The Phantom of the Opera

• Designer: Geonil
• Publisher: Korea Board Games
• Players: 2
• Age: 10+
• Time: 20 minutes
• Played with review copy provided by publisher

The Phantom of the Opera is a tense two-player trick-taking duel inspired by Gaston Leroux’s classic tale. One player is the Phantom, striving to compose a perfect musical score, while the other is Christine, trying to disrupt his melody and break free.

Over two rounds of ten tricks each, players follow suit when possible, use trump and “super trump” (superior to trump) suits to capture or evade tricks. The “Number on the Seal” adds tension by triggering card exchanges and high-stakes scoring. To succeed, the Phantom must win and lose specific tricks as shown on the music sheet, while Christine’s goal is to disrupt his composition at every turn.

The game components consist of a deck of cards of 4 suits, a game board or sheet of music (3 different boards are included), 12 markers for the sheet music and 1 die.

Players are dealt their hands and they must each exchange one card. The lead player for the round (the Phantom starts the first round and Christine the second) chooses one of the numbers of the 2 exchanged cards as special and uses the die to note the number.

Players will then play their hand out in a series of tricks. It is a must follow game and there are a few twists in regards to trump. The mask suit is always trump but there may also be super trump which depends on the last trick taken and marked on the music sheet. Above each bar is an icon for one of the 4 suits and if the last trick was taken in that bar then the corresponding icon becomes super trump.

The sheet music has 12 notes, some of which are on or below the middle line and some of which are above. The notes on the music sheet that are on the middle or lower half of the staff and those tricks must be won by the Phantom who places a token over the note. Notes on the upper half of the staff must be won by Christine in order for the Phantom to place a token on the note.

If a special number card is played during a trick, the players must immediately trade cards from their hand. In addition if the trick is correctly won corresponding to the music sheet, an extra token is placed on the music. If the trick is incorrectly won, then the last 2 tokens placed are removed from the sheet music.

After the first is played the cards are collected and shuffled. Tokens are left covering the music. Christine starts the second round. If the Phantom covers all 12 notes they win immediately. If Christine is able to prevent this until the end of the round they win.

The game is quite short, only taking 2 hands to play so a total time of 10 to 15 minutes feels right for the game – but you’ll likely be surprised (like I was) at just how much game can be fit into that short time span.

My thoughts on the game

Two player trick taking games are often not for me (as only two hands is often not enough to make things interesting), but this one turned out to be quite good. It also helps that the theme works so well in this game, and I love the integration of the musical notes / sheet music in the game play.

I like the fact that the game isn’t simply about winning the most tricks – but rather winning the correct tricks in the course of the hand.  There is a lot of hand management that happens due to the must-follow nature of the trick taking as well as the rotating nature of the supertrump.  It is definitely an interesting challenge to play as either character in the game, and this is a game that I will continue to explore on the somewhat rare occasions that I only have one other player to game with.

Thoughts from other Opinionated Gamers

Lorna: Trick taking games that can be played with 2 players are rare and finding an interesting one is even more rare. I’m glad I found this one! The Phantom of the Opera follows the tale we all know so well. Rarely do trick taking games fall so in line with theme. I love that the board is a sheet of music. The art is well done with the suits corresponding to key points of the story.  I really enjoy the little twists to the game play. Deciding when to play a special number and what cards to exchange provides lots of crunch decisions in a short time. The challenge of needing to win or lose certain tricks in a set order makes it a bit more interesting than just trying to win X amount of tricks such as in Fox in the Forest. The asymmetric winning conditions make it an interesting game where playing both sides is fun like in Jekyll vs. Hyde.