Haratama

Haratama is a trick-taking game from Japan with a horror theme and great art. Every round, three card values are randomly drawn to become the penalty values for the round. That means if you win these cards you will be penalised. This is a game about scoring as few points as possible. Points are bad. 

Most standard trick-taking rules apply. You must follow suit if you can. There is a trump suit. However you are not allowed to lead with a trump card until someone has played a trump card. In the game story, the trump suit represents the demon, which is initially sealed and suppressed. However at some point when the first trump card is played in a trick led by a regular card, the seal breaks and the demon is freed. 

Every penalty card you win gets you a point, which is bad. However if you manage to win at least 8 out of 12 penalty cards, the demon possesses you. You become one. Now everyone else gets points instead. This, of course, is no easy feat. 

That’s basically it. What is interesting is how the penalty values will differ from round to round. You will need to adjust how you play depending on whether they are large or small, and how many of them you have in hand. 

Card backs - so scary!

This is a pretty clean design that’s quite close to standard trick-taking. The small twist that it offers is fun and viable. I have a soft spot for games which allow you to shoot the moon. One minor problem we had was with the font style. We thought the 8 was a 0. 

Torchlit

 

I have been playing many trick-taking games lately. I am not specifically a fan of the genre, but I don't dislike it either. If anyone suggests a trick-taking game, I'm usually happy to play. Torchlit is a trick-taking game which emphasises making predictions. Based on your starting hand, you secretly choose one card as your torch. This number is your prediction about how many tricks you will win. This card is kept until the final trick, when you have only two cards remaining. You have the option of playing this card normally and use your other remaining card as your torch, i.e. your prediction about the number of tricks you have won. 

Eight dungeon tiles are laid out like this. Every player gets a pretty wooden pawn. The dungeon tiles are just for recording how many tricks you have won so far. Everyone starts on the left, which means 0 tricks. The max is 7 tricks, and if you win more than 7 tricks, you circle back to the 0 space. Cards placed below the dungeon tiles are important. They are worth points. For every trick played, the winner advances his pawn. Some or possibly all of the cards in the trick will be added to dungeons based on the card values. For each suit, only one card will be added. If there are multiple cards in the same suit, it is the player with the lowest numbered card (not necessarily the weakest or the loser) who decides which card gets added. Having played the lowest card can be a powerful position. 

Most other trick-taking rules are pretty standard. You must follow suit if you can. There is a trump suit - red (called dragon). When a trick is lead by red, you don't have to follow suit. This is different from other games. Normally only cards in the lead suit can win. That, of course, is overwritten by trump suit cards. That's standard. One more exception is that for the very last trick, you don't have to follow suit. This is the trick where you take your torch back and you may switch your torch - the prediction about where your pawn will end up. 

You play three rounds and add up your points

The reference cards have different art but the content is the same

You can refer to the reference card above to understand how scoring works. At the end of a round, if your torch card is correct (matches the position of your pawn), you score 3 points. Else, that torch is added to the corresponding dungeon, and it becomes worth 2 points for any opponent(s) there. At each dungeon tile, trump cards are worth 2 points, and regular cards 1 point. You score points for where your pawn is. If players share the same location, they must share the points there too, rounded down. 

Throughout the round you are manipulating how many points each dungeon tile is worth, and you are also manipulating the positions of everyone's pawn. You have made a prediction, and getting it right certainly helps, but sometimes depending on how the round goes, you may intentionally get it wrong because some dungeon tiles are worth doing it. Or if you have a better backup torch in hand, work towards that. You want to move your opponents to the same tiles, so that they are forced to share points. You want to stay away from others, so that you don't have to share. 

This is almost like a market manipulation game, because you are constantly adjusting the values of the dungeon tiles. Low cards can be good because they help you control which cards are added to dungeons. Your choice of suit affects whether more cards are added to dungeons. You don't know exactly which dungeon tile you will end up on, and you do your best to control that. 

Torchlit, despite the great-looking components, doesn't stray far from standard trick-taking mechanisms. I feel this is a game you play in a calculative way. More meticulous accountant than monster-fighting warrior. 

Dirty Work

Dirty Work is a party game from Thailand. This is a simultaneous action selection game, and it is very much about guessing your opponents’ intentions. You are all miners mining gold, contributing to a stash of gold, one nugget at a time. Sooner or later someone will be tempted to steal from the stash. However such thieves can be caught by miners who decide to play guard. So these are the three roles you must choose from every round, miner, thief or guard. 

