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.

Send an Email
Message me on X at @TheScando
Visit us on Facebook here
Support us on Patreon here

10 Played Games for My Gaming Day

10. Pirates of Marcaibo

I love this one on BGA. I want to play it in person and see how that goes. It’s a bit more of a rules teach, but it shouldn’t be too bad to get played. And I think once the game gets going it moves fast. Plus fun theme and easy sell.

9. Lost Ruins of Arnak

Lost Ruins of Arnak is a game I love. I own everything for it. So I want to get it in the big box and try out the new tracks in the game and see how everything works together.

8. Mistborn

Another one where I really like the game and it’s been a while since I’ve played it. That is going to be the case for a lot of the games. I think the people who are invited thus far are going to enjoy a game like this as well.

7. The Great Split

See above, really. But after playing New York Slice for the first time it made me realize that I just want to play The Great Split because that game is a brilliant I split and you choose game.

6. Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition

Yet another one where I just want to play it again. Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition is a great engine building game and good for a longer game day. Like Lost Ruins of Arnak, though, I need to get it sorted out.

5. Strike

I play this one a lot. It’s on the list because it’d be a great group game there. Plus it’s a good filler/take a break from bigger games game.

4. Can’t Stop

The same can be said for Can’t Stop. Though Can’t Stop can’t support as many people. But it works well and it’s an easy one to teach and play. A good filler for when maybe one group finished before another.

3. Trekking Through Time

I’ve played this one two players and I really enjoy it two players. I want to try it with more because it’s just a fun game. It’s also a simple one to learn and play.

2. Skyrockets

You might not even know I played this game. And it is kind of a cheat to be on this part of the list. Played it two years ago at Gen Con when it was still a prototype at the Floodgate Games event. But it’s a fun real time game, so I want to play it again.

1. Heat: Pedal to the Metal

I love this game. It isn’t the easiest I think to learn. But once you wrap your head around it, it’s pretty simple to play. And it is a good game because it plays a lot.

10 Un-Played Games for My Gaming Day

10. The Gang

Now we’re in the new games. This is a cooperative poker game, so I want to give it a whirl. Plus I know it plays at higher player counts so a good one for the list.

9. Critter Kitchen

Critter Kitchen has just been sitting there waiting to get played. I want to take it a lot and see if I can get it played, but I need to open and sort it for that to happen. And it is one I probably need to learn to take along.

8. Maple Valley

Maple Valley is the follow-up to Creature Comforts. I like Creature Comforts as a good simple worker placement game. I am curious to see what Maple Valley does. They are very different games, but same great artwork and in the “same world”.

7. Ruins

Ruins is one that people were talking about going into Gen Con. It is a reworking of Custom Heroes. It is a card shedding game where you upgrade cards throughout the rounds. So I am curious to know how that system is going to work.

6. Ito

Ito is going to be one of the bigger games or party games on the list. I want to learn this one and it seem easy to play. From what I know of it, it is a good ice breaker game as well. Or maybe more of an ice breaker than an actual game.

5. Emberleaf

Emberleaf is the card dancing game. Basically a game where you play cards into a grid and then you activate the grid. The cards then move in that grid, some dropping out, others activating various affects. I like the sound of the game and great cute artwork.

4. Ghosts of Christmas

First of three trick taking games. Ghosts of Christmas sounds like a brain burner of a trick taking game where you play three tricks at once. And depending on how the previous trick goes that determines the led suit for the next one. With a Christmas Carol theme, how will it work for the past, present, and future tricks.

3. The Six of VIII

The Six of VIII is going to be a fun one to try as well. It’s about the six wives of Henry the VIII. And each trick the trump suit is going to be one of the wives. But it is more than that because how long a wife was alive is going to impact how many rounds that suit is trump. I like how thematic they managed to make a trick taking game.

2. Tricky Kids

Now, Tricky Kids is a new game as well. I would have put both Tricky Kids and Cat in the Box on the list, but I’m playing Cat in the Box on BGA right now. It is very possible that Cat in the Box will come along as well. But Tricky Kids is trick taking game where the cards don’t have a value on them. So you need to set the value, but you only have 21 points to allocate over 7 cards.

