Blog Archives
Trick-Taker or Treat
All I play anymore is trick-taking games.
But when they’re this good, that isn’t exactly a burden. The latest four sets from New Mill Industries are here in time for spooky season, and I can safely say this is the first time there isn’t a tarantula in the bunch. Let’s blitz through the whole hand.
Trick-Taking Tranche
All I play anymore is trick-taking games. Or at least that’s the case when I receive another tranche of the things from New Mill Industries. There are four this time around — five, actually, although I wasn’t sent the last one for some reason — and I’ve gotta say, there’s not a stinker in the bunch. Let’s figure out which is the best of the pack.
Into the Woodland(ers)
All I play anymore is trick-takers.
Okay, that isn’t wholly true anymore. It seems the trick-taking bubble has, if not burst, levitated a few meters off the ground. Still, another title from New Mill Industries, this one designed by proprietor Daniel Newman himself, is always a treat. This one’s veneer is about woodland creatures trying to shirk their turn as the warden of the forest. Not that you’ll think about the fluff for even two seconds while playing Woodlanders. Instead, the real draw is the excellent poison-pill gameplay, a truly deadly capsule that once again highlights how much ground this eldest of genres has yet to cover.
Climbing Three Ladders
Is ladder-climbing and deck-shedding the next phase of our hobby’s obsession with trick-taking? It may well be. I’ve covered plenty of trick-takers from New Mill Industries over the past year or so. Now the small-box publisher has released a trio of shedder-climbers. Let’s take a look at each in turn, shall we?
Idle Tricks Are the Devil’s Game Table
Fukutarou’s Idle Hands is an unassuming little thing. Its simplicity lends it a false sense of security. This is no mere trick-taker, you see, but a nasty bit of business that nearly always results in basement-level scores and more than a little anguish. Just my sort of thing.
Nightmare Jass
Lurching across the table like some horror-flick slasher, Kazuma Suzuki’s Somnia wears the skin of an older trick-taker. In this case, that victim is Mittlere Jass, a peculiar three-player Swiss trick-taker that’s all about trying to avoid the middle score. Like the other titles in this season’s New Mill Industries releases, especially last week’s Man-Eating House, this is a fiddly trickster that’s somehow all the more compelling for its jagged edges.
Man-Eating Review
Man-Eating House is a bit of a cryptid. Designed in 2016 by Kunihiko Tsuchiya, it did that thing where it appeared at Tokyo Game Market, generated some buzz, and then fled into hiding. Fortunately, it’s now getting a new edition courtesy of New Mill Industries. The remaining question is whether it’s a cool cryptid or one of those lanky goofball monsters that hides out of shame.
Must Follow
All I play anymore is trick-taking games.
Which can be a good thing when the trick-takers in question are this interesting. We’ve looked at some of the titles from New Mill Industries in the past. Their modus operandi is to produce good trick-takers that might otherwise go unexamined. Today’s examples are Japanese imports, both of them slightly older, which tinker with the “must follow” rule common to the genre.
Gnobody Gknows
All I play anymore is trick-taking games. Except I’m not so sure Gnaughty Gnomes really qualifies as one. Like Matthias Cramer’s Pies, the card-play is closer to an auction than anything resembling a trick.
But never mind that. I’m having such a good time getting these gnomes high as a kite that I couldn’t care less about where it hangs within some ill-defined genre’s orbit.
Charmed!
Taiki Shinzawa has designed no fewer than three of my favorite trick-takers: American Bookshop, 9 Lives, and Ghosts of Christmas. Now two more of his designs are getting wider distribution thanks to New Mill Industries. There’s Inflation!, formerly known as Zimbabwe Trick, and Charms, née Dois. Both titles very much want to punish you for making grave counting errors.
SPACE-BIFF! 