And if you want to know the criteria that I’m using, or the conversation starting point, you can read that article here.

My Trick-Taking Games

Let’s start out by just listing off the games. And these are the ones that I own and I maybe have played.

Played:
The Crew: Mission Deep Sea
The Fox in the Forest
Cat in the Box
The Fellowship of the Ring: Trick-Taking Game
For Northwood! A Solo Trick-Taking Game
The Fox in the Forest Duet
Scahdenfreude
9 Lives
Rebel Princess
Pumafiosi
Matcha

Unplayed:
Jekyll & Hyde vs Scotland Yard
Ghosts of Christmas
Jalape-NO
Lunar
Pies
FORK
The Six of VIII
No Loose Ends
Tricky Kids

The Unplayed Games

To start off with, the unplayed ones are staying. In particular Ghosts of Christmas, Tricky Kids, No Loose Ends, and The Six of VIII are ones that I really want to get played. I could say that maybe FORK, Lunar, Pies, some of those might be redundant to the other trick-taking games that I have in the played section. But the thing is, I want to get these played to know for sure. And the good think about trick-taking is that most of the time they are easy to get played.

The Played Games

Now let’s talk about the played games. And I think that I might mainly disappoint myself. But I think I’m going to be keeping most of them if not all of them. Because while a few of them do duplicate things, like cooperative play, I think they are different enough and fit different reasons to keep them in my collection.

Cooperative Trick-Taking

For the cooperative ones let’s talk about the difference. Firstly Fox in the Forest Duet is two player only. And it is not about winning certain objectives to advance. The other two are both about objectives. But with the Fellowship of the Ring Trick-Taking Game, that one is a “campaign” of sorts. Or at least it feels like it has more story to it. The Crew is a campaign as well in that you can ramp up the difficulty, but it is easier to jump into a higher level without feeling like you missed some of the game.

Bidding Trick-Taking

Now this is where a few things could maybe move over time. The bidding trick-taking games might feel a bit more the same. Right now I just think of two that are in the played section with 9 Lives and Cat in the Box. And Cat in the Box does something different completely where you can short suit yourself whenever you want because nothing has a suit. That is a step more than 9 Lives. But, as I play others that have that bidding for how many tricks you take, I could see 9 Lives leaving.

Two Player Trick-Taking

Finally, let’s talk two player trick-taking. And this is where I think I maybe should get rid of a game. I’m not sure that I need Matcha and Fox in the Forest and Fox in the Forest Duet. Now, the question is which one is going to stay. I think that Matcha is really interesting but it’s maybe a bit harder to teach. For that reason that is probably the trick-taking game that should leave.

Final Thoughts on my Trick-Taking Games

This is obviously not ideal. I want to clear out more games. Though this isn’t because I don’t want to keep all the games around. It is more a situation where I need more space for games and culling and going through my collection helps with that a lot. But smaller games are easier to justify. But with trick-taking, I want to go through this list again after I knock off a handful more of the games on the list. Because I think that a number of them might get culled.

Why will they get culled then versus now? Because I want to come up with what my favorite five to eight of them are. Some I know will always stick around, Rebel Princess for example, but others are good but I’m not 100% sold that they’ll stick around like Cat in the Box. But I want to spend more time with my trick-taking games, and then I’ll revisit them.

Next time I want to look at my drafting games.

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How to Play Pumafiosi?

This is a bit tricky to explain, but the let’s start with the main goal. The main goal is to make the most money. And to make the money you need to win the tricks or hands that are played out. However, it isn’t a standard trick taking game. You want to have the number in the middle, so this really a 3 or 5 player game because of that.

If you get the middle number, you’ll get to put that winning card on a score track. You need to decide where you want to place it though, because the points go from -3 to 10 points with a few missing numbers. So if you win a hand with a 20, let’s say, and the numbers go 1 to 55, where do you put that. Do you put that at the 10 or somewhere lower, and why wouldn’t you just put it on the 10 point spot?

Well, there is one major reason. If you play it on the 10 and someone comes along with a 25 they can put it on the 10, and the lower number gets bumped down. For each spot and each card that gets bumped down of yours, you get -1 points. So a 20 might fall a number of times.

