Times played: 5, with review copy provided by Asmodee NA
I was pretty excited to get a copy of One Key as I liked the idea of a cooperative art guessing game. If you have played any other Libellud game – this will feel pretty familiar… (Dixit, Mysterium, Shadows: Amsterdam, maybe even Fabula) All of these have a common theme – that is, using pictures to somehow convey meaning; though each one has some sort of twist/new mechanic to set it apart. And, as I was reading up on this, I did see that there is even an upcoming game called Obscurio which will use my least favorite mechanism of all time: the traitor.
Designed by Konnov, Paltsev, Shklyarov, Trehgrannik,
Published by  Board & Dice
Review copy provided by the publisher
Played 5 times
Games that are set in a specific culture tend to be careful these days about not offending the culture involved while promoting them at the same time. This balance is difficult to maintain as the game is about having fun while not poking fun. Sometimes making the game quite thematic to the history of a culture can prevent a game from being enjoyable; otherwise a game may take liberties with a culture and provoke a storm. The publisher decided to tackle this up front in the game by having an Inuit consultant engaged who commented on the game’s cultural links. Perhaps this is the way to do this because the storm appears not to be happening. But what’s the game like?
Times played: 3, with review copy provided by Gamewright
Sushi Roll is a new dice based version of Sushi Go!, one of my favorite drafting card games. The theme is the same – you are in a sushi restaurant trying to pick the best dishes as they pass by. Unlike the original game which used cards, this game uses dice. There are a few different types of dice: a white nigiri dice, a salmon maki die, a purple appetizer die, a green wasabi die and a pink pudding die.
Jonathan Franklin: Review of Roll for the Galaxy: Rivalry
Roll for the Galaxy: Rivalry [expansion]
Designer: Wei-Hwa Huang & Tom Lehmann
Publisher: Rio Grande Games
Players: 2-5
Ages: 14+
Time: 45 minutes
Times played: 9+, with review copy provided by Rio Grande Games
I am a Tom Lehman and Wei-Hwa Huang fan. I like/love all their games and my game group adores Roll. They playtest their games into the ground, which means you are getting a tremendous game out of the box and any balance issues are almost certainly your own misperceptions due to an inadequate number of plays. Their games reward replaying over and over because you can try new things, find new combos, and have fun regardless of whether you win or lose.
Roll for the Galaxy is a game that sits at the crossroads of Control Avenue and RNG Street. It permits planning, strategies, and requires an awareness of what the other players are up to. At the same time, you might find yourself cursing your rolls if they don’t align with where you thought you were heading. Unlike other dice games, you can sacrifice dice to convert other ones to what you want, so you can have more less good dice or fewer better dice for your plan.
Times played: 4, with review copy provided by Stronghold
Subtext is the newest design from the inventive mind of Wolfgang Warsch. In the past two years, he has burst upon the gaming scene with game after game; each one seemingly in a different genre. Though I know that this isn’t his only party game (I have playtested one other which should arrive this fall) – Subtext is a game where certain players have to try to communicate using only their (in my case – very rudimentary) drawing skills. If there is one theme thus far that I’ve found with WW – it’s that he loves to limit the ways in which people can communicate with each other. Sometimes it’s interesting (here), and other times it’s not (The Mind).
The concept here is simple – players try to draw pictures to convey the meaning of a word they get on a card. However, you don’t want to be too obvious about your picture because if you score points, you’ll be rewarded for having fewer other players recognize what you were trying to draw… Make sense? Yeah, let me explain more…
The world is full of public domain and newfangled trick taking games. That said, I will try any of them any time. I reached out to Soaring Rhino to try their new Pirate Tricks game; here are my thoughts from a few perspectives.
In Pirate Tricks, the main deck has three suits, red is always trump, and the suit length is adjusted depending on the number of players. The quick and dirty is that this is a lighter trick-taking game with three hands played in succession with different rules for each hand. At the end of three hands, the player with the most points wins.
Yes, there are tricks, yes, you generally have to follow suit if you can, but this game adds a closed-fist auction to construct your hand. Pedants will say that Tichu is a climbing game, not a trick-taking, game (and they are right). At the same time, imagine being dealt the first set of cards in Tichu, looking at them, then instead of bidding Grand or picking up the second set of cards, the second set of cards are splayed out in the middle of the table in four rows and you get to bid on which second set of cards you get.
Image thanks to BGG:augray
In Pirate Tricks, after getting your first set of cards, the remaining cards are set out in rows equal to the number of players with all but two cards in each row face up and two face down. Â In the example above, there are four rows because there are four players. The players then bid for each row in order, spending victory points to get the row they want. Since red is always trump, you would think you always want the row with the most red showing.
Here is the second twist of Pirate Tricks. There are three special card types, Recruitment, Treasure, and Capture cards. Recruitment cards give you a way to score outside the trick taking part of the game. You might bid on a very weak row of cards because it helps you complete a high value recruitment card. Treasure cards set the goal for the hand which might be to take the fewest tricks, most tricks, predict how many tricks you will take, etc This is a key way to gain points in the game and the most points will win, but remember, points are also what you bid with. Capture cards can be negative points, so you might have trick avoidance cards where taking blue cards is extra bad. Suddenly trump sounds awful and you might pay just to not take the row with the high trumps.
After getting your first cards and bidding on your second set, you get to throw away two cards, so no one else knows exactly what you have, even if they can count cards. Of course, the discarded cards cannot count towards the recruitment scoring. After recruitment scoring, a regular trick taking game is played with the Capture and Treasure rules.
There are enough recruitment, treasure, and capture cards that you won’t see the same ones in a game, but they will start to reappear. Some are pretty bad, such as stealing points from other players, so don’t go into this seriously or you might be frustrated. I think it is probably best as a five player closer when you want to think, but not too much. The scoring can be swingy and the game does not really have a built in catch-up mechanism, so if your neighbor just hoovered up 6 of your points for their stash, that is a 12 point swing.
The theme and art are fine, but not really integrated into the game, unless stealing points is piratey. The art is darker and a bit neon, but it is legible. If you like Stichmeister, On the Cards, or other variable condition trick-taking games, but feel they might be a bit much for your friends, definitely seek out Pirate Tricks. It would also be especially good for people who like trick taking games and are starting out in Euros, as it adds variable conditions, closed-fist auctions, and strategic discarding.
I like it and would happily play it, especially with 5 players.
Other Opinions
Dan Blum (2 plays): I agree with Jonathan’s opinion in general. It’s a decent enough trick-taking game with a lot of variability, but some of the scoring cards make it a lighter affair. (Of course one could always remove those.) However, it’s not as light as it could be because of the amount of information you have about other players’ hands – you see all the cards that are bid on and players might choose to show others to score for Recruitment.
Ultimately I feel it could have used a little more polishing to be really good, but it’s still pretty good – the occasional hand is not great but most hands are interesting and since a game is only three hands it won’t outstay its welcome.
