Tabletop_Gaming__April_2019

teidpnetsef

Bid on your hand in this inventive trick-taking card

The Game of Life

Pirate Tricks

Words and photographs by Charlie Theel

different – something that appears simple at

first blush but is actually quite radical when

you dig a little.

e game’s crucial twist is that it lets you

bid on your hand. Instead of a completely

randomised group of cards, players participate

in blind bids for open hands splayed on

the table. Half of your hand will still be

randomised, but this mechanism oers a

substantial element of mitigation when it

comes to luck of the draw.

Most interesting is that you’re bidding with

victory points. is requires a shrewd beak

as you must be careful not to overspend on

your hand and come out sore. Furthermore,

the entire experience gains some weight

upon repeated plays as a metagame develops.

Players may begin to collude to pass up

bidding and have the hands seeding with

bonus money as they lean into the more

subtle nuances of the system. is touch of

oomph is slick and a joy to manipulate.

If that wild concept of bidding on hands

in a trick-taking game is not enough

for you, how about this: randomised

objectives. Each of the game’s three rounds

feature a set of goal cards ipped from their

respective decks. ese are multifaceted

as they dictate points awarded for simply

constructing your hand a certain way, as

well as dening the points awarded for

taking tricks.

Let’s break this down a bit. e former

provides a set of micro-objectives that

inuences your bidding. It may provide

points for possessing cards that form a

run (4-5-6) or maybe if you have three

of a kind across the three suits. is

is wonderful because it’s an alternate

scoring vector to simply winning tricks. It

adds a serious degree of emphasis on the

bidding portion of the game and redenes

pre-conceived notions on what it means

to be a trick-taker.

e second set of goals dictates how

tricks award points. Occasionally they’ll

reverse things, providing precious VP for

those who win the fewest. Sometimes you

will receive bonus points for each card

taken of a particular colour, or

perhaps you will be penalised.

All of this shifting

directives provide

a great deal of

texture, feeding

back into the bid

and forcing you to

evaluate which paths

you will pursue.

Amusingly enough, the

actual trick-taking in Pirate

Tricks feels secondary. e

auction and objective systems

interlock in such a compelling

and satisfying way that you can’t

help but grin once this 30-minute

experience soars by.

P

irate Tricks is an odd duck as a

selection for e Independent

Shelf. It is indeed an indie

by reasonable standards of

judgement, but co-designer Craig Van

Ness is not small-time in the slightest.

is man is a titan of the industry,

working at Hasbro for many years and

helming projects like Heroscape and Star

Wars: e Queen’s Gambit. at’s in the

rear-view as now he’s teamed up with

his brother Je and they’ve formed label

Soaring Rhino.

This delightful little trick-taker is

their second release. Their debut was

Shifting Realms, an interesting Euro-style

design where the board was a collision

of randomised areas with fantastical

themes. Pirate Tricks is something

tabletopgaming.co.uk 35