You score the track at the end of each round of hands. And then after three hands, you see who has the most dollars. The person with the most, they win the game.

So What Type Of Game Is It?

That is a weird question to answer. Part of it is a straightforward trick taking game. It is a twist to say, you want the middle card, but that is mainly still trick taking. Now if I play a 34 and you play a 33, the third person probably decides who wins the trick. Or if we play a 34 and 32, do they have the 33? So that element is pretty simple.

It is probably more of a push your luck game. How far might something drop? And is it worthwhile maybe even sneaking a card onto the -3 to avoid having a bunch of your cards getting pushed down? Because part of the strategy is that you don’t need to play in numerical order on the score track. It’s just when something get pushed down that you sort numerically. That twist is intriguing for how you try and score in the game.

But it is a hard question to answer. Part of the game is trick taking. Part of the game is push your luck for money. And part of the game is, if you can’t win the hand, how to set-up the person you want to win that hand to get the most points spread out or to make it easier for you to win that next hand. I like every element of the game.

But Let’s Talk About Luck

Luck in Pumafiosi is the thing that will push some people away. You play with a hand of three cards, you play one and draw one. That is not that odd. But if the last person can’t win, they might try and set-up the person one ahead of them to win to make it more likely to win the next hand. That is not luck, that is strategy.

But with a hand of only three cards, luck is an element of the game. If you play out a 3 and my hand is only low cards, that might be good. But if you play out 20 and I just only ever get low cards, I might be locked out of round. I think there is an element of strategy still there, but some of it is dependent upon luck more than some people like for a game like this.

Pumafiosi is a Filler Game

My push back on the complaint about luck is that it is a filler game. A slightly longer filler game than some, but it is still a filler game. And for a filler game, I am fine with a bit more luck, or maybe a lot more luck in a given hand if it starts to get really swingy. I know the game is going to be over pretty quickly in that case and we can either shuffle up and play again or move on to another game.

But it being a filler game is going to be a negative for some people as well. And I think that I call it a trick taking game, but there being less control than in a lot of trick taking games. I do think as a group and dynamic develop, players finding a pattern and style and rhythm to play is likely. Even in the second game with one group, that rhythm of play quickly dropped in and made it a fast trick taking experience.

Final Thoughts on Pumafiosi

I like this game. The fact it is simpler is not a bad thing. It is also unique in being the middle card, and I like the push your luck of the point track. I see trick taking games that try and add in ten extra things and take a 20 minute game to an hour and a half game. Pumafiosi doesn’t do that and that is great. It knows it’s range, and it knows it wants to add one thing. So it does that well.

The negative, of course, as I mentioned, is the luck in the game. I might end up with a hand that just pairs with someone else’s hand. And depending on your strategy as the other player or players, it might make for a very bad round. At a five player game, it is going to be more random and ore of a chance of that. At three it is still possible, but less likely. So I think both player counts, which I say to play the game at, really do offer something a bit different and balance the strategy to luck depending on player count.

My Grade: B+
Gamer Grade: C+
Casual Grade: B

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The New Games

Thunderstone Quest

This is one of the games that was on a great sale. And when I say great sale, I mean about as amazing a sale as I’ve seen. I got a massive box, 16lb game, at basically a dollar per pound before shipping. Plus a few expansions for it. It’s a deck building game that I’ve been wanting to play for a long time. With that sale price point, it was easy for me to pick up. And if it’s not for me, I’ll move on from it, but I suspect that I’m going to like it, a lot.

Pumafiosi

This one came up, as two one more on the list, from The Dice Tower. Pumafiosi sounds like a great three player game, though it can be played two two or up to five. But at three I think it sounds the most enjoyable. In fact, it was on The Dice Tower three player game Top 10 that they did a week or so ago.

But this is a game where you want to play down the card that is in the middle. Then if you do, you get to score that card. So, that is the main reason why it sounds best at three players. You have three cards, but you want to mess with it, so that the right card gets played. Because you score points after each card play. And depending on where you play your card, if you win with the middle card, you can mess around with the points and give people negative points.

