Episode 116 AP Table Talk: Trick-Taking Ladder Climbing

AP Table Talk: Trick-Taking Ladder Climbing

Episode Summary:

In this episode of AP Table Talk, the hosts Brian and Dave Eng explore the enduring appeal of trick-taking and ladder climbing games. They reminisce about classic games like Hearts and Euchre, delving into lesser-known variants such as Nine Five Two, where players aim for different trick objectives. The conversation touches on modern games like SCOUT and Haggis, highlighting their strategic nuances. They discuss the diversity in ladder climbing games, focusing on favorites like Tiger & Dragon and Sail, and how these games adapt to various player counts. They share insights into their preferred contemporary trick-taking games and ponder potential variations within the ladder climbing mechanic. The episode concludes with reflections on the evolving dynamics and meta plays in trick-taking games, making them timeless favorites.

Brian Eng:

Hello, and welcome to AP Table Talk, a podcast where we explore board games and what makes them interesting to us. My name is Brian, and I'm joined today by the founder of the University of Hartford's premier improv comedy group, “…stop laughing, Mom!”, my cousin and co-host, Dave.

Dave Eng:

That's me.

Brian Eng:

How's it going today, Dave?

Dave Eng:

I'm all right. You know, fun fact, I was at the University of Hartford last... Two months ago. And the group is still around.

Brian Eng:

Oh, nice. See?

Dave Eng:

They are still around. They're still performing.

Brian Eng:

Your legacy continues.

Dave Eng:

I guess. One day, I kind of want to go up there and just take out the group for lunch at a diner and then ask them about the history and see if they out me.

Brian Eng:

See if they do.

Dave Eng:

Yeah, but I don't think they will over because that's, like, 20 years ago now.

Brian Eng:

Right, yeah.

Dave Eng:

So none of them were probably alive.

Brian Eng:

We were just talking, I'm cleaning up my basement here, and I found the shirt you got me!

Dave Eng:

The University of Hartford shirt or the “…stop laughing Mom!” shirt?

Brian Eng:

The “…stop laughing Mom!” shirt, yeah.

Dave Eng:

Oh, I don't remember giving you that, unless it's an old shirt.

Brian Eng:

It's the ringer, three-quarter-length sleeve one.

Dave Eng:

Oh, I see. Yeah, I think I know what you're talking about. Yeah. Nice.

Brian Eng:

Still got it. All right. So what's our mechanic today?

Dave Eng:

Okay, so this is actually a special edition of AP Table Talk because normally, if you've listened to some of our past episodes, we only cover one mechanic. But when Brian and I were researching this particular episode, we decided to combine, actually, two mechanics together because they have a lot of overlap. So our two mechanics today, Brian, are both trick-taking, and ladder climbing. Those are our two mechanics.

Brian Eng:

Right. Right. All right. So I guess we'll start off with some definitions here.

Dave Eng:

Mm-hmm.

Brian Eng:

And I'll give you my definitions. Okay, we'll start with trick-taking.

Dave Eng:

Sure.

Brian Eng:

Okay. And before we get started, I know we talked about this last episode, just as a quick apology to our listeners, you may get some extra coughing. It's that time of the season where my germ-ridden children bring home all kinds of stuff from school so...

Dave Eng:

They are filthy.

Brian Eng:

... bear with us.

Dave Eng:

Yeah.

Brian Eng:

Okay. So trick-taking. Generally, I think of this in card games. So, basically, on each player's turns, they play a card, and then, based on some criteria, usually highest card, somebody takes the trick of cards. And then they're able to either lead off... And sometimes there's other rules. A trump suit, for example, is pretty common, where if you're playing with a standard deck of cards, like spades might be the trump. So you usually have to follow suit, but if you don't have that suit, you can play the trump suit, and you'll win the trick. So that's generally my outline of how I would define trick-taking games.

Dave Eng:

Yeah. I think you're pretty-

Brian Eng:

Should I go on to-

Dave Eng:

... close there. What's that?

Brian Eng:

Should I go on to ladder climbing?, or do you want to do the official trick-taking definition? Maybe do the official.

Dave Eng:

Yeah, yeah, let's do that. So I'll read... So Brian just defined his personal definition of trick-taking, which is pretty close to the definition that's on Board Game Geek, BGG.com. So I'll read that definition.

So, on the website, under trick-taking as a board game mechanic, it says, quote, "trick-taking, players play cards from their hand to the table in a series of rounds or, "tricks,” which are each evaluated separately to determine a winner and to apply other potential effects. The most common way to win a trick is by having a card with the highest value of the suit that was led.

