Czech publisher Notre Game is launching at Essen a new type of game designed around scratch-off cards. The first title, Planet Surprise, has players holding identical cards, each with a set of planets. On their turn, a player can choose from among various actions, such as exploring a planet by scratching it off to see how many points it’s worth. Other actions include peeking at what an opponent has discovered and directing an opponent to scratch a particular planet (remember, all cards used in a game are identical, both on the surface and in hidden values). Actions, though, are limited, recorded also via scratch-off. After 10 rounds, whoever has the most points of explored planets is the winner.

scratch-warsThe second title, Scratch Wars, is a fantasy battle collectible card game where each hero card is printed under the scratch-off layer with distinct traits (Notre Game says there are over 2 million combinations). As part of the game, players equip their heroes with weapons represented by discs. These are spun around a small plastic rod to determine the result during a fight. On every hero and weapon is also printed a QR code for loading the unique card in to a companion mobile app.

Planet Surprise is being sold at the show. Scratch Wars is available for demo, with sales in Europe expected to begin in January.