The Fox in the Forest

The Fox in the Forest is a two-player-only trick-taking card game. It's a clever little card game and works well when you have only two. You will play multiple rounds and whoever gets to 21 points first wins the game. The most important thing to keep in mind when playing the game is this table below. 

Every round you will play 13 tricks. There are 33 cards in the deck, in three suits, and the cards are numbered 1 to 11. So every round 26 of those cards are dealt to the two players. One card is revealed to determine the trump suit, and you have 6 more cards in a draw deck. Based on the table above, the best case is you win 3 or fewer tricks, or you win 7 to 9 tricks. You have to be careful not to win too many because you will score nothing. The way points are scored creates a bit of dilemma. If you win very few tricks early in the round, you will try very hard to win no more than three. However that is not easy to do. Once you get to four tricks, you will try very hard to score more.

Most of the basic tactics in trick-taking games still apply here. The trump suit concept is standard. Cards in the trump suit beats other suits. Also you must follow suit if possible. One thing special about the game is that odd numbered cards have special powers. The 7's are worth 1 point each. The 5's let you draw then discard a card. The 3's let you change the trump suit. You need a draw deck because sometimes you will draw a card. When doing this, you get more information about what may be in your opponent's hand.

At the start of a round, you see 13 out of 33 cards. There are 6 cards still in the deck. You can't be exactly sure what cards your opponent has, but chances are if you don't have it, he probably has it, and that's what you have to be prepared for. As the round progresses, you will get a better and better idea what he may have in hand. So the game is quite strategic. You can make educated guesses about your opponent's hand. You can plan somewhat well how to play out the rest of your hand. You are constantly thinking about how the current round will end. Your aim may change during the round. Maybe you're originally planning to win 3 or fewer tricks, but you may find yourself aiming to win 7 instead halfway through. 

If you like trick-taking games and need one that works well for two players, this is a good choice. This is also a convenient travel game. 

Coco Boom

The Game

Coco Boom is a game I am excited to write about, because I had so much fun with it. I played it at the Asian Board Games Festival in Penang. I only bought two games that whole long weekend and this was one of them. It is a party game, and I am not even a party game person. I normally blog about games in the sequence that I play them. I am supposed to write about seven other games before I get to Coco Boom. However, I am going to let it cut queue because hey, life is not fair.

Coco Boom is a push-your-luck party game from Taiwan. it is a card game and there are only four types of cards in the game. There are three types of coconut cards valued at 300, 500 and 1000. There is a bomb card valued at -500. At the start of the game, everyone gets a hand of cards. Every round, everyone adds one card face-down to a central deck. You know what you have added but you don’t know what the others have added. The start player adds two cards instead, so he has a little bit more information. The shared deck is shuffled, and the round starts.

On your turn, you try to guess what the top card is. If you are right, you can choose to claim that card or you can take a risk and guess the next card. If you are right again, you will be able to claim all the cards you have guessed correctly so far. However, if you are wrong, you leave empty handed. If you keep guessing correctly, you can continue guessing, further pushing your luck. Pushing your luck is tempting because if you can win a second or third card, the values of your cards increase.

You play until the deck runs out. Then you start a new round with everyone contributing cards again to form a new deck. 

Let's talk about the bomb. When you take a guess, you can't guess the bomb. When you reveal the top card from the deck, if it is a bomb, everyone slams his hand on the card, and whoever is slowest is forced to take the bomb. So this is partly a reflex / speed game as well. The copy I bought came with a Christmas promo. A new type of bomb card is added which looks very much like the normal bomb. The only difference is a little Santa Claus hat. If a Christmas bomb card shows up, you are not supposed to touch it. Whoever does so first is forced to take the card. 

The game is played until someone scores 3000, or until there are not enough cards left to start a new round. Richest player wins. 

The Play

At the Asian Board Games Festival, Tom's table playing this game was one of the loudest in the hall. The other loudest tables were BGN (Board Game Night) and Wisebox, both from Thailand. When I sat down to play Coco Boom, and this was with a group of people I didn't know, I understood why. 