The game is played over multiple days, until someone has 24 gold and wins. Each day will have multiple rounds, and ends with either the stash getting stolen, or only one miner remains and takes the stash. Each round is just players simultaneously choosing a role and then all roles are revealed at the same time. First, miners work and each adds 1 gold to the stash. Now if there are thieves but no guards, the thieves take and share the stash, and the day ends. If there are thieves and guards, the stash is protected. The guard earn a small wage of 1 gold. Here’s the important rule which I find genius. A thief who is caught surrenders all his money to the guard catching him. That’s including all the money accumulated from previous days. If the game has been going on for a while, this can be a huge sum. It will be painful for the thief, but a boon for the guard. Another important rule is once you play guard, you will stop work for the day. You sit out any remaining rounds. If you play guard when there are no thieves, you earn a measly 1 gold and you’ve just wasted opportunities for the rest of the day. Choosing to guard is not a light decision. 

Being a simple miner doing honest work sounds dull. However it can be lucrative. If everyone else drops out due to playing guard or playing thief and getting caught, you earn the whole stash for yourself. 

There is one special situation. If you steal and get caught, but you have no money to pay the fine, you are temporarily on a watchlist and you cannot steal. That is a bad situation to be in. Your opponents know you only have two options and they don’t need to worry about you stealing. 

This may seem like a complicated version of rock paper scissors. You only have three options, and most of the time each of them can be the right play. Let’s say there are only two players still active for the day. The other guy has much money. You might think he wouldn’t steal because that’s risking his hard earned money, so maybe you should not guard. However he might just do it because it is out of your expectation. People may play safe and keep on mining (working). The risk of stealing is getting caught. The risk of guarding is catching no one and being forced to drop out. Yet as the stash builds up, it becomes harder and harder to resist the temptation to steal, and also to attempt to catch others whom you suspect might steal. That’s tension! I like that you do have much information and basis for deciding which role to play, yet this information does not guarantee you will make the right choice. It still depends on the psychology of your opponents. 

Playing with role cards is optional. They give you slight advantages.

This might be the Thai signature - party games which elicit much laughter. There are many types of games designed by Thai designers and published by Thai publishers, many more than made by Malaysian designers and publishers. Thai designs should not be pigeonholed. However this style of game seems to be the most successful for their market. I find Dirty Work a great design. There is much table talk, sometimes even cooperation, and of course betrayals too. 

DETROIT

DETROIT is a lovely little two player game from Japan. You compete to build three cars. You share a factory floor, where some spaces are common while some are for you only. You have six game pieces, and you need to move them all through the assembly line, in the process combining the top and bottom pairs to form complete cars. Whoever does so first wins. 

On your turn you roll four dice, and they determine how many steps you must move one of your pieces. The dice here don’t look like dice at all. They look like traffic cones. A cone which lies on its side shows one pip at the bottom, and that means one step. A cone that is standing upright means zero. You might move up to four steps, but if you are very unlucky, you might not move at all. 

Each space on the board allows one piece only. If you move into a common space containing your opponent’s piece, you knock it off and it needs to restart. This is the key element of the game. Some of the common spaces are safe spaces. You are protected from being knocked off. Three of your pieces are top pieces, and the other three are bottom pieces. When you move a top piece to a space with your own bottom piece, you combine them to become a complete car. Thereafter you move the completed car as one piece. Now if your completed car gets knocked off by your opponent, it is taken apart and both pieces need to start over and get assembled again. 

A big part of the game is managing risk and opportunities. When you have multiple pieces, you can maximise opportunities by positioning them such that no matter what you roll next turn, there is something useful you can do. The safe spaces are fun. Sometimes you choose to move a piece there even if it means leaving another piece vulnerable. Occupying a safe space blocks your opponent from using it, which means his pieces will be more vulnerable. 

You cannot assemble a car by moving a bottom piece onto a top piece. This is an interesting challenge. If your opponent knocks off your bottom piece, and you now have a top piece far ahead of your other bottom pieces, it is a little stuck because it needs to wait for a bottom piece to catch up. You have to plan how to get your cars assembled as the pieces advance through the board. 

This is the kind of game where the game components can sell the game. The good news is the gameplay is decent and meaningful too. 

Boomerang: Australia

Boomerang: Australia works very much like 7 Wonders and Sushi Go. You start with a hand of cards. You pick one and pass the rest left. You keep doing this, and eventually all the cards will be claimed, and you score points based on your set of cards. This is a simple core mechanism. How the game differs from others is how the scoring works. 

Every card has several elements. They all affect scoring in different ways. Every card in the game is a location in Australia scattered across seven states. Each location you visit gives you one point, and if you are first to cover a state, you score a bonus. You get a little scoring sheet to mark off locations you have visited. 

Some cards have souvenirs, and they just give you points. At the end of a round, if your total souvenir points is 7 or less, you get to double them. If it is more than 7, no doubling. So you have a little Blackjack going on here, trying to get as close to 7 as possible but not over. Some cards have animals. You score them only when you are able to get a pair within the same round. If you are playing a 4 player game, and you see two of the same animals in your starting hand, you can hope to claim one and wait for the other to cycle back to you. However there is no guarantee that someone else might want the same card for some other reason, for example it is a location they need for completing a state. 

