Silent Guardians | How to Play

About Silent Guardians, from BoardGameGeek:

As villages fall under nightly attacks by monsters, a band of adventurers must protect the innocent while pressing onward toward the Demon Lord. Each battle demands trust, instinct, and perfect coordination, as the heroes cannot freely reveal everything they know. By reading the flow of combat, sharing strength, and sealing monsters with the right swords, the party brings hope back to each village before dawn breaks. Silent Guardians is a cooperative trick-taking game for 3–4 players in which players attempt to win tricks and place sword tokens on them according to the colors most represented in each trick. Players begin with limited information, as they hold their own hands without seeing the card numbers, relying instead on card order, HIGH indicators, legal play, and table communication that may not include numbers. Before play, sword tokens are randomly drawn and distributed among players, and each won trick must be sealed with a sword token matching the majority color of the cards in that trick; gray sword tokens act as wild tokens. If any trick cannot be sealed correctly, the group immediately loses, but if every trick is completed with a valid sword placement, all players win together. The game includes a basic mode, easier scenario rules with token-transfer allowances, and random generation rules that add variable challenges.