This is a gambling game. You are guessing what the next card is, but there is some basis for you to guess. There are more 300's than there are 1000's. When more and more cards have been claimed, you can count what are left. The card or cards you have added to the shared deck is also information you use to make a guess. When other people fail to guess the second or further cards, what they have revealed go back to the deck. This is the most useful information because now you know for sure what are in the deck. There is always tension between greed and playing it safe. I love guessing 1000 and getting them. The 300's are a safer guess because there are more of them, but when you guess 300 and draw a 1000, you start questioning your life choices. Why should I not be great?! Why not me?! Why should I not put on the Ring?!

There is plenty of drama in the game. Here's one situation I experienced. There were only three cards left in the deck. One player guessed a 500 and a 300 correctly, and there was only one card left. If he guessed that one correctly too, all three of his cards would be worth 200 extra per card. He guessed 300, but it turned out to be a 500! So he had to surrender the 500 and 300 back to the deck. By now the next player knew all the cards in the deck - two 500's and one 300. But which one was he going to guess first? 500 seemed to be the better bet, with a 66% chance of being correct. If you do get it right, are you going to take the next guess? Or are you going to settle with 500? It's a simple game, but you encounter these juicy decisions all the time. 

The Thoughts

Coco Boom is a simple and happy game. It works better with more players. It's a game you can teach easily and it's great for non-gamers. There is a fair bit of luck, so this is not the kind of game your distrusting aunt will complain about you being the expert gamer always winning. It is a simple game so the playing field is pretty level. For gamers, this is a fun filler. You don't schedule game night around it. I bought a copy despite not generally being a fan of party games because I see there are lots of situations I can bring this out. This is a party game which is not about trivia, not about judging one another, not about doing any performance, and not about persuading people. If these are the things which make you stay away from party games, check out Coco Boom. 

Innovation Ultimate

The Game

I wrote about Innovation 15 years ago, in 2010. That was when the first edition of the game was released. This is a slightly older game, so some newer hobbyists may not have tried it, or may not have heard of it. Since I'm a big fan, I'll give a quick overview. Having played the game many more times compared to when I first wrote about it, I now have a different appreciation of the game. 

Innovation is a card game about human civilisation and inventions, ideas and technologies. Every card in the game is unique and has a different power. The cards are divided into 10 ages (11 in Innovation Ultimate). You start from the ancient age and gradually progress through the eras, possibly advancing to the near future. The basic actions in the game are very simple. You draw cards, you play cards, you activate powers on your cards. When you play a card before you, it becomes part of your empire. Cards come in five colours, and you can have up to five stacks of cards in your empire, each for one colour. Every card has four icons, and there are six types of icons in the game. You will be regularly comparing icons with your opponents. When you have more icons of a particular type than your opponent, you will be able to attack them using some card powers. Also when they use a power on their card, you also get to use it. You piggyback on their actions because you are stronger in that particular icon type. 

One important concept in the game is splaying. This is how you can increase the number of icons in your empire. In the beginning of the game, cards of the same colour are stacked together. When you gain the ability to splay some of your card stacks, you will reveal some icons on the non-top cards. Depending on whether you can splay your stacks left, right or up, you will expose a different number of icons. 

Some cards let you score points. When you do so, you claim some cards face-down and tuck them under the left edge of your player board. The age number on these cards now become point values. You don't win by having the most points. In fact the points you score are not secure. Your opponents may rob you of your points. Whenever you reach certain thresholds of points, you can claim achievements. It is the achievements which help you win the game. You need a certain number of them to declare victory. Collecting points is one way of claiming achievements. The other way is completing specific missions, which are quite difficult. 

Innovation is a crazy game. There are many powerful cards in the game. Some cards don't look like much, but under certain situations they suddenly become deadly. This is a game with huge swings. The game situation can shift quickly. A trailing player can become the biggest threat just because of one new card being played. There is certainly some luck and randomness in the game. There is always a sense of hope. You never know - the next card you draw may just be the killer card you need to turn things around. It's a lot of fun trying to figure out how to make good use of the combination of cards you have in play and in hand. This is a game with variety and surprises. 

