Gachapon Trick

• Designer: Daniel Newman
• Publisher: Playte
• Players: 2-4
• Age: 14+
• Time: 30 minutes
• Preorder link: preorder.playte.com
• Played with review copy provided by publisher

Oh boy! A Gachapon parlor! And here I am with a pocket full of coins! Look at all the cool toys! I MUST COLLECT THEM ALL!  In Gachapon Trick, the lead player may play any card they choose. The next player must follow that suit if they can, but may play any suit if they cannot. The following players must follow any of the suits already played if possible.

The highest rank of the most represented suit wins the trick. If there is a tie for the most represented suit, the higher rank wins. If there is still a tie, the later played of the tied cards wins. The winning player MUST purchase at least one card from the trick, but MAY buy as many as they want. The winner places the cards they purchased face up in front of themself. The winner MAY also buy the top card of the deck for ¥500 – only once per trick.

Shuffle the deck and deal 10 cards to each player.  The remainder of the deck has the Refund Card shuffled in and is placed on the table as a draw pile.  Each player gets ¥5000 to start.

The lead player plays a card of their choice, and the other players play in clockwise order, and they MUST follow a color played previously in the trick.  If they do not have any cards of any colors previously played, they can play any color.  The winner of the trick is the highest ranked card of the most frequent suit.  If there is a tie for most frequent suit, the highest card of those suits wins; if still tied, the latest played wins.

The winner must purchase at least one card from that trick; the cost is shown on the card.  They may also purchase additional cards from the trick if they like.  Further, they can buy the top card of the draw pile for ¥500.   If the winner cannot afford a card from the trick, they forfeit the right and the next ranked player gets to buy cards instead.

If a player’s balance is ever ¥100 or lower, they are out of the current phase and must discard their hand.  If there is only one player left, that player may freely purchase cards from their hand and the draw pile until they are also out of money.

At the end of the round (when all tricks are played or all players are out of money), each player calculates their score. Group your cards by type (not color, but by toy illustration).  If a player drew the Refund card, they can return one Gachapon and recover its cost.  Each set of 2 or more scores the square of the number of cards.  Players also score 1 point per ¥200 left over.  If you bought no cards, you score a 5 point bonus – thus a total of 30 points (25 points for the money plus the 5 bonus).

Repeat for 3 rounds. The player with the most points wins. Ties broken in favor of highest remaining money in the final round.

My thoughts on the game

So I first played this game at a trick taking convention last year, and the designer was there to teach us how to play.  Gachapon Trick is a game that was designed to capture the excitement of trying to collect things from a Gachapon machine – for those that don’t know, these are essentially vending machines that generally have a themed set of toys inside… and you can usually see what sorts of things you can get on the signage; but you never know what you’re going to get until you put your coin in and turn the knob!

In this game, that is replicated by the random draw from the pile. Just like in real life, you can gamble your coins away to get these toys.  When you buy a random card from the deck, you are hoping that you get a toy that is worth at least ¥500 – or that you get a toy that matches one that you have already collected!

The trick taking part of the game is interesting given the rules for winning the trick. It’s hard to know for sure, even from the first trick, whether a card is a guaranteed winner.  This is definitely a game that balances out the “advantage” of leading a trick with the benefit of having the last play. 

If anyone is void along the way, the situation can rapidly change.  I have found that it’s more likely to change at the full player count of 4p than at 3p, but uncertainty abounds!   This relative chaos leads to some interesting card decisions.  As you play, you are trying to win the trick. However, you are also trying to shape your hand for later plays, and to some degree, you will also want to pay attention to the toys that are being made available each trick.  You may have to use your memory to prevent a trick winner from getting a cheap match for their set.

As you play, don’t discount the possibility of going null.  The thirty point payout for a null round is generally competitive.  Again, given the rules of trick resolution, it may take a hand or two for you to figure out what sort of hand is actually set up for losing everything.

The art in the game is wonderful, done by Sai Beppu.  The colors are easy to differentiate from each other and the costs are easily read.  The box is wonderfully solid, and I do like the cutout coin slot.  I do love using it as the bank and having players actually push their money through the slot in the cover, though you’ll probably have to empty the box once in the round to get enough change out.

For those who like their trick-taking with a bit of uncertainty, but lots of excitement in the set collection – give your coins to Playte and give this one a whirl.

Ratings from the Opinionated Gamers

• I love it!
• I like it. Dale Y, Lorna, Ben B
• Neutral. Steph
• Not for me…

Preorder link: preorder.playte.com