Four Corner Detective

• Designer: Yoshihisa Itsubaki
• Publisher: itten
• Players: 1-5
• Age: 6+
• Time: 15 mins
• Played with review copy provided by publisher

Guess the four-digit number with your fingertips.  Four Corner Detective is a new tactile card game in which players examine the cards not by sight, but with touch to decipher the four-digits. Each player is given a card, where they touch the curved corners using their fingertips. Write down their predictions and depending on their guesses aim to score the most points. Can you use your fingertips to solve the mystery?

Four Corner Detective is played with a unique deck of cards.  Each of these cards is specially cut with different radii for each corner (either 3mm, 4mm, 5mm or 8mm).  On the back side of the card will be found a four digit number derived from the four corner sizes of the card.

To play the game, the deck is shuffled and players are dealt a stack of 5 cards.  Players also get an answer sheet and a pencil.  The scoring cubes are arranged in groups on the table – this differs per player count. 

The game is played in four rounds.  When the round starts, players take the bottom card of their stack (which has thus been obscured by the cards on top so that players can’t use their eyes to glean clues to the corners), hold it below the table, and then use their fingers to trace the outline of the card to try to determine the size of the corners. 

There is an order to the corner with a little punch-out showing where the “first” corner is, and then going clockwise around the card.

As soon as a player thinks they have an answer for their card, they write it on their sheet, and then they take the largest group of available tokens on the table.  Continue this until all the tokens have been claimed.  

Then, going in order from largest group to smallest group of tokens taken, the players check their results.   If the answer is completely correct, they place all their tokens on their card and score that same number (written on their sheet).  They can also tick the “I got it completely correct column” for the round.  

If one to three numbers are correct (both value and position), the player scores for the number of correct digits, keeping that many cubes on their card.  Any unscored cards are then given to the player with the next most cubes and the process repeats.  If you got none right, other than sort of sucking at the game, you score nothing and give all of your cubes to the next player.

Repeat the process for four rounds. At the end of the game, the player with the most points wins. Ties broken in favor of the player with the most completely correct answers.

My thoughts on the game

Four Corner Detective is a speed game which interestingly isn’t necessarily a speed game.  Sure, if you’re a digital sensation savant, you might just be able to feel the corners and know the answer.  If so, you’ll win every round and no one will have fun.  But, if you’re a normie, this game does give a very unique challenge as you feel your way around the card and try to get the right answer.

Unlike many other speed games, there is actually a bit of consolation here for a player who still gets the correct answer (but not necessarily the fastest) – as the unscored cubes are passed downstream, there are certainly times where it pays off to take your time to really get the right answer, and then hope that the other players have screwed up enough that you still get full value for your correct answer, even if you were one of the slower players.

The game is admittedly a bit of a one-trick pony.  It’s has been really interesting for the first few plays, but once you’ve seen it and tried it a few times, you’ll know whether you have the touch to discern corner radii or not.  That being said, there is a lot of joy in that game of discovery, and I have enjoyed watching other people have that magical first game of Four Corner Detective while I continually confirm that I’m pretty much just guessing at all but the 8mm corners…

My usual instant rating for a speed game is NOT in effect here, again because there is a bit of a system to reward those who aren’t the fastest, and also a bit of a rise due to the cool and unique cards in the game.

 Until your next appointment,

The Gaming Doctor