The results of the Tricky Biscuits Trick Taking game rankings for 2024 are in. I realize I just talked about 2023 the other week but the group has been busy and we managed to play another 19 new games this year and put them through their paces!
The Ultimate top spot is actually a tie between Schadenfreude which I talked about before and Inflation! The latter of which, in addition to being the only one on the list with an exclamation point, underscores a more interesting trend that I would like to dive into more here. One publisher New Mill Industries occupies 5 of the top 10 rankings and 4 of the top 4 (ties make this weird…). In other words, one publisher’s games consistently wowed the group. A tiny independent publisher out of Brooklyn (essentially a one man operation) this company knows how to pick and publish great games. Part of this is in bringing over already proven designs from Japan that had small print runs, but New Mill has also published brand new games by local designers. The other key is really in just executing each game with great graphic design and clean rules for a reasonable price. I’d like to highlight several of these designs today. Also in honor of the spooky month of October New Mill is also taking preorders for some scary trick taking games due later this year.
Inflation! Is actually a reprint of Zimbabwe Trick by Taiki Shinzawa, a truly prolific trick taking game designer who has more than 20 games under his belt. With Shinzawa there is usually one major twist on the standard trick taking formula that is explored to the limit. Because of this his games alwayst sound strange from the get go. In Inflation! The twist is that you do not clear the played cards after each trick, but instead they stay there in front of who played them and become part of an ever increasing number. True to its theme, the numbers just keep going up. Also there are no suits, just numbers, however, the numbers themselves act as suits, so if someone leads with a 9 you must follow with a 9 of your own. The highest cumulative number wins. In addition to this strangeness the deck is what is called a triangular deck. This means there are the same number of cards as each number. So there is 1 one card, 2 two cards and so on all the way up to 10 ten cards. A round of people playing 2, 5, 7, 8 and 9 can have cards added to make the next round 92, 55, 78, 96. What’s odd about this is that even though the numbers keep going up, it’s really your left most digit that is doing the heavy lifting for each round. Except for 10s. 10 is exactly as powerful as it sounds, but comes with a downside as your next card then covers the 1, leaving only the 0 digit as part of your ever increasing number. In other words, while you have a pretty good chance of winning with a ten, you likely won’t win the next trick.
Ok, so far, so strange, but how do you score in this game? That is actually my favorite part. In a cute bit of minimalism the game comes with a set of medium black buttons, and small white buttons. At the beginning of the round players look at their hand and bid how many tricks they are going to take by taking the equivalent number of black buttons. As the tricks play out players take a white button every time they win a trick and fit it inside their black buttons taken at the beginning. Tricks are worth one point each, but if you manage to hit your bid exactly each trick is worth 2 points. So there is a virtue to precision. Ducking tricks when you’ve already hit your bid, but making sure to win enough to make your bid. A lot of Shinzawa’s game’s have bidding in them, and while I am not great at it, each time I play one of his designs I improve and enjoy more of this type of scoring. Another Shinzawa game, Charms, was also in our top ten, and uses this same “don’t clear your cards” mechanism, but instead of increasing numbers players can either play a new number or a new suit as they are on separate cards. It’s neat to see the designer iterate on this same twist and take it in a different direction.
New Mill often bundles games with a similar mechanism or theme together. The number two and three spots on our list emphasize this. They are Icarus Club by Hugame and Seven Prophecies by Hinata Origuchi. Each of these games uses a lane of cards that determine the lead suit, instead of the usual method of players choosing a lead suit based on their hand, It is a simple twist which again produces a lot of depth and nuance. In both games it feels more like you are riding out your hand as best as possible given the suits determined by the lane. You get a lot of information about the future and can plan more, but are also restricted from changing this lane much, if at all. Icarus Club is themed after a casino with each of the suits representing a different game (Craps, Roulette, Blackjack, Poker or Slots). While the trick lane dictates what cards can be played, when you win a trick you are allowed to take one of your won cards and change another suit further down the lane, increasing the number of cards and points that trick is worth. So winning let’s players wrest back some agency from the game. However, players have to be careful to not take too many tricks or they’ll get kicked out of the Casino. This detail is similar to Schadenfreude in that you often want to be second, just barely vs being first. It’s a bit more indirect than Schadenfreude, but you can stack up a lot of points in a particular trick as a sort of trap for them to score too high.
Seven Prophecies uses this same trick lane, but you can’t modify it in any way. Instead, like the game’s namesake, you must predict how many times you will place for each trick. In other words how many times you’ll be first, second, third or fourth place. If I thought bidding was hard, this seems impossible. However the actual trick taking is simple enough that you have a chance if you look at your cards and what suits will win each round. There is no trump suit to upend things and there are only 10 tricks total. Again, less control but a sort of “ride the circumstances game” with some flexibility in your predictions (if you accidentally place 3rd in one trick maybe you can throw off and place 4th in the next). It’s a wonderful conceit and is executed perfectly. One area where we’re still sorting a bit is how to score this game. While the scoring in the rulebook is functional it’s pretty rigid and doesn’t fully lean into the strengths of the game, so we may try a variant in the future.
The final game of the New Mill Quintet is perhaps the most unique of all of them. In Six of VIII players are playing a trick taking game based on the Six wives of Henry the VIII. Yes, really! In a similar fashion to Seven Prophecies and Icarus Club there is a trick lane, however here it determines the trump suit, not what suit must be led. The suits themselves represent each of the wives and the order of the lane is not random but corresponds to the reign of each queen. Both the number of trump rounds and the number of cards in the deck itse;f is determined by the length of the reign, with the more unfortunate and short lived queens in the middle only having a trick or two at trump and with only the top range of the cards. From here players play a partnership trick taking game where each team of two players tries to take as many tricks as possible with some cards worth extra points on top of this. With all the nuance in the setup, it’s a relief that the scoring is pretty straight forward. However, there are a few more variant twists with two cards that are high in one suit and low in the other (spies), a King card that beats all, and of course, what would this game be without a Church of England card that can nullify a won trick. It’s perfectly thematic and absolutely zany.
All five games were definitely a hit. But it’s worth noting that the graphic design on these games is also great. Cards are clear, simple and easy to read. None of them will win the most beautiful trick taking game of the year, but in these games, usability and clarity is king. And in a nod to October, New Mill Industries is taking preorders on four spooky trick taking games. I don’t know a lot about these, but here are the elevator pitches for each. In Idle Hands by Fukutarou players play a mission card that determines the suit, and wins cards if they play the highest of that suit, but since this is a trick avoidance game like hearts that’s not a good thing. In Man Eating House players play a single trick horror movie with a flow chart like resolution as to how the cards interact. There are all the Japanese horror tropes, and the makeup of cards played will determine whether the kids escape or are devoured by the demons. In Somnia by Kazuma Suzuki, players walk through a dreamscape where the trump suit and rank and points of the cards change dynamically in the middle of the hand. And in Reapers by the publisher himself, Daniel Newman, players draft their hands and then make a wager as to how they will do. All four games look truly strange both in art and gameplay and with the track record of the publisher I am excited to try them out. The best news is all of these games are readily available, no jumping through hoops or importing required. Happy Trick taking and happy trick or treat season.