Shadow Cards

• Designers: Bob Kamp, Christopher Haviland 
• Publisher: Amigo
• Players: 2-5
• Age: 10+
• Time: 30 minutes
• Played with review copy provided by publisher

In Shadow Cards, players secretly predict how many points they want to score in that round. Before each trick-taking round, two cards from their hand are chosen, whose value also determines the points to be scored. The question always arises: Do I set aside the high numbers to score a lot of points at the end, or do I keep them to make it easier to win tricks during the game? Those who combine instinct and strategy can prevail and win after three rounds. 

Shuffle the 60 card deck (4 suits, numbered 0 to 14, with Red always trump), and then deal out 4 stacks of 15.  Each player in the game takes one of these stacks, with the unchosen ones remaining on the table.  All players look at their hand and then try to predict how many trick points they will win this round.  In order to do this, each player simultaneously chooses two cards from their hand – the sum of which represents their bid.  Each trick is worth the value of one of the cards played into that trick.  The two bid cards are played facedown and remain secret during the play of the round.

A must-follow trick taking game is then played.  (If you are playing with 3 players, flip a card up from the unchosen stack of cards from setup.  This extra card has no bearing on the trick itself but it does give the winner another card to choose from.)  The winner of the trick then chooses one of the cards played in the trick and puts it face up on top of the trick; placing it in front of them – this card represents the number of points that the trick was worth.  

When the round is over (all cards are played), players then score the round.  Players reveal their bids and then note this in the upper left box of the scoresheet from this round.  Then, players announce their trick point total, and this is written in the bottom left part.  Now – depending on the relationship between the bid and the actual points gained, players will score points as follows:

• If trick points = bid – score triple the bid
• If trick points are less than the bid – score only your trick points
• If trick points are more than the bid – score bid plus trick points
• If trick points = 0, score double the bid
• If your trick points are the highest of all players (but not an exact match), score positive points for your top 3 point cards and subtract all other point cards

The player with the most points after 3 rounds wins.  There is no tie breaker

My thoughts on the game

When we first read the rules to the game, it did make me think a bit of The Green Fivura / Fives in that players were trying to win tricks to score a certain number of points.  Here, you can choose from any of the cards played to the trick, not just the one that you played, so there seems to be a bit more flexibility in the process. 

So, you can look at your cards at the start, try to make a reasonable bid (possibly short suiting yourself in the process…) and then play out the tricks.  As the trump color is fixed for the whole game, you should be able to figure out the general strength of your hand.  However, it’s hard to know for sure how good/bad your hand is because players will not always be playing to win every trick!  You’ll have to be sure to look at the bids of each other player to gauge how hard they are trying to win tricks (or perhaps at least particular tricks).  

As the tricks play out, as usually players are more often than not trying to duck tricks – your ability to predict the strength of your hand withers away.  Hopefully, if you win a trick you weren’t expecting, you can at least get a good number out of the cards played…  

When the hand is over, then you move to scoring – and frankly, this is where the game kind of falls apart for me.  The scoring is simply far too cumbersome for the game.  There are five different ways your hand can end up, and each has its own scoring rule.  It has always taken me a couple of repeats through the rules to explain the five cases to the players.  Frustratingly, there isn’t a player aid to help people remember how their hand will score.

In general, it feels like it should always be better to win tricks if you can; if you exceed your bid, you’ll at least score all your trick points in addition to your bid.  If you somehow fail to reach your bid, you only get your trick points.  The benefit of triple the bid for hitting it exactly is not enough enticement for me to try to achieve that.  I mean, sure, if I can get there exactly, I’ll do it and then try to dodge everything else… but otherwise, I’m not likely to pull a low card to stop just short and then hope to win one more trick AND get the right value out of it.

The game does try to curb the “always win” strategy with the rule that penalizes the player with the most points.  In a sense, it works, but it feels like such a clunky solution, and the math tends to confuse the heck out of people.

For me, there is not quite enough of a feeling of control over the game to really like it.  I get the concept that the game should allow a player to play out any sort of hand, but from what I’ve seen so far, it still feels a bit too luck based for my tastes.   Interestingly, I actually like this game a little better at 3p as there is a bit more choice in cards in a trick due to the dummy card play.   Maybe I’ll grok it more with a few more plays (as I’m sure it’ll get more table time at my upcoming trick-taking convention weekend)….

Thoughts from other Opinionated Gamers

Doug G. – Shelley and I aren’t mad about trick taking games, but this one worked well for us. I like the bidding mechanism with cards in hand, and even found that in a multi-player game we were able to hit our bid a couple of times. This one’s staying in the collection.

Ratings from the Opinionated Gamers

• I love it! 
• I like it. Doug G.
• Neutral. Dale, John P
• Not for me…