Innovation Ultimate

The Ultimate edition (2025) is released 15 years after the first edition. Over the years there have been four different expansions released for Innovation. The game is perfectly fine without any expansion. Only if you have played a lot of it you might want to have even more variety. The Ultimate edition includes all four expansions and adds one new expansion - Unseen. 

One change introduced is Age 11. I'm not sure whether that's necessary. In my previous games of the older Innovation, I rarely even get to Age 9. The rulebook recommends arranging the card stacks in a circle like an analogue clock, placing the row of achievements at the 12 o'clock position. I find that cumbersome. I just place my stacks in two neat rows. 

The card backs now have new art. It's okay for me. The old art worked just fine for me too, and I don't tire of it. Different expansions use card backs in different colours. Beige is the base game. Grey is the Unseen expansion. 

Younger daughter Chen Rui and I tried one game with the latest Unseen expansion. The first thing I noticed was that they had changed the base game too. My base game is the first edition. Even before Innovation Ultimate, the base game had been updated several times, up to the fourth edition. So my copy is pretty outdated. I haven't paid attention to what have been changed. I'm so used to my first edition that this latest edition is a little unsettling. 

The Unseen expansion is about weird stuff in history like magic, superstitions, legends and witchcraft. There are some powers which remove whole stacks of cards from the game. That's shocking! When this happens, it means we will advance more quickly to the higher ages. That's a good thing I guess. In the past, I rarely even get to Age 8. 

The Unseen expansion has its own set of special achievements. 

Card backs of the Unseen expansion (left) and the base game (right)

One new-to-me concept in Innovation Ultimate is the Junk keyword, which means permanently removing cards from the game. This Medicine card above junks an achievement. This is the first time I see achievements being removed. This doesn't happen in the first edition of Innovation. 

This card April Fool's Day is from the Unseen expansion. When I first read it, I thought this was an easy way to score an achievement. Upon rereading it, I realised you can only achieve if you have no hand cards and also no score cards at all. If by Age 4 I still have no score cards, I probably deserve some pity and thus this achievement. 

The Knights Templar is also a card from the Unseen expansion. This is an attack card and it can force your opponent to unsplay their cards. This is such a nasty thing to do! I did it to Chen Rui several times. Thankfully she hasn't disowned me yet. 

2-player game

In the past when I played Innovation with two or more expansions, I thought it was a little bit too much. Too many things to juggle at the same time, and it felt tedious. Now in the Ultimate edition, the rulebook says play with just one expansion at a time. In addition to the base game the expansions have also been adjusted. They are tweaked to be more independent of one another. When these expansions were previously released one after another, the later expansions used mechanisms introduced in the earlier expansions. This means if I want to skip some expansions and play with only a later one, I still need to learn the new rules introduced in the earlier expansions. In the Ultimate edition, this has been greatly reduced, so that from the base game you can choose to proceed to any of the expansions. There are still some rules which are relevant to all expansions, but this is much more manageable than before. 

Innovation is an important game in the world of boardgames. It is like Hamlet. If you like English literature, you have to read it. Innovation is an amazing achievement. It is a game with crazy swings and much replayability. It should always be on this kind of list - the top 100 games that every gamer must play. 

Flip 7

The Game

Flip 7 is currently H, O, T, hot! I remember coming across it before it was this hot. I thought the game mechanism was clever indeed but I didn’t sit down to play or buy a copy. By now it has been nominated for and won several awards. 

Flip 7 is a push-your-luck game and a party game. Every round everyone has a chance to score points. If you want to score more you need to take bigger risks. There is a risk of leaving empty handed. Cards in the game are numbered 0 to 12. There are twelve cards numbered 12, eleven cards numbered 11, and so on, down to a single 1 and also a single 0. Every round you start with one card. On your turn you choose to either draw a card or exit the round and score. If you exit, you score the sum of the values of your cards. Drawing means you are potentially increasing that sum, but if you draw a number you already have, you go bust and you are out of the round, scoring nothing. 

