Schotten Totten is an older game from Reiner Knizia, first published in 1999. There have been several versions of the game since then, including Battle Line, which is the version I own. This game is not new to me. I recently played it online, and it was an opportunity to appreciate this gem all over again. Now that I have learnt to look at games from a game design perspective, I sometimes gain new appreciation for games I have already played before.
Schotten Totten uses cards numbered 1 to 9 in six suits. You play three card combos on opposing sides of nine stones. If your combo is stronger than your opponent's, you win the stone. You need five stones to win the game, or you can also win by claiming three adjacent stones. Combo strengths in descending order are: straight flush, three of a kind, flush, and straight. If both sides cannot make any combo, you determine strength by the sum of your three cards.
This is a 2-player game. What this means is your chances of drawing any specific card in the game is 50%. It's either you will draw it, or your opponent will. You share the same draw deck. Every turn you must play a card. When you start playing a card next to a stone, you are committed and you know what are the possible combos you can eventually make. If there is only one card, the possibilities are still many. By the time you play the second card, the possibilities narrow. This is a simple game, but it presents you with many difficult decisions. Sometimes you just have to gamble and hope for the best. You can estimate your odds, but your information is incomplete, and you have to make decisions under uncertainty. That's life.
For my second game we used tactic cards. These are special ability cards which can do various nifty things. That card on the eighth stone forces both players to ignore combos and only compare the sum of the cards.
It is fun to revisit an old game and to have new appreciation of it.
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