Some cards have activities. At the end of every round, you have the option to choose to score one or more of the activities. After you score an activity, you can't score it any more for the rest of the game. The more icons you have, the higher you score for that activity. Ideally for each of the four rounds, you focus on collecting one of the four activities. In practice, you rarely get an ideal situation. 

The first card that you claim in a round is placed face-down before you, so no one else knows what it is. The rest are face-up, so your neighbour can check what you might need and try not to pass you those cards. This is a game with adjustable depth. You can play with a simple approach, caring only about your own collection. You can also play in a more competitive way, watching what your opponents do and trying to deny them, or trying to collect what they don't want any more. Your chances of winning are higher if you are more competitive, but you will still have fun playing in a simple way. The reason for your first card being face-down is the boomerang scoring. You compare its value with the value of the last card passed to you from your neighbour. You score the difference. That's why you don't let your neighbour know that card specifically. 

Boomerang: Australia is a pleasant set collection game. It plays smoothly. You feel like you are on holiday in Australia. Nothing ground-breaking, but it is an enjoyable experience. 

High Society

High Society is a Reiner Knizia game from 1995. I have heard of it so many times that I feel like I have played it before. This is one of the classics from Reiner Knizia that always comes back in print.  

This is an auction game. Everyone starts with the same set of money cards, each a different denomination, from $1 to $25. That’s all the money you will have in the game. A deck of properties will be auctioned off, one at a time. They have different point values. There are some special cards in the mix, some good and some bad. A good card can double your victory points. A bad one forces you to discard one property. Another bad one halves your victory points. Every round one card is revealed from the deck and auctioned off. One twist in the game is you don’t know exactly when the game will end. It ends immediately when the last of the double and half cards is drawn. The challenge the game presents is you don’t know how far you should preserve your money. If you use your money too quickly you won’t be able to compete when big cards show up. If you keep too much money and the game ends early, you would have missed the opportunities to buy valuable properties. 

Your money

Good card

Bad card

When you bid, you don’t make change. If you have placed a bid and you are overbid by someone else, you can only counter bid by adding more cards from your hand. This means sometimes you are forced to spend more than you wish. 

The most important twist is whoever has the least money when the game ends is automatically disqualified. You must keep some money to avoid being the poorest. 

When bad cards are being auctioned, it is done in a different manner. You bid to not take the card. The first player to pass takes the card. Everyone else who has placed a bid must pay up. Bad cards will usually force many people to spend money. Good cards only require the buyer to pay. 

This is a simple game that is full of difficult decisions. The special cards can have huge impacts. You are torn between keeping enough money to not get disqualified and winning enough properties to win the game. 

Legions

Legions is a 2-player card game set in the world of Abyss. There are five regions between the two players, and you play cards to compete for dominance in each of these regions. There are two ways you can win. If you manage to capture five banners, you win immediately. Banners only appear on some cards, and it is not easy to achieve this victory condition. If no one achieves this by the time the draw deck runs out, whoever has more points wins. Many cards in the game have point values, so this is probably the more common way to win. 

Cards come in five suits, corresponding to the five regions. There are also many cards which do not have suits. They are jokers and you can play them anywhere. Every round you choose a card to play simultaneously to your side of the board. The player with the lower card goes first, and will also have first pick when replenishing his hand from a market of two face-up and one face-down card. However the second player will have the opportunity to attack the first, in a region corresponding to the card he doesn't take from the market when replenishing. Attacking means turning your opponent's cards face-down, temporarily disabling them. He can revive them by playing a new card in the region. 

When you have more cards in a region than your opponent, you control it and get to enjoy its special ability. For example one region breaks ties for all other regions. One region gives you a banner if you control it. After you play your card, you draft a new card from a shared pool. This means your opponent can keep track of what you have been taking, and this gives him clues about your intentions. 

When you have three cards in the same region, or one card in every region, you get to claim a hero. This is how you can score banners and points. You claim a hero from a hero pool, and you must move two of your cards to accompany that hero. The hero and these two retired cards contribute to your points and your banners. Since you are required to remove two cards, you become weaker in the regions they were in. 

Getting to five banners is a threat you can use against your opponent. Since this is a sudden death victory, your opponent cannot let you get too close. The game is tactical. You want to maximise the small advantages you get here and there, like the region powers. 

Legions is a light strategy game that can be a filler for gamers. 

dnup

The game name dnup needs to be written exactly this way, so that when you turn it upside down, it looks exactly the same. This is a game from Kei Kajino, designer of SCOUT (written in all caps). It also has the element of turning cards upside down to change their values. Every card has two different values at the two opposite ends. The end you are holding upwards is the current value of the card. dnup is also a shedding game. You want to get rid of your cards. I would say it is easier to learn than SCOUT because the rules are more conventional and familiar. 