"But many classical card games use the, "trump system,” where a certain card, usually those of a designated suit, will win the trick if they are played." So, "Occasionally, there is a round of bidding to determine this trump suit, but in many trick-taking games, though not all of them, players are required to follow suit." So I think that's something that you didn't bring up before, Bri.

"By following suit, we mean play a card of the same suit that was led if they have one. If they do not have a matching card, they must play another card from their hand." And I think another important element here is that, "With trick-taking games, cards are played sequentially, not simultaneously." So that's the definition of trick-taking off of Board Game Geek.

Brian Eng:

Yeah. And this maybe applies to both of these mechanics. Being kind of older game mechanics, there are many, many variations and slight changes to the rules based on the games. Even the following suit, I'm sure there's games where you don't need to follow suit and things like that.

Okay, so I'll move on to ladder climbing. Again, I mostly think of this in card games. So, in this one, again, players take turns going around in order and playing either a card or set of cards, based on some sort of hierarchy, like the cards have to played lowest to... Or the next card has to be played higher than the previous card. Or there's some cards where you have to play higher poker hands and things like that.

And basically, it goes around, and this time, instead of just one turn per round, you continue around until no one else can play. And that last person who can play is the winner and usually takes that round and leads off the next.

Dave Eng:

Yeah. Again, really close there. I'm going to read the official definition from Board Game Geek. So, under Board Game Geek, it says, "ladder climbing, players play one card or a set of related cards," so that's what Brian said before. "And then, subsequently, players must play cards of an equal or higher value of the same set already played." But that kind of differentiates because some games allow an equal value, whereas other games you need to play an objectively higher value set in order to climb the ladder. I mean, going off-

Brian Eng:

Or I wonder if they mean an equal set, like if you play pairs, you have to play...

Dave Eng:

Oh, another-

Brian Eng:

... higher pairs.

Dave Eng:

... pair.

Brian Eng:

Or three of a kind or whatever.

Dave Eng:

Yeah, it has to be a pair, but it has to be a better pair.

Brian Eng:

Right. I mean, it's possible that you can play equal, but I don't know if I can think of one where you can play the same.

Dave Eng:

Yeah, I can. I did a lot of research-

Brian Eng:

I mean-

Dave Eng:

Or we did a lot of research on this episode.

Brian Eng:

That could definitely be a variant, so...

Dave Eng:

Yeah, that's true. Well, we'll save that for later because talk about some variants. But the rest of the definition says, "The last player to successfully play wins the right to start a new round of climbing. This mechanism originated in East Asia and is represented by modern games, such as Tichu." So that's one of the games that we will, or at least I'm planning on talking about today.

Brian Eng:

Okay.

Dave Eng:

Yeah.

Brian Eng:

All right. So we will move on to some examples, then, I guess, and we will do our roll for initiative. Do you want to explain it, give a little explanation?

Dave Eng:

Yeah. So if you are listening to AP Table Talk for the first time, one of the things that Brian and I like to do is we both have D20s, and we're both going to roll them at the same time. And whoever rolls higher is going to have initiative, and that person's going to lead off that part of the discussion. So I'm ready to roll, Bri, when you are.

Brian Eng:

Ready when you are.

Dave Eng:

3, 2, 1, roll.

Brian Eng:

I got a 12.

Dave Eng:

I have 5. So you have initiative.

Brian Eng:

All right. Okay. So the first section we have here is what we consider to be the most noteworthy or the biggest game in the category, which, I guess, we'll... What do you want to do? Do you want to go through all the trick-taking, or do you want to go through both of the ones for each section?

Dave Eng:

Let's go through both of the ones for each section because I've listed them in sort of a thematic relationship to each other.

Brian Eng:

Okay, sounds good. Okay. So I would say that the most noteworthy trick-taking game would have to be The Crew. Now, what makes it big for me... I've talked about this before on the podcast. I generally am not a huge fan of cooperative games. And I think you introduced The Crew to me, I don't know, a year or two ago during the holidays, I think. And it's a cooperative trick-taking game. You're trying to win tricks based on certain... It's almost like a legacy game, right?

Dave Eng:

Yeah, yeah, I'd say so.

Brian Eng:

They give you certain criteria, and, as a team, with limited communication, you have to win tricks that resolves the certain criteria for the missions. And I don't know, I had a lot of fun with it. The rounds go by really quick. There's definitely a variance in how difficult missions can be. The player count, I think, has a big part in that.