If you manage to flip over 7 cards without going bust, you score a huge bonus. There are some special cards in the game. You can force another player out of a round. You can get an extra life, i.e. in case you draw a repeat number, you can discard it without going bust. You can also make one player draw several cards in a row (including yourself). That can force them to go bust, or possibly suddenly give them many points. 

The game ends when anyone reaches 200 points. That’s all there is to the game. 

The Play

I did a three player game with Allen and Han on BoardGameArena.com. The first thing I’ll say is this is a game that is best played in person. The excitement of seeing what card is revealed is mostly lost when the game is played in asynchronous mode. Han made it to seven cards once, but we weren’t there to cheer for him. It must have been a very exciting moment when you are on your sixth card and you need to decide whether to attempt the seventh. 

There is certainly some luck in the game. If you are unlucky, you’ll go bust even on your second card. However you always have a sense of control because after all you are the one deciding whether to draw another card. Some cards seem to be very powerful take-that cards. At first I wondered whether this would lead to a poor play experience because players may feel they are arbitrarily attacked. Now that I have played the game, I realise these are a good way to balance the game, allowing players to slow down any unusually lucky leader who has sprinted far ahead. 

Although you can only control your own fate, whether to draw a card is not a solo game type decision. If your opponents are far ahead, you’d need to take risks to catch up. If you are leading comfortably you probably want to go slow and steady, and get to 200 safely. So this is a game with good player interaction. 

The Thoughts

Flip 7 is a game about gambling and greed. When you are behind, you will have that mindset of I just need to go big and I'll turn the tables in one round. You really see human psychology in play in this game. Yet this is a simple game. There is nothing particularly new about it, but it works very well and provides an enjoyable experience. Non-gamers will pick up the rules in no time. Experienced gamers will have fun with it too. The concept is so simple that it makes me wonder why this game wasn't already designed twenty years ago. Sometimes genius is in the simplicity. 

Hadrian’s Wall

 

The Game

Hadrian’s Wall is a paper-and-pencil game. I was about to call it a roll-and-write, because each player gets a piece of paper and ticks boxes off it. However there is no dice. In this game you are not constantly reacting to die rolls and deciding what to do with them. There are cards drawn which introduce some randomness, but mostly you know what resources you are generating every round, and you carefully plan how to use them. You have more control and more long-term planning than the typical roll-and-write game this is mostly about positioning yourself as best you can to handle whatever the dice deal you.

The game is played over 6 rounds

Your personal game boards (there are two of them) are complicated and intimidating. It takes some effort to explain and remember what all the sections mean. Generally to mark any box you need to spend resources. Some boxes give you a benefit. Some are just steps before the next box which does. The benefit can be a resource, which in turn lets you mark other boxes. So you can create some chain reactions. Some boxes when ticked unlock sections with new functions. These are things you can plan for and work towards. 

This is just part of your first player board

This section has the four main victory point tracks. 

This is part of your second player board, showing three types of citizens.

These are the remaining two citizen types. 

Some boxes help you produce more resources at the start of every future round. More resources means getting more done. Ultimately some boxes give you points, and that’s how you win the game. 

Some tracks have dependencies on others and may not overtake them.

At the end of every round the Picts attack. They may attack the left flank, centre, or right flank of your army. If you have developed all the sections of your army enough to repel the Picts, you’ve done your job. However if any enemy gets through, you are penalised. The penalty gets more severe the more instances that Picts get through. So defense is something you must not neglect. 

The game is played over a fixed number of rounds. After the final round, the highest scorer wins.

The Game 

The game is intimidating at first, but once you get over that initial hurdle, this becomes a game with a lot to explore. Building the wall and training your army are a must. It is a matter of deciding how fast and how complete. You can do okay without completing everything but you’ll be in trouble if you are too far short.

The five classes of citizens is where the game opens up many possibilities for you to explore. The five classes offer different abilities and scoring opportunities. You can’t be everything everywhere. You have to choose. 

