Trick’N Treat

• Designer: Icerain Lin
• Publisher: Icerain Games
• Players: 3-5
• Age: 12+
• Time: 10-15 minutes
• Played with review copy from Taiwan Boardgame Design

Trick’n Treat is a trick-taking game with cooperative and competitive modes! Venture out in costumes on Halloween and collect candies, but beware of the ghosts who can bring you all sorts of cute surprises.

Players follow standard trick-taking rules without a trump suit, with one candy card being selected for scoring after each trick. Players can play ghost cards that always follow suit and trigger special effects. After resolution, ghost cards are added to the Trick-winner’s hand. In Cooperative Mode, each player needs to collect 4 different candy cards. In Competitive Mode, players are divided into two teams; the team that collects all ghost cards loses the game, otherwise the team with the higher score wins.

Interestingly, this game can be played both cooperatively and competitively.  I will start by describing the competitive version and then next talk about the cooperative mode.  The deck is the same either way – 30 candy cards (5 colors, 0-6), 5 Ghost cards (ghost color, on each 6-10), 25 Friend cards (5 colors, 11-15).  Depending on player count, you may need to exclude one color of cards from the deck.

In the Competitive mode, players are split into teams and the goal is score the most points without taking all the ghosts.  Shuffle the friend and candy cards together and deal 11 cards to each player.  If you are in a 3p game, the remaining 11 cards are set aside as the Dummy.  Each player (and Dummy) is then dealt one of the Ghosts at random, and the undealt ones are put in the box unseen.

Players announce the number of candy cards in their hand, and the player with the most candy cards is the starting player.  All players are given a player Token and it is placed with the Friend side up.  There are two colors, the players with the white Friend tokens are on one team and the players with the dark tokens are on the other team.

To start a trick, the starting player can lead any friend or candy card (they cannot lead their ghost card).  Play goes clockwise and each player must follow suit if possible or play a ghost card.  Note that some ghost cards have a special effect.  You are not obligated to play your ghost card to follow.  If you do not have any cards in the led suit, you can play anything.  

In a 3-player game, the Dummy hand is revealed before the start of the hand so all players can see it. The teammate of the Dummy will choose which card to play when it is the Dummy’s turn.

The player who played the highest card of the led suit wins the trick.  If there is at least one candy card in the trick (regardless of color), the winner can choose the lowest numbered candy card in the trick for scoring.  If the trick contains ghost card(s), the trick winner adds them to their hand.  The remaining cards are placed face down in front of them.  The winner now leads the next trick.

The game continues until the lead player cannot lead (has no friend or candy cards left in their hand).  If one team now holds all the ghost cards in their hands, they lose automatically.  Otherwise, count up the scoring cards and the team with the highest sum wins.  Ties broken in favor of the team holding the highest ghost card in their hand.

The goal of the cooperative game is to make sure each player collects candies in four different suits.  In the cooperative game, each player (and Dummy if necessary) gets an 11 card hand.  Each player gets a Ghost card, but the Dummy does not.  If you want a more difficult game, take out the 0 cards and then each player only gets a 10 card hand.  Each player chooses a player marker and places in candy side up.

Trick taking follows most of the same rules as the competitive game.  One exceptions is that the winner of the trick is able to choose any candy card in a trick as a scoring card.  The Dummy also plays a little different – the Dummy automatically plays last in every trick and will always play the top most card that follows.  If the Dummy leads, it always leads its topmost card.  If the Dummy wins a Ghost card, it is removed from play.

The game still ends when a player cannot lead a trick.  At this time, players should check to see if they each have four different colors (amongst their scoring cards and the color of their player token) – if so, the team wins.  Otherwise, the team loses.

My thoughts on the game

There are actually two full games here – the cooperative and competitive mode, and while I wish the rules maybe just had them separately organized; they at least color coded the changes so you shouldn’t get too turned around.

The cooperative game is a neat exercise in efficiency.  Each player on the team has to collect candy from four different colors.  Depending on player count, you might get a token that counts as a free color, but at the 3p count, there aren’t any freebies, and you have to manage the cardplay to get all the colors to all the players.  As you only start with 11 cards, you’ll have to actually use the ghost cards judiciously to extend the length of the hand – you need to generate at least one extra trick in order for the players to collect 12 cards total.  Of course, you’re probably going to want to play the ghost cards anyways as you’ll need their special actions to massage your hands to get the right cards in the right player’s hands or scoring piles in order to meet your goal.

I also liked the use of the Dummy in the 3p game; with its rigid rules, you always know what it will play, and you have to factor that into your strategy. Trying to finesse the high cards out of the Dummy (or just outright beat those cards) needs some clever play and some good card counting.  I enjoyed that part of the puzzle a lot.

At higher player counts, you don’t have a dummy, and then it’s more about working together to get the right people to win the right tricks.  The rules aren’t too clear on what sort of communication is allowed, so we went with the standard “can’t talk about what cards I specifically have” bit.

The competitive game uses a lot of the same rules, but feels much different.  It can be a fun challenge to try to get the highest scoring candy cards into a trick that you’re winning, though your opponents will try to throw low cards in when possible to limit the scoring.  And, of course, you’ll have to watch out about the ghost cards at the end of the round – because you’ll lose automatically if you have them all.  This means, at some point near the end, you need to make sure your opponents are winning a trick so that you can give them ghost cards that they are obligated to take.  This push/pull of wanting to win some tricks but lose others makes for interesting hands.

Trick’N Treat is a flexible trick taking game that supports the different player counts well and also gives you two different modes of play.  I’ve liked what I’ve seen so far, and I think I’ll be playing this a lot over the winter, especially at the trick taking game conventions that I go to.

Ratings from the Opinionated Gamers

I love it!

I like it. Dale Y

Neutral.

Not for me…