All I play anymore is trick-takers.

I don’t play as many trick-takers as I used to.

For the most part, that’s fine by me. Sometimes, too much of a good thing makes for a real tummy ache, and while it’s a rare week that doesn’t see me tackling at least one of the hobby’s elder statesmen, nothing makes a board game quite like a board. I will admit, though, there’s always the siren call of the latest pure tricker. “Come back to the table,” it sings, except in, I dunno, Greek. Calling me. Haunting me.

Dead Channels, for example. This is the latest title by Daniel Newman, whose designs we’ve tussled with once or twice.

Test signals.

In the fashion of elder trick-takers — modern ones still do this, but older ones too — this is one of those trickers where the designer mines untapped veins from the minutest of changes. The idea is that every card shows two states. One of those states is colorful, like the tuning image you’d get on an old television. The other is fuzzed gray with static. As you play, these states flip back and forth, informing everything about how the hand is played.

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen a trick-taker alternate hand functions. But what sets apart Dead Channels is the way your cards flip from one state to the other. When the channel is tuning, this is an ordinary must-follow trick-taker. If I play red, you have to play red if at all possible. The highest card in the led suit wins. Normal stuff.

But when someone plays off-suit, the game changes. Now everybody splays their cards the other direction and begins playing a must-not-follow game. If I play red, you better not touch the stuff. Only the high card among those that are eligible — as in, non-following — are permitted to win.

Of course, this might also become impossible before too long, forcing us to flip the channel back to tuning, then back to static, and so on until the hand concludes. Flip. Flip. Flip.

Like some of Newman’s games, Dead Channels feels haunted.

That’s simple enough, but what makes Dead Channels fascinating is that you’re always wrestling against your hand. It would have been easy to overclutter this one, but instead Newman sticks to a simple rubric. You want two tricks. That’s it. Two per player. Naturally, more tricks than that will be awarded, making this a razor-edged proposition. But that’s the idea. If you earn two tricks, you net zero points. For every trick you’re off, whether up or down, you earn a point. Points are bad.

What’s noteworthy about Dead Channels is the way this produces such a well-rounded experience with very little in the way of overhead. I’ll be the first to tell you that trick-takers are a fraught proposition. Between the card counting, goofball terminology (sloughing? really?), and the damoclean threat of contract bidding, this has always been a dense genre, one that’s simple enough on the surface but sharp with gravel once you go more than two inches deep. Dead Channels relies on a little bit of foreknowledge. Like plenty of other trickers, you can explain the rules to veterans with a flurry of jargon. But for the most part it’s as accessible as these things get, devoid of the extra bells and whistles that have been normalized in past years.

Is it the next great thing? The next Schadenfreude? I doubt it has such pretensions. But it’s nice to come back now and then, to see how clever designers are still adjusting the format in small ways that only seem obvious in retrospect. By embracing both must-follow and must-not-follow, Dead Channels effectively becomes two trick-takers in one — although, of course, the challenge lies in how you navigate that liminal space between them, flipping between one mode and the other.

Static still corresponds to suits. Don’t you see the fuzz lines?

I don’t play nothing but trick-takers these days. But like I say, it’s nice to circle back for a visit. In that sense, Dead Channels feels like coming home for a reunion only to make a new pal instead. Could have gone worse.

A complimentary copy of Dead Channels was provided by the designer/publisher.

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