The game is pretty much solo. You don’t interact much with your opponents. It works well on BoardGameArena.com as an asynchronous game. In fact it might work better in this mode than playing in person. If you have a slow player and you play in person, everyone must wait for him to finish the round before you can start the next round. If you play in online asynchronous mode, just logout and come back the next day. 

This is almost a deterministic game. Little randomness, no hidden information. Your challenge is how to make the most of your resources. You have many options. There are different ways to increase your abilities and different ways to score more points. You choose some and you need to commit to work on them to get a worthwhile return on investment. One particular building type lets you reduce points lost due to poor defense against the Picts. If you go for this, you can afford to work less on defense. 

The game ends after six rounds. This is like life. There are many things you want to achieve but your time and resources are limited. So you must decide and utilise your resources well to maximise your score. Towards late game you will get a sense of which things are too late to start work on and which you need to prioritise to get the most out of. 

This above is what the end of one game can look like on the second player board. I have completed the advancement track for the first and fourth citizen types, and almost for the fifth as well. However I had only utilised the unique abilities of the first, second and fifth citizen types. I had planned to use type 4, but eventually didn't. Because... priorities. 

Of the four victory point tracks, I mostly ignored the purple track. Getting to 15 on a track allows you to build a monument. That's something to work towards too. 

The Thoughts

This is almost a solitaire game. You mostly work on your own boards. There is a lot to keep you busy. There are many different strategies to pursue so there is replayability. Every game you can only specialise in a couple of functions provided by specific citizen types. Each new game you can try different functions and different combinations of functions. There is fun in creating chain reactions. If you utilise your resources well, you can spend them to generate more resources which you then spend to do more things. It is fun to do this kind of planning. It’s all open information so it’s up to you to analyse your board situation and find those opportunities. 

boardgaming in photos: Jaipur, Blood Rage, Agricola, Caverna, Puerto Rico

These are some older boardgames which I recently played with my old friends Allen and Han, all played on BoardGameArena.com. 

Jaipur is a 2-player card game. It has been a while, but the game is still as enjoyable as I remember. It is always tempting to take multiple cards from the centre row, but then you are always anxious whether the new cards which refill the row present an even better opportunity to your opponent. There is always the tension of collecting more to redeem a greater reward, or redeeming quickly before the juiciest rewards are claimed by your opponent. 

Blood Rage is my weakness. I really suck at playing this game. We've played this some years ago, and I did poorly. Now, I am doing just as poorly, if not worse. It isn't really a complex game. I have no idea why I can't even play this half decently. I think I have some kind of mental block when it comes to this game. It's not because of the battle theme. I'm not against wargames. I have no idea why. 

I had played a lot of Agricola in the past, but it had been a while, so I was a little rusty. This was my farm in the early game. I had two cattle, but I couldn't breed them because I did not have enough space. In fact the cow had to live inside my house. Not exactly hygienic. 

Needing to analyse fourteen occupation cards and minor improvement cards was a little overwhelming. Gosh I was rusty. However there was also sweet nostalgia. Eventually I only managed to use a small subset of my cards. 

One thing I am annoyed with is how they have changed some of the names of the worker placement spots. "Plow" is now called "Farmland". "Sow and bake bread" is now called "Grain utilisation". Seriously?! "Plow and sow" is now called "Cultivation". I find this frustrating. Why not keep things simple and straightforward? Okay, maybe this is the grumpy old man talking. He is incapable of letting go of the past. "Family growth" is now called "Wish for children". 

This was my farm near game end. I had wanted to upgrade my house to a clay house, but I didn't manage to gather enough clay. So we still lived in a wooden house by game end. 

Caverna is a reimplementation of Agricola. Some aspects were changed and simplified, several things were added. This was the early game. 

I have played the physical game. There were many game components to manage and it was quite a lot of work. You have so many options that it is exhausting to go through them one by one. The upside is you can try different buildings every game so there is much replayability.

Family members in Caverna don't score as many points as those in Agricola. They only score 1 point each, compared to 3 points in Agricola. However it is still useful to have more family members. You get more things done. I (red) worked hard on making kids, and I managed to reach the max of 6 family members. Han focused more on arming his family members. He had three armed family members and I had only one. Only armed family members can go on adventures.  