1. Expeditions

Finally, let’s go with something different and big with Expeditions from Stonemaier games. I like the idea of trying this one in a bigger group, or maybe not with everyone but with some. And I believe that one person in the group owns it and has played it before. It is nice to bring along games like that so that I don’t need to learn the rules. Or more so, so that no one needs to learn the rules because I’m not going to learn them all.

Final Thoughts

Now that is a lot of games to bring along. And I know that all of them won’t make it, but I plan on bringing a big mess of games. There are other smaller games too that are going to be stuck in because they are smaller games. So stuff like Flip 7 or Push are really likely to come along. New games like First-Class Letters and Trinket Trove (as I want to play that one with more) will come along. But this is a good list for me to start planning on what to bring. But it sounds like a good gaming day to me.

If you were to do a full gaming day, what games are you going to take off of the shelf?

Send an Email
Message me on X at @TheScando
Visit us on Facebook here
Support us on Patreon here

It’s worth noting before I start that some of these games were “Gen Con releases”. They were available prior to Gen Con at other sources but Gen Con was the first convention that they were widely at in the United States.

My Gen Con Haul

Tricky Kids

The first three are going to be the ones that a friend picked up from Gen Con for me. Tricky Kids is a trick taking game. The twist on this trick taking game is that the cards do not have numbers on them. Instead when you get your hand of seven cards you write down the numbers, which need to total up to 21 points.

There is more than that as well. As you play out the tricks, the points you get are from the chips that you take. And you know what order those chips are going to come out in. So while everything might give you some points, you may want to avoid winning a trick in hopes of taking a trick later in the hand. This just sounds brain burning and fun.

Slam Throne

Slam Throne is pogs. Yup, it’s as simple as that, but it’s pogs with the Dice Throne theme. I believe it was four characters who were released, granted you don’t know who you get. This one just looks like silly fun and that is what drew me into it. Plus I love Dice Throne so I want to support the company when they make a product that I think looks fun. Is it going to be great, I doubt it, but sometimes fun is just what you want.

First-Class Letters

I like roll and write games. But First-Class Letters is not like the typical roll and write game. This is a word game with roll and write elements to it. It’s about creating words and putting them in order. But each time you roll letters you get more points for using all three of the letters. But there is always a letter that you cannot use, and as you can guess that’s generally a vowel.

To add to that you need to put your words in alphabetical order. That might not be too hard, but as you get down to it, you become more and more limited as gaps between letters start to shrink. And at the beginning of the game you seed three spots with starting letters, so that can add to the challenge as well. I think this sounds like a ton of fun, though I can see why some people may not like it because it is a word game.

Trinket Trove

From the same company as First-Class Letters, though I didn’t get this one picked up for me at Gen Con, is Trinket Trove. Trinket Trove is a set collection game. But to collect cards you need to bid to draft them. The twist on this is that as you bid to draft cards, the more cards you bid, the sooner you go. But also, the cards that you bid are now a pile of cards that someone else can take. The set collection aspect looks simple, so it is the bidding that really excites me for this game.

No Loose Ends

Also from the same company, which is GameHead, we have No Loose Ends. No Loose Ends is a trick taking game where you want to win certain types of tricks. How do you determine that, well, you use cards from your hand to indicate what type of trick you are going to take. I like this balancing act as it’s a twist on the normal bidding. I need to decide if I can win a blue trick or two but I need to play out two blue cards are bids, for example. That sounds like a fun trick taking twist to me.

Vantage

Vantage from Stonemaier Games is one of the ones that was released before Gen Con. And I pre-ordered it before Gen Con. But this is an open world adventure game. You get a mission to complete as a group at the start of the game. And then you get dropped into a world.

This is a game where you can win, but it’s more about the experience. What is the world like, what adventures will you go on? I also hear that it is better in that one to maybe three player range. And that is because while it is engaging to be part of the story at the table, it is downtime between turns. So I like it for a one off sandbox game when I want to play an open world game.

Otter

Otter is one that wasn’t on my radar going into Gen Con. It is only because of hearing about it that I pre-ordered this one, or late pledged it, on crowdfunding. Otter is a card shedding game. By that I mean you want to empty your hand completely. But if you don’t, you draw back up and try again.

