to set up a larger game for big groups of players. It’s handily transported in a single tuck-box deck, requires you only shuffle once, and wants to be reward thoughtful play and clever planning.

It’s not a game of combos or memorisation; it’s a game that tries to give you information and let you make decisions based on that, while still keeping play complicated.

What’s more, even though the game is about books, you don’t need to do a lot of reading – every card is clearly signed with a letter to mark its group, and to show you how many other books are in its group. So just enjoy the process of sorting it out, of working towards the manuscript you want. You only have limited time, after all, and if you skip out on working on the Manuscript, you’re going to get reprimanded by the Library itself!

There’s not just the set collection! Some cards complicate your draft, give you more information, or make some stacks of books bad for you! So there’s a dash of chaos in amongst the strategy. If you want to try and solve everything yourself though, watch out – because the player who does the least Manuscript work is going to get in trouble!

You just need some space to play Winston’s Archive. There’s no need to record extra numbers and the math is mostly just addition with a small amount of division, which you can do with practical counting.

And always: Remember to respect the players and their needs.