By the end of the game all of my forest and mountain spaces were developed. I did not have to lose any points from undeveloped spaces. One cute thing about this game is your dogs can help to guard sheep. So some sheep can be left in the fields as long as you have enough dogs taking care of them. 

Puerto Rico was once the #1 game on BGG. Many years ago I bought it because it was #1. At the time I had not played many Euro style games. My favourite games then were games like Axis and Allies. When I first read the rules of Puerto Rico, I was confused. This is it? This is the #1 game? It seems too simple. Where is the excitement? Later as I learned to appreciate Euro games, I understood the fun in Puerto Rico. 

Han beat us by a large margin. He had two large buildings. He had four quarries, which gave him deep discounts on buildings. 

Jakarta Traffic

The Game

Jakarta Traffic, being about Jakarta, is, of course, a game from Indonesia. However the designer Simon Schmieder is actually from Germany. He now lives in Indonesia. This game was crowdfunded successfully on Kickstarter. Simon came for the Asian Board Games Festival in Malaysia last year. At the time I wasn't able to try his game. He was here again this year, so I took the opportunity to try Jakarta Traffic. He sold out all the copies he brought by the second day of the fair. This is a popular game! 

In this game you play gojek drivers. Gojek drivers are delivery guys on motorcycles. They deliver items and also carry passengers. Since they are on motorcycles, they can weave through traffic. You use a phone app to hail riders. This is a pick-up-and-deliver game. The main way you earn points is by picking up items and delivering them to specific destinations. The road network is intimidating at first, but once you get familiar with identifying paths, it is not as scary as it looks. On your turn you move from one terminal of a road network on your tile to any other terminal of that same road network. This can be quite a distance if that road network is large. Some road networks have multiple terminals, which means you have options. Before you move, you have the option of rotating a tile or replacing a tile with the one in your hand. These will modify the road networks on the board and change your possible destinations. There are many ways you can change the networks. One important restriction is you can't change any tile that has tokens on it.

Think of this little board as the constantly updated list of orders in the gojek riders app. This board specifies the current contracts you can fulfil to score points, i.e. deliveries you need to make. Information here includes what to deliver (pink disk), where to deliver them to (green building), and how many points you score for making the delivery (star). What's interesting about this board here is whenever anyone makes a delivery, this board changes. The goods being delivered drops to the bottom position and all other goods move up a rank. The building that has just received a delivery shifts to the inactive section on the right. Other buildings shift down, and an inactive building moves to the top spot. As you can see, this is a huge change and can really mess up your plans. The game becomes a race to fulfil contracts, because if you are slow, your goods may devalue and you may need to reroute. You can plan for the changes on the contract board. This is an open information game. If you think someone will make a certain delivery soon, you can predict how the board will change, and you can figure out what you should do next to maximise your points. 

One possible tactic is delivering two items at the same time to the same building. That's an efficient way to score points. 

This is the player board. There are four spaces for stars at the bottom right which means the game ends when someone makes the 4th delivery. The battery charge token at the top right is an important part of the game. Every turn your phone consumes battery charge, and when your battery is flat you cannot pick up goods or complete deliveries. You need to find a charging station to charge your phone.

Notice there are three chat tokens. When you meet another player, you hear gossips and claim one chat token. Chat tokens are worth points at the end of the game. When you meet another player, both of you gain one level of battery charge, because while chatting you also charge your phone using your power banks.  

In case you cannot work out any useful path, one last resort is rolling the dice. You go where the dice tell you to. This is equivalent to taking unknown alleys and seeing where they lead you eventually.

The Play

This is a pick-up-and-deliver game. Every turn you are solving a puzzle. You try to figure out how to get to a specific tile. If you can't work that out, you have to go for the second best option. I find that often you can work something out, by either rotating a tile or by playing the tile in hand. For new players this can feel overwhelming, but once you learn to read the map, it is actually not as daunting as it initially seems. 

