Matches

• Designer: Daniel McKinley
• Publisher: Thing 12 Games
• Players: 2-6
• Age: 8+
• Time: 30-45 minutes
• Played with review copy provided by publisher

The Whelming Matches factory has burned down, with only this artifact found in the destruction. Cold to touch, it sat amongst the ashen remains of the factory. Why? How? These questions have yet to be unanswered.

Matches is a trick-taking style card game, with a unique spin on scoring and playing. The lead player plays a number card to start the blaze. Each player in turn order must play a card matching that number (which increases the blaze’s heat and point value), or a set of cards that equal the value of the card.

A player can choose to pass, upon which they collect points for each of pairs they have played. The last player to pass wins the trick and collects the points on the blaze card…but will NOT score their pairs they have played.

Deciding if you’ll get more points from the pairs you’ve played, or if you need to try and stay in to get the points on the blaze card, is the heart of Matches.

The game also includes optional powerful “Burn Cards” which can be purchased with points. These Burn Cards can have huge impacts on how the game is played, the possibly points to be scored, and the cards in players hands.

To start the basic game, the deck is shuffled and everyone is dealt a hand of ten cards.  Most of the cards have numbers on them (and a matching number of matches in the illustration) as well as five Flare cards.  The start player gets no Fire tokens, and each player in successive order around the table takes one more than the player before them.

The start player chooses one of the cards from their hand, places it face up on the table and places a Fire Token from the bank on top of it. This card is the Blaze.

Now, going clockwise from the leader, players take a turn – having 5 possible options:

1] Match the Blaze – using a single number card, play the same number as the Blaze.  If you do this, add a Fire Token from the bank to the Blaze.

2] Play a Flare card – play a single Flare card which is automatically counted as matching the Blaze.  Add a Fire Token from the bank to the Blaze.

3] Match the Blaze with a set – Play any combination of cards whose numbers add up to the Blaze.

4] Run Up to the Blaze – play at least one card face up (counting the value seen on the card) and then any number of cards facedown – each facedown card being worth 1.  Do this until the value of the Blaze is met.

5] Burnout – If can cannot or choose not to play – you Burn Out.  You pass out of the rest of this round, though you do score 1 Burn Token for each pair of matching face up number cards that you have played previously in the round.  If you are the first player to burn out in a round, you get a bonus Fire Token from the supply and you will start the next round.

Play continues around the board until all but one player has Burned Out; that player wins the round.  They collect all the Fire Tokens on the Blaze as their reward, but they do NOT score any of their pairs.

Repeat the process four times, and whoever has the most Fire Tokens wins the game.

The game also offers optional Burn Cards that can be added to the game.  There are 16 cards, each with a unique rule-breaker on the card.  At the start of the game, shuffle the Burn Cards and deal out a display of four cards, placing the deck near one end.  The further card from the deck costs one Fire Tokens, increasing to four tokens for the card next to the deck.   A player may trigger one Burn Card per turn by paying the cost and then putting the chosen card in play.  

Burn cards stay in effect for varying periods of time – they remain face up on the table until the end of their effect.  Some examples are:

• One player of your choice discards all the pairs they have played this round
• Trade hands with the player of your choice
• Change the value of the Blaze to a number of your choice between 1 and 10
• All Fire Tokens currently on the Blaze are discarded

My thoughts on the game

So to be a bit pedantic, I would not consider this a trick taking game at all. It’s more of a shedding game. Sort of.  But, it’s definitely not what I would consider a trick taker.  I was drawn to the game by the above description, and I’ll admit that my disappointment started when I found out that it wasn’t a trick taker at all.

Here, the goal is to shed cards from your hand, matching whatever was set as the blaze value by the first player.  Once the value is set, you can mentally calculate how many matches you’ll be able to make with your hand…  There is a benefit for going first as you get to set the Blaze value, and there is a benefit for going last as you have best chance turn order wise of holding out to the end… 

Knowing when to get out is important; if you think you can’t win, there is not as much reason to stay in the game. All you’re doing is possibly increasing the reward for the eventual winner…  If you can’t win, play the pairs you have as soon as possible and then get out of the way.  

Our first games were with the vanilla rules… and the game was fine.  It was not a trick taking game, and the risk/reward of continuing in a hand was moderately interesting.  In many cases though, the play of the hand felt locked in once the hand started; you knew what the Blaze value was, and the contents of your hand weren’t going to change.  And, as you only score points for playing pairs of numbers or matching the Blaze exactly – there isn’t a lot of changing plans on the fly.  In some cases, players could see that they could neither play pairs nor match the Blaze and simply dropped out as their first action.  At least, in this way, they could get the single bonus Fire token for Burning out first.

As the basic game seemed a bit straightforward, we then added in the Burn Cards, and well, I’d just as soon burn them.  Many of them are take-that in style or add enough randomness to the game to put it firmly in the not-for-me camp.  Any semblance of control in the game was lost for me.  Sure, I know there are folks that want this sort of interaction and unpredictabliity in their games, but I’m not one of them.  You can see from the examples above how they can turn the game on its head in an instant.  The cost is high – in games where ten points might win, is it really worth paying four fire tokens for a card?  Maybe, maybe not.  But if feels pretty crappy if someone spends their only four fire tokens to attack someone else just because.  And it happens.   I don’t want a game that comes down to having the right card at the right time, more often than not due to random chance or turn order vagaries.  I also hate games with targeted unilateral attacks. None of the gamers in my two attempts with the Burn cards preferred that style of game over the base game.

In the final analysis, if you consider playing Matches with the Burn cards, beware that you might get burned.  If you play the basic version, Matches will likely play you.  Neither is ideal for me.

Until your next appointment,

The Gaming Doctor