Each otter has a head and tail that are give you a rule. So it might be something like the next card you play is two or less different from the previous card and it is of the fish suit. If you match both things you can keep on playing on that one until you only match one of the two. And there are three otters in play, so you want to try and match all of them.

I like the sound of this one because it sounds simple to learn but tricky to play.

Tag Team

This one the Man vs Meeple channel was the one that brought it to my attention. The game is interesting because it is what is known as an autobattler. That means that you have your two heroes and your opponent has two and the cards just battle themselves. That is not something that sounds like a great game there.

The trick is what as you start you have two cards. You battle both of them out. Then you draw three more cards and you add one of them to your deck. You don’t rearrange the cards in your deck, but you add that one and you decide, do I add it at the top, middle or bottom. Effectively when will cards activate. As you start to know your opponents card you ask yourself, when are they going to activate their big attack, and can I block that time. But they know that, so do they adjust where it is in the deck when they add a new card above it, or keep it in the same spot?

Ace of Spades

Finally is Ace of Spades. I won’t say too much on this one because I already wrote a review for it. You can read the review for Ace of Spades here. Devir has another hit game and one that sold out really fast each day at Gen Con. This is a solo or two player game where you battle a boss by playing out poker hands. It is easy to learn and play but offers some fun challenges as you go along.

The one thing that I think keeps this from being more so for everyone is that it is somewhat lucky. Yes you can manipulate your hand with discards and draws, but sometimes you might not be able to beat the boss just because you drew poorly. I still love the game and think that it’s a very good game with fun mechanisms and a great theme.

Final Thoughts

Clearly without going to Gen Con you can still find Gen Con games. And I love that Devir put Ace of Spades on a free shipping sale during Gen Con. So if you were at the show you could stand in line to buy it or you could just order it. And since I wasn’t, I still could get it at Gen Con prices like I had picked it up there. I hope more companies, when they can, follow suit with that. Makes me feel better when I can’t go.

Out of these games that I haven’t played, I think I am most excited for Tag Team. I love the sound of that game and the characters all look cool. But I want to play all of them. And so many of them offer interesting twists on what you do in the game. What is the Gen Con release that you are most excited about playing or did you pick-up?

Send an Email
Message me on X at @TheScando
Visit us on Facebook here
Support us on Patreon here

Top 10 Games to Buy at Gen Con

Honorable Mention: Pirates of Maracaibo: Commanders

Is this 11 games, no it is not. Why, because Pirates of Maracaibo: Commanders is an expansion. So it doesn’t count as a game. No, more so you know if you are interested in this based off of if you like Pirates of Maracaibo or not. There are some new things like commanders that give you an asymmetric starting point. Plus there is rum as a new resource because it should have always been there. There are mix and match explore tracks. And there are now cannons and things you can fight with cannons. It adds a little bit, but not too much in my opinion.

10. Buffet Boss

So the list officially starts with Buffet Boss. This is a stacking game. I believe you draft things from a buffet and then you stack them on edge on your plate and you see how high you can stack them. The higher you get, the more satisfied you are with the buffet. Of course, if you get too much that isn’t good because they won’t balance or they will topple over. This sounds like a silly fun game.

9. Cat Tower

The next game on the list is another dexterity game and the last dexterity game. Cat Tower is a game where you work cooperatively to get a cat as high in the tower as you can. But the edges of things that you use to balance aren’t always even, some might even say that the tower is a bit cattywampus. The story of the game is sweet though and the game play looks fun.

So, if you want to know the story, and this is just the theme of the game not how it is plays, the cats mom has died. And the cat wants to build a tower up to heaven to find their mom. It’s a sad but sweet theme.

8. Trinket Trove

Trinket Trove is a set collection bidding game. This one has cute artwork, but let’s talk about how the game works Because that is what draws me into this one. In Trinket Trove a number of cards are flipped over that you bid on. And you bid with the cards in your hand to get them. So you are giving up something that you might need. The more cards you bid, the sooner you pick. But, and here is the twist, when you bid, the cards you bid are now a new pile of cards for people to take. So it is a great puzzly sounding time with a simple game but fun strategy.

7. Koi

Koi is on my Gen Con list just because it is pretty. If you can’t guess, Koi is about Koi and building a Koi pond. And this game looks great. I assume that each element of the Koi pond score in different ways. But there are elements like arches that you add to your pond, fish that you add and more. And it is a 3D presence to the game which I’m not sure is in every version of the game but I hope so. This is one just from an aesthetic point of view that I want to track down.

