Tussie Mussie

• Designer: Elizabeth Hargrave
• Publisher: Button Shy Games
• Players: 2-4
• Age: 8+
• Time: 20 minutes
• Played with review copy provided by publisher

Tussie mussies exemplified the Victorian custom of assigning meaning to the flowers that friends and lovers exchanged. Inspired by the ideals of elegance and discretion, these bouquets were carefully made to convey subtle messages to their recipients. Now you can choose the right flowers to make a winning tussie mussie of your own!

Tussie-Mussie is based on a Victorian fad that assigned meanings to the flowers that friends and lovers exchanged.  Featuring I-Divide-You-Choose drafting, this microgame of 18 cards is played over three rounds. The cards come in five different colors and most of them have a special ability written in the box at the bottom of the card.   Some of the cards also have one or more heart icons in them.

In turn, players look at the top two cards of the deck, then offer them, one face-up and one facedown, to an opponent. That opponent takes one, leaving the other for the active player.  The cards distributed this way stay in their offered orientation, and always added to the right of previously placed cards in the display.  A facedown card can be looked at by its owner, but it will remain unknown to all the other players until the end of the round.  This process continues until all players have four cards in their display. Face up cards are called your bouquet while facedown cards are keepsakes.  

A round ends when each player has four cards, at which point the scores are tallied. All facedown cards are flipped over, but slid down a little bit so that it can be easily remembered that they were facedown cards.   Each heart on a card is worth one point, and then the special ability of each of the four cards in the display is scored.  The highest score after three rounds wins!

Tussie Mussie is a quick game that rewards you for finding cards that interact well with each other.  The “I split, you choose” mechanism works well here.  Each player gets to play both roles – and there are definitely some possibilities for clever bluffs and other strategic maneuvers.  

One thing which I like is to take a facedown card first – so that my opponents have no idea what sorts of cards that I’m looking for.   Most rounds give you interesting decisions to ponder whether you are the splitter or the chooser.

The game comes in the traditional card wallet – and there is a lot of game in this small package.  It’s quite accessible to even non-gamers – only a few terms need to be explained to understand all the cards, and as there are only 18 cards, it’s easy enough to literally go over each card before playing.

Though I don’t have any of them, there are also some expansions (extra cards) that are available to give you some extra variety in play – though I’ll admit that I’ve been enjoying my plays with just this first 18 cards thus far.

Ratings from the Opinionated Gamers

• I love it!
• I like it.  Dale Y
• Neutral.
• Not for me…

Dionysia

• Designer: Joebyn Sewell 
• Publisher: Button Shy Games
• Players: 2
• Age: 10+
• Time: 15 minutes
• Played with review copy provided by publisher

All of Athens has turned out for the Dionysia, a grand theatrical festival to honor the god Dionysus. Impress the crowds with your well-crafted drama to win the playwriting competition as well as the favor of the gods!

Draft and craft a better drama than your opponent to secure the favor of the gods at this year’s Dionysia. The deck is comprised of 18 different scene cards.  Each card has a key scene effect as well as a scoring pattern on it.  At the very bottom, there are two icons which you will use to score.

There are 9 rounds in the game, and in each round, there is a stage of cards – usually 3 cards, but only 2 in the final round.   Shuffle all 18 scene cards and reveal 3 of them in the shared stage between the players. Each turn, the active player chooses one of these scenes and adds it to their play, then refills the stage for the next player. To add a scene, the player may create a new act in their play (to a maximum of 3). 

As you take a scene from the central stage and add it to your developing play, you’ll need to decide whether to start a new act (to a max of 3) or add it to the top/bottom of an existing act. 

The topmost card in an act is the key scene, which sets the scoring conditions for the end of the game. Some cards also have immediate effects that occur when that scene is placed in the key scene position. Each card features an assortment of dramatic elements that are used to create scoring patterns of rows and columns.

Once both players have a tableau consisting of 3 acts of 3 scenes each, these patterns are evaluated based on the key scenes for each act. The amount of favor earned can vary depending on the key scene, with each set of 3 specific icons in either a row or column earning the listed amount of favor. The player who earns the most favor is the winner!

Dionysia challenges players to collect and arrange cards to maximize their scoring chances.  Cards can be used for their main scene ability as well as using their icons at the bottom to create patterns.   Note that patterns are always scored in left to right or top to bottom orientation; you cannot mirror them.

I like the way that you can place cards both on top and at the bottom of an act – this really helps you be flexible in your plans.  This feature also prevents the game from slowing down – as any main scene can be covered up, it prevents players from trying to play too defensively or at least worrying too much about it.

Each round only takes about a minute, and the whole game usually ends after around ten minutes.  The little card wallet which is a hallmark of this Button Shy series remains an awesome way to carry around a big game in a small package.

Ratings from the Opinionated Gamers

• I love it!
• I like it. Dale Y
• Neutral.
• Not for me…