53-Card 4X

Description from the designer:

A small footprint 4X (Explore, Expand, Exploit, and Exterminate) game played with a standard deck of 52 cards plus 1 joker.

Four draw decks are dealt face down around a joker in the middle of the table, representing your homeworld. There will be four corner discard piles: Victory Points, Game Length, Battlefleet, and Events.

Face cards (J, Q, and K) in the game represent invaders, blocking Expansion (literally blocking the draw pile that they sit upon).

Numerical cards 2 through 10 can be assigned to one of three discard piles: Victory Points, Game Length, or Battlefleet.

The Victory Point discard will be your final score, which will be reduced by 25% per remaining active invader in play at the end of the game, unless the Truce Event is revealed.

The Game Length discard can never be less than the Victory Point discard (but can be the same). This discard exists to force the player to play cards here he may want for other discards.

The Battlefleet discard is a temporary holding area for cards to add up to either 11 (for the Jack), 12 (for the Queen), or 13 (for the King) to knock invaders off their draw piles.

Aces represent Events. There are only 4 events in the game, cumulating in the final event, a Truce, which ends the game.

Each turn you Explore (flip top card of each unblocked draw pile), then Expand (assign those non-face cards to discard piles), then Exploit (use Events if Aces are drawn), and Exterminate (assign cards from the Battlefleet pile to a blocking Invader card to discard it out of play).

The best score you can hope for is 10 points.