← All games

Modern card games

Présages

PLAYERS4, 5, 6DURATION30 minutesOVERALL DIFFICULTYHard

Spiral Editions 2025, 35 arcanes and 7 game aids.

Why this rating?

Anticipate cross effects and coordinate his team without revealing his hand.

01Discover the game

Presages is played in teams. You try to lose cards, but most of the cards you pose come back in your hand! Their effects create opportunities to defeat them. Partners can't tell each other which cards to play: you have to observe and anticipate.

02Equipment

The Spiral Editions 2025 box contains 35 Arcane cards numbered from 1 to 35, and 7 game aids. The six cards of value 30 to 35 are all called L'Absolu. The aids have team symbols and one side with laurels to memorize a won handle. No additional picks occur during an ordinary round: the cards not distributed remain outside the handle.

03The goal

At the end of a full round, if a member of your team has only one card left, his team wins the round. The first team that wins two rounds wins the game. Exception: the effect of the Chance can leave a person without a card and make him win the round, as explained below.

04Train teams and distribute

Isolate the six Absolutes, mix them and give one visible to each person. At four or five, put the undistributed Absolutes away: they remain excluded from the game. At four or five, the largest and smallest distributed value form one team; the other two or three people form the other. At six, make three teams: 30 with 35, 31 with 34, 32 with 33.

Distribute aids bearing the same symbol to the partners. At five, the team of three uses diamond aids. Put them down without visible laurels. The teams will remain the same throughout the game.

Take your Absolute in hand. Mix the other Arcanes and complete: four, four additional cards each, five in hand; five, four additional cards to the team members of three, five in hand, and three additional cards to the team of two, four in hand; six, three additional cards each, four in hand. Put the rest aside without looking at it.

The person who received the largest Absolute begins the first round. We play in the clockwise direction. The hands are secret; the partners can neither show themselves cards nor advise a pose, unless an effect allows them.

05Play a spin and solve the effects

When you pass, choose a map of your hand and put it in front of you. Read its effect to everyone. flash resolves immediately and completely before the next installation. hourglass When everyone has a card in front of you, the turn ends.

Look at all the cards in play, i.e. the visible cards placed in front of the players. Apply their end-of-turn effects simultaneously and determine the winner of the round. Normally, this is the greatest value. Its card is defeated. Other effects can cause several additional cards to be defeated. A card intended to leave still produces its hourglass effect: do not remove it until you have examined the set.

Each one takes the card in hand in front of him who has not been defeated. Then check the round win. If no one has won, the winner of the round starts the next, unless the effect changes that opening. The defeated cards are not redistributed during the round.

Understanding common effects

The Arcanes indicate their effect on the map; the aids specify the symbols. A color condition observes all the cards in play, allied as opposed. "Only yellow card" means a single yellow in total, not a single one in your team. "Less green" compares only the greens; "stronger card" compares all the colors. A card can meet several conditions of defeat, but obviously only gets rid of once.

The effects are mandatory, unless expressly proposed by the text. If an effect is impossible, still put the card down and do nothing for that effect. There is no general rule that requires to provide a color or to exceed the previous card: only a card such as the Act can impose a constraint.

Interactions that require attention

  • Mirror – the smallest value wins the round instead of the greatest. If Sadness is also present, its ban on the largest has no effect on this victory at the smallest.
  • Sadness : the largest card cannot win the round; the second largest one normally wins it. The other hourglass effects continue to act.
  • Fear The effects that require defeat are ignored. It leaves the game only by winning the turn itself. So we can't throw it away with Chance.
  • Chance When it is defeated, its owner also discards a card from his hand. If it leaves him zero card, he makes his team win, even against a person finishing a card.
  • Law The author chooses the obligation to play, if possible, weaker or stronger than 15. If you don't have any cards that respect this obligation, play the one you want. Constraint ceases if Law leaves the cards in play during the turn.
  • Dream : you can play it in front of a person who has not yet set a card this turn. She immediately plays a card with her hand in front of you; apply her possible flash. If you pose Dream in front of you, it does not have that exchange effect.
  • Jalousie This card has already been exchanged with another card in play. The recovered card has already been played: its flash does not start again.
  • Anger : returns another person's card to his hand; he must play another card. Any new flash is solved. If the returned card was Law, his constraint disappears.
  • Trahison After putting it in front of you, take in hand a card already at stake in front of someone else; play a card with your hand in front of that person. The new effect, if any, is applied.
  • Absolute : secretly exchange a card of your hand with a card of the chosen person. Place your hidden choices, then simultaneously take the card of the other: none should choose after seeing what it receives.

These details explain the exceptions in the booklet. The exact conditions of colour and value specific to the other Arcanes are read directly on the cards of the box: apply their text, without inventing power from the drawing.

These two schematic maps show only where to look for the type of effect. The flash acts immediately, the hourglass at the end of the turn. The exact values and texts remain those of your cards; no fictitious effect is added to the package.

06An example to understand

On four, the distributed Absolutes are 30, 31, 33 and 35. The carriers of 30 and 35 are partners; 31 and 33 form the other team. Each one starts with five cards. At the end of a turn, the Secret de valeur 24 is the highest card: it leaves. An effect also makes the Calm leave because a red card is present. Their owners only take back cards that have not been defeated.

A card that will be defeated still produces its hourglass effect.

If one of the cards removed had an hourglass effect, it would also have been applied. It cannot be removed faster to prevent the help it provides to a partner.

07Win a handle and then the game

Check hands after all the effects and returns. A person to a card wins his team. If several people from different teams end up with a card, compare the value of their single card: the highest one makes his team win. First apply Chance's exception for one hand to zero card.

The winners return their aides to the laurel side. For the next round, mix all the Arcanes used in the game, including the hands and the Absolus. The Absolus left out at first stay in the box. Do not reform the teams and do not redistribute a guaranteed Absolute to each. Give directly five cards each to four; five, five per team member of three and four per team member of two; six, four each. The person who made his team start. One team already lauré who wins again wins the game; there is no numerical score to add up.

08Frequent errors

Do not win as soon as a hand temporarily passes to a card during poses: finish the round and all the effects. Do not consider a broken card as silent for its hourglass. Do not redo the teams between the rounds. Do not advise your partner by words, signs or a prepared code. Do not give a second flash when a simple exchange of cards already played.

09Start well

For the first round, read each card out loud. Look at how many cards your partners keep: helping one of them finish is enough for all of you to win. A high value can go away easily, but staying with a strong last card also helps to win the rounds. Observe the colors before choosing a conditional effect.

10Express summary

  • Train the teams with the Absolus, then keep them for the whole game.
  • Put down a map each in a clockwise direction; solve the flashes immediately.
  • At the end of the turn, all the swordsmen act together; the greatest value wins, except for exceptions.
  • Fail the winning card and those indicated by the effects; take the others.
  • A card in hand at the end of the turn wins the team; the pairs compare the remaining card.
  • The first two-run team wins. Keep silent on your hands and choices.

FOR FURTHER READING

References and variant

Bibliography of edition 4.0, consulted on October 27 and 28, 2026. Explanations, examples and original diagrams of the book. The documentary reserves mentioned in the tutorial remain applicable.

Choose your next game →