Jump Drive

Now, The Dice Tower isn’t the only YouTube channel that got me to pick up a game. Meet Me at the Table and Colin with two of his playthroughs got me to pick up games from the Race for the Galaxy line of games. Jump Drive is one of those games.

In Jump Drive you are building up an engine of cards. They mainly give you two things, more card draw, or more victory point, or ideally both. You play out cards by discarding other cards from your hand to get them into play. And the player with the most points at the end of a number of rounds wins.

I got this one for the solo play. The solo play is the same game, there isn’t interaction with multiplayer. But solo play also made the game look like about a 15-20 minute solo game with a bigger experience than some, though not too big that it’d be a massive table hog.

New Frontiers

The other one that Colin from Meet me at the Table showed off was New Frontiers. I’ve already played this one a few times. I won’t go into massive detail, but you can find out more on that game here.

Pre-Orders

Paper App Dungeons

The first of two pre-order games is Paper App Dungeons. This is a solo roll and write dungeon crawler campaign of a game. I expect a loose campaign, but it sounds like you can level up your character as you go. My one concern might be that the game is too simple, as it does sound really simple. But for a little roll and write game, I’m going to give it a whirl and see if it’s one for me.

Mind Up!

The other game in that pre-order is Mind Up!. This is one from the Dice Tower as well in terms of why I ordered it. Mind Up! is a filler type of card game, which I tend to enjoy. But one that has some interesting strategy going on. You are playing out cards to win other cards. And the cards that you win get added into scoring columns. The same color always goes in the same column, so you are trying to optimize getting cards in your scoring column that gives you the most points.

But, to go with that, everyone is playing out cards. So where your card falls in numerical order determines what card you get. So there is luck, and you might pivot because of that. It doesn’t stop there, though, because the cards that you just played out, those are the new cards that you try and get. And at the end of the round, you collect the cards you score with, and that makes you hand for the next round. It is going to be random, but it sounds like a ton of fun.

Crowdfunding Games

Aeon’s End: The Descent

Now we’re into crowdfunding games. And I’m going to be fairly brief on these. Mainly because you only know so much about them if they are crowdfunding. I know the most about Aeon’s End: The Descent because I love Aeon’s End. I am excited to get more of this cooperative deck building game. The basics are you are building a deck to be able to defeat a monster. But you never shuffle your deck so you can kind of try and stack it.

25th Century Games – Import Collection

This is the big crowdfunding game that I’ve done. I’m not going to go into all of the games because there are a lot. But 25th Century Games is doing something cool. All of the games exist that they are crowdfunding, but they haven’t had US releases or don’t have an active one. So they are bringing them all to the US. Let’s see what the big list looks like.

• Circus Flohcati
• Dracula vs Van Helsin
• Hamster Roll
• Jalape-NO!
• Jekyll and Hyde vs Scotland Yard
• Mojo
• Penguin Party
• Run Run Run
• Tasso Banaa
• Vampire Queen
• Witchcraft

When this comes in I’m going to have a lot of games to play.

Snowfall Over Mountains

Snowfall Over Mountains and the next one are from Pencil First Games. I tend to like their smaller box games. Snowfall Over Mountains is a path and route building game. It looks like a fun and I think I’d say peaceful little game. And that’s what I’m looking for from the Pencil First Games that I own. Floriferous is one of my favorite games.

Sunrise at the Studio

Sunrise at the Studio falls into the same camp. However, this one is going to have more set collection and some different mechanisms as compared to Snowfall Over Mountains. But I like the aesthetic of the game. And to me, it looks like another fun and smaller box game from Pencil First Games.

Final Thoughts

It hasn’t been that many games. And I’m trying to slow down even more. But I’m excited for most all of them. I know from the 25th Century Games bundle, not all of them are going to be for me. But I know that I’m going to find some that I love. And just finding and being able to get Hamster Roll, which I have played, that one is going to be worth it.

Of the ones that are already here, I’m ready to get Pumafiosi played. I think that is going to be a fun one. I’m not sure how often I have three players to play it, but I’m hoping that I’ll find enough opportunity to check it out. And I’ll try the two player version as well. But I expect that I’m going to like it best at 3 or at five. We’ll see how quickly I can get a review of that one up.

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