Daybreak, Wavelength publisher CMYK doubles down on card games with Magenta

CMYK, a publisher known for taking chances in the tabletop space, is announcing something very different for 2025. The publisher that brought you breakout board game hits like Wavelength and Daybreak has a new line of high-concept card games called Magenta. Polygon received an exclusive early preview of the first four games in the series last month, and recently sat down with the team at CMYK to learn more about the project. Magenta is a fledgling series of small-box games curated by CMYK co-founder James Nathan Spencer with creative direction by co-founder Alex Hague. The pair tells Polygon that the inspiration comes from a shared love of card games in all their forms. Magenta is also an attempt to elevate traditional card games back into the mainstream of the hobby, which has for a long time seen card games dismissively relegated to the role of so-called “filler games.” “There’s this kind of romantic idea of the kind of card game night that maybe your parents had, or more likely your grandparents had,” Hague said on a recent video call. “They would have friends over, they would make some drinks, [and] they would play cards all night. And so it’s kind of this weird mirror image of maybe what’s happened in the board game space. “We really had to think a lot about What does a CMYK version of a card game line look like? That’s how Magenta was born.” [Image: Magenta will include both new and reimagined games. Reiner Knizia’s Fruit Fight, for instance, was originally released as No Mercy. https://platform.polygon.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/Magenta-collection-fronts.jpg?quality=90&strip=all] The first four games in the Magenta line are numbered, with the boxes designed to sit on the shelf in order. They include Fives, a thrilling trick-taking game in the style of Hearts or Spades, from Taiki Shinzawa; Duos, a team-based Rummy-style card game by Johannes Schmidauer-König; Figment, a novel card game based on optical illusions by Wolfgang Warsch; and Fruit Fight, a push-your-luck style game from the prolific Reiner Knizia. All feature the same magenta-colored slipcase, with common iconography, fonts, and graphic design elements. They also make use of the same, weighty pressed-paper disks and, like other products in the CMYK lineup, contain few if any plastic components. The Magenta line is intended to be a resource for players, a way to supplement their at-home collections with excellent card games to go alongside beloved board games. To that end, CMYK is carefully labeling these card games with the kind of information that board game players need when they’re looking for new experiences. Each box will include traditional information like the number of players and the length of time needed to play. But it will also have something new: text to call out the mood that the game is looking to evoke. [Image: https://platform.polygon.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/Magenta-Fives-cards.jpg?quality=90&strip=all] [Image: https://platform.polygon.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/Magenta-Fives-in-use-2.jpg?quality=90&strip=all] [Image: https://platform.polygon.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/Magenta-Duos-cards.jpg?quality=90&strip=all] [Image: https://platform.polygon.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/Magenta-Duos-in-use-1.jpg?quality=90&strip=all] “The idea struck us that what you really want when you see those things [like number of players and length of playtime] on the back is [the answer to a question]: What kind of time am I going to have playing this game?,” said Hague. “[...] To me, at least when I look at the back of a box, that’s kind of one of [the] main things that I want to know if I’ve never played the game before. What is the feel of it going to be and does that match the people that I’m playing the game with?” Perhaps the biggest shared feature between all four games is the set of easy-to-read, plainly-written instructions. In our experience testing the games, these slim pamphlets made them terrifically simple to learn and teach on the fly — even with young or inexperienced players at the table. [Image: https://platform.polygon.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/Magenta-Figment-cards.jpg?quality=90&strip=all] [Image: https://platform.polygon.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/Magenta-Figment-in-use-2.jpg?quality=90&strip=all] [Image: https://platform.polygon.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/Magenta-Fruit-Fight-cards.jpg?quality=90&strip=all] [Image: https://platform.polygon.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/Magenta-Fruit-Fight-in-use-1.jpg?quality=90&strip=all] “Making manuals is absolutely one of CMYK and Alex’s superpowers,” said Magenta line curator James Nathan Spencer. Hague said that the company has been “through the trenches” of manual design, especially with Daybreak, which required multiple international translations. Fans of video tutorials are in luck as well, as the developers tell Polygon that Shut Up and Sit Down co-founder Quentin “Quinns” Smith has been hired on to perform the Magenta line’s tutorial videos. The first four games in the Magenta line will go up for sale soon on CMYK’s website for $25 each, and it’s the company’s hope that they’ll also be available at game shops and larger retailers. Regardless, CMYK has big plans for Magenta, including new games designed in-house and more clever, curated versions of beloved classics. “We kind of want Magenta to almost feel like the Criterion Collection of card games,” said Hague. “We really do want to have several dozen games in this line, and to have them all feel like they are at a level where they feel like absolute classics of the card game form.” The Magenta line was previewed using pre-release retail products provided by CMYK. Vox Media has affiliate partnerships. These do not influence editorial content, though Vox Media may earn commissions for products purchased via affiliate links. You can find additional information about Polygon’s ethics policy here.