6. 12 Rivers

I feel bad about 12 Rivers being outside of my Top 5 on this Gen Con list because I think it looks really intriguing. Some of that, though, is that I mainly know the board. The board is this 12 marble track where there are spots for players to put their blockers. And then you release all the marbles. As the marbles travel down the rivers they hit a blocker. If you block early you might get a specific marble, you could get blocked too if you aren’t high enough. Or further down more will make it to you, but it might not be the ones you want.

That physical element of the game is what gets me. I love Potion Explosion for that. And this one gives me that same toy feel for the game. I hope that the rest of the game is good to go with it and that the game isn’t just all that.

5. First-Class Letters

First-Class Letters is a roll and write word game, and I like roll and write games. In this game you roll four dice. All the players need to find words that use three of those four dice and that don’t use the other one. The more of the letters you use, the more points you get. And you need to put them in alphabetical order. So that is going to be pretty easy the first few times, but, there is more. You also seed the first letter of three of the spots, in alphabetical order, so that is going to limit you more. I think this sounds simple but like a ton of fun.

4. Tricky Kids

Tricky Kids is a trick taking game that looks like it’s for kids. But I’m not 100% sure that it is. In this game you play three hands of seven cards each. And each time you need to assign the values to your cards. Yes, this game there are suits on the cards but no numbers. So you divvy up 21 points between them as you start playing. And yes, you want to win tricks, but when you win tricks you get tokens. And you know what the tokens are and when they are showing up. It sounds like a simple but very fun big twist in trick taking.

3. Slam Throne

Slam Throne could be my #1 on this list. But I think you’ll see why the other two beat it out. This is Dice Throne but pogs. Dice Throne teased and joked about this for years on April Fool’s Day. But it is finally a reality now. You play pogs with powers and abilities and try and take out your opponents stack before they take out yours. This sounds dumb and goofy and 100% a good time. I wish I was going to be at Gen Con because I expect this one to sell out. I asked for a friend to grab it for me, I hope they don’t stand in line early, I can always get it later.

2. Tag Team

Tag Team is a weird game because it gives me Dice Throne vibes, but it’s also auto-battler. So let’s talk about how this works. An auto-battler is a game that when it comes to fighting the fight just happens.

You start with two characters and one card for each character. You both flip over the cards and check what they do. Then after you play out those two cards, you draw three more and pick one to add to your cards. You add it without changing the order of the others. But you add it to the top, bottom, or middle and then you go again. So you start to figure out where to put a block for a big attack. But maybe your opponent thought you would so they changed that with how they added their card.

I love how it works and I love the head games for it. But it isn’t just all head games. As you pick between those three cards, you create strategies and synergies as you play. And the game comes with a ton of characters. I can not way to get this in my hands, I have it pre-ordered.

1. Ace of Spades

The final one on the list is Ace of Spades. This one is getting great reviews 8’s and 8.5 from the Dice Tower and they all really liked it. It is a solo or two player boss battling game. Now, I like a good boss battler, but this one is different with a weird west theme, but let’s talk about how it works.

You face off against monsters and bad guys and you want to take them down. How do you take them down? Not by rolling dice but by playing out poker hands. And each type of hand is going to do some damage. Better hands will do more damage. As you progress the enemies you face start to have powers and abilities that they use against you. But when you beat them, you get one time or ongoing powers as well.

The theme of this game is a ton like Balatro. But it is going to be simpler than that because Balatro changes cards and I’m glad it’s not a Balatro legacy game, though that could be cool. This is one that I’d wait in line for at Gen Con. But it is available to pre-order from Devir, so I just did that today.

Final Thoughts

Oh how I wish I was going to Gen Con. If you are, let me know about some of these games. And let me know which of these games are the most interesting to you. I also remind myself that all of these games will be available at retail at some point in time. So even if I don’t get them, like I said, I expect Slam Throne to sell fast, I will get it eventually. And I am really excited to try all of these games and give you reviews in the future.

What game tops your list that you are anticipating?

Send an Email
Message me on X at @TheScando
Visit us on Facebook here
Support us on Patreon here