The policeman token is placed whenever anyone rotates a tile or replaces a tile. It temporarily protects that tile from being further manipulated. The policeman only gets moved if someone changes some other tile. 

There is urgency in making deliveries, because if you don't do it quickly, the supply and demand will change and your plans can be ruined. Even if you can still do something with the goods in hand, you probably won't be scoring as many points, or you may need to take a longer route to get it delivered. 

You can also think of this as an efficiency game. You not only have to do the deliveries quick, you also want to maximise the earnings from each delivery. This is a perfect information game. You can calculate what may happen in the next few turns, so there can be analysis paralysis if you play with people who want to calculate many steps ahead. Make a honking sound and tell them to just move dammit. 

The tile you have in hand is important. One useful tactic is swapping it with another tile on the board even when you don't need to do it to build a path for movement. You do it for the sake of giving yourself more options on a future turn. 

The Thoughts

This is a game with a very local feel. Local as in Indonesia local, not Malaysia local. All the elements come together to create a unique experience - the art, the setting, the mechanisms. This is a mid-weight game which non-gamers will be able to pick up. I like how it delivers an immersive experience. 

At the recent Asian Board Games Festival I had the opportunity to meet and exchange stories with industry players from other Asian countries. They all find that in South East Asia, and perhaps even in Asia as a whole, it is card games which sell. When some publishers decide to make a boardgame, it is an experimental project for them, to see how well a game with a board sells. Thus far, they find that card games still do much better than boardgames. For better or worse, that is our current reality. Jakarta Traffic, being a boardgame, being able to achieve such success, is no simple feat!

17: Diciassette

The Game

17 is a game design from Japan, originally called Diciassette which means seventeen in Italian. What attracted me to try this game is the similarity to my own game Pinocchio, and also to some extent Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves too. I want to see how others do it. The common mechanism between these games is how cards will be drawn or played, and something bad happens when the sum of the card values reach or exceed a certain number. This is what happens in Black Jack. The number is 12 in Ali Baba, 21 in Pinocchio, and of course 17 in 17. 

In 17, you have a hand of three cards. You take turns playing cards to a row at the centre of the table. You can play your card face up or face down. At any time if you think the total has reached 17, you may call for the round to end. Face down cards are revealed. If you are right, you get a point token, and the last player to have played a card gets a penalty token. If you are wrong, you get the penalty token instead, and the last player gets a point token. You play multiple rounds until a player wins by having three point tokens. 

One interesting aspect of the game is some cards show their values on their backs. So everyone knows what they are even if you play them face down. Some cards have special abilities, e.g. reversing the order of play, or removing other cards from the row. There is a trap card which penalises whoever calls for the round to end. 

The Play

I did a 2-player game. The game supports 2 to 6. The 2-player game wasn’t interesting for me. I think the game will work better for a larger group. You have three cards in hand, but you don’t always have many options. If you have exposed cards (cards with values on their backs too), and the total will hit 17 when you play them, then they are not valid options. You might get caught in a situation when you’ll go bust openly no matter what you play. So you probably want to consider playing those exposed cards much earlier before you have too many of them. There is a bit of hand management in this game. You can save good cards for the right moments. 

The feeling of playing this game is everyone taking turns to be the vulnerable one who might get penalised. Wherever you decide to play a card to the row, you are taking a risk that the total might hit 17 and someone might call for the round to end. Based on player count and turn order, you can manipulate who will be more vulnerable. Which card you choose to play, and whether you play it face up or face down influence this. Let's use an example. If you can play a 5 to make the apparent total go to 16, and you want to put the next player in a difficult position, you would choose to play the 5 face up, so that everyone knows the end is near. The next player will have a dilemma, unless they have the special power card which removes other cards from the row. 

The Thoughts

I need to play this with more players. I feel this should be a minimum 3-player game. It works differently from both of my games, delivering a different experience. This is a light game so non-gamers can easily learn to play and can quickly enjoy the game. There is bluffing and hand management, so even for experienced gamers there are interesting tactics to consider. This is a clever game with some original ideas.