There are several things you can do on your turn. The most basic one is to play cards. You can play a single card, or you can play a meld. A meld is two or more cards of the same number. These cards that you play are not immediately discarded. They stay in front of you until the start of your next turn. Only then they are discarded. While these cards stay before you, they are vulnerable. If someone else plays a meld with the same number of cards, and the value is higher than yours, you will be forced to take your cards back into your hand. That is not all. You must turn all these cards before taking them back. This can be disastrous. Your set of cards of the same value will become different values. It will take you more turns to play them. However it is also possible to make use of this mechanism. You can let an opponent turn a low card to a high one, which you can later play together with other cards you have. When you have a meld in play, you prevent others from playing a meld of the same size, if their meld is of a smaller card value. If you have a pair of 10's in play, you are stopping everyone else from playing pairs. 

One other thing you can do in the game is to add one card to someone else’s meld. This sounds simple, but there are a few implications. Let’s say you add a 5 to two 5’s, creating a meld of three 5’s. If at the point someone else has a meld of three 3’s, this newly created meld will beat the meld of 3’s, forcing the owner to take their cards back. That is not all. Let’s say later someone else plays a meld of three 8’s. This beats that meld of three 5’s. Although you have contributed one of the cards, that’s no longer your card. So all these cards go to the hand of the player who has the three 5’s before them. 

Yet another thing you can do is to take someone else’s meld. That sounds like an easy way to collect powerful cards. The twist is when you take a meld, you must turn all those cards. 

The last thing you can do is to turn all your cards in hand. It is all or nothing. 

The game feels like gin rummy, in that gameplay is smooth. You play melds and you do layoffs. However the ability to attack another player’s meld makes this a very different game. You always need to worry about whether your meld will be attacked. When you have the opportunity to attack, it may not always be the best move. When you have two 9’s, it may not be the best move to play them as a pair. Maybe it is worthwhile to play them as single cards so that you can mess with others more. 

dnup is easy to learn. However there is much depth to the game. If you are competitive, this is a game you can learn to play at a high skill level. You can pay attention to cards people have taken back. You can card count. You can even play this game with negotiation and collaboration. If someone has played four 1’s and you have three 2’s, you can ask for a collaborator with one more 2, so that you can work together to beat that meld of four 1’s. 

I hope dnup does well. It’s a great design. Clean and clever. It doesn't have and it doesn't need fancy powers on the cards. I think this is a deep game. 

This Game is Killer: Frozen Horror

During the lifetime of a game taster, once in a while we stumble upon unheard of games which take us by surprise. This Game is Killer: Frozen Horror is one such game for me. It is not a ground-breaking genre nor is it a highly unusual setting. It is just how well the game is put together in a concise way, plus some genius ideas thrown in. 

First and foremost, this is a one-vs-many secret identity game. One of the players is the horror, and the rest are humans. The game is played until the horror kills all the humans, or the humans manage to kill the horror. You win if you are still alive. The twist in this game is you draw identity cards every round. Every round, the horror might be any of the characters still alive. Imagine a ghost which jumps from body to body to possess them. 

The setting is a research station in the Arctic. You can start in any of the four rooms. They are connected to other rooms via doors in specific colours. The colours are important because movement cards let you move through doors in specific colours, and some cards let you temporarily lock a door in a specific colour. 

Every round you draw two cards and you will play them both. One must be played for movement, and the other for its power text. After all cards are played, you check whether the horror is in the same room as any human. If so, the horror kills some or all of these humans. When you are human, you need to try to guess who the horror is and you want to avoid him. If you are the horror, you normally want to go to where the most people are, or where at least one human is. You want to kill. 

When you are human, the behaviour of the other players will give you some clues on whether they are the horror. The horror will try to be subtle. He may pretend he suspects another player is the horror, and that's why he's coming to your room. He may try to make excuses for questionable actions. By default, the horror kills someone sharing the room. For a human to kill the horror it is much harder. You rely on having drawn certain cards. For example there's a card which lets you shoot a person who enters your room. Now that poor fellow might actually be human. There is a card which lets you shoot someone in your room then leave. If the horror uses this card well, he can kill twice. 

As the number of players dwindle, some rooms will be destroyed. It's hard to run away from sharing a room. 

When you are eliminated as a human, you don't participate anymore, but you can still cheer on the remaining humans. This is a player elimination game, but it is short and entertaining that even watching others play is fun. 

I like that this game distils the genre into something so minimalistic while still retaining the psychological play. In fact, I feel you get extra doses of this excitement because every round the identity of the horror may change. You are constantly wondering who the horror is. You question every action of your fellow players. Are they laying a trap? Are they trying to avoid danger or are they trying to trick you? Who can you trust?