Dave Eng:

Yeah, definitely.

Brian Eng:

But I thoroughly enjoyed it myself and my brother Chris, who we've talked about before, also much prefers competitive games. We really enjoyed it. And I think that's-

Dave Eng:

Do you remember how I introduced it to you, though?

Brian Eng:

No, I don't, actually.

Dave Eng:

I was like, "I have a game called The Crew. It's a cooperative game, but it's a cooperative game for people that don't like cooperatives."

Brian Eng:

That's the best-

Dave Eng:

Because we discussed it on the podcast before, so I was like, "I guess the Eng side of the family, we're very competitive internally, and we do not like cooperative games."

Brian Eng:

That's right.

Dave Eng:

Like, "Under no reason will we cooperate with each other." But The Crew, I feel like, broke that stigma.

Brian Eng:

Yes.

Dave Eng:

I don't think I'm alone here. It's a great cooperative game to play.

Brian Eng:

And I think part of that is what's... I mean, people with any sort of interest in the board gaming scene, I think are well aware of this game. It was very popular when it came out. It continues to be pretty popular. There's the second version. I think the Deep Sea-

Dave Eng:

The Deep Sea version.

Brian Eng:

... one is the second one, right?

Dave Eng:

Yeah, yeah.

Brian Eng:

And I was talking to Chris about it after we had played that first night, and we were talking about how we liked it, even though it was cooperative. And what we realized, or at least what we think it is, is that we did not treat it as a cooperative game. We both like to solve... So when it comes to games, I treat them as, you're solving a problem, right? Each game, you solve the problem and the way to win, which is like strategy games, things like that.

And what The Crew allows you to do, because you have limited control and limited communication with the other players, we just consider it solving a puzzle where the other people in the game are just pieces of the puzzle. They're not your teammates. And that's exactly how we both approached it, and I think that's why we enjoyed it.

Dave Eng:

I do remember you talking about that. We're basically just, we're part of... You're just orchestrating our actions into solving the game, right?

Brian Eng:

So yeah, I would think that is definitely the biggest trick-taking game. Yeah, you want to do your trick-taking one now?

Dave Eng:

Actually, why don't you do your trick-taking and your Ladder-

Brian Eng:

You want me to do my Ladder?

Dave Eng:

... and I'll do mine.

Brian Eng:

Okay. So, for ladder climbing game, it's actually not a game I have played. I have watched some reviews, and I know it's pretty popular. And I think I want to try it out, but I haven't had the opportunity yet. It's also a newer, a modern game called SCOUT. I think it's around the same time it came out, and it was another one where people just were like, "This is it. This is the ladder climbing game." And everybody was playing it.

I haven't had the chance yet. And I think kind of the gimmick in that one is... So the one mechanic that it does have that I don't like is I think you're required to keep your cards in your hand in order, just by the honor system, which not that I'd break this, but I find it hard to not immediately shuffle the cards in my hand, rearrange them. The other game that was ruined because of that for me is... Is it called Bohnanza?

Dave Eng:

Yep. Yeah, Bohnanza's one.

Brian Eng:

Yeah. My wife's stepbrother introduced me to that one. And I couldn't stop rearranging the cards in my hand. So that'll be tricky for me, but I'd like to try them. But I know that one is pretty big game. And I would say that's probably the biggest one for ladder climbing.

Dave Eng:

Nice. Well, I'm really glad, Bri, you went first because I'm going to tell you about my favorite trick-taking-

Brian Eng:

All right.

Dave Eng:

Or not favorite, most noteworthy and biggest ones. So I think that it's important for me to differentiate first that I'm not going to talk about Hearts and Spades, which I feel like are very... It's classic trick-taking games.

Brian Eng:

Right.

Dave Eng:

Spades was technically the first trick-taking game I learned, but I'm not going to count it for this one because we're really going to cover board games, card games, tabletop games here.

So, based on what I've heard, and I have not yet had the privilege of playing it yet, though, is Tichu. So Tichu, I think, is the go-to example for ladder climbing games, but I have not played it, specifically because Tichu, you need four players, no more, no less. You need four players.

However, there's two games that are influential in the sphere for their modernity and also their relevance right now. And they're exactly the two games that you said. The number one for me is The Crew, in that, I don't think, prior to The Crew, at least I have not experienced it, as a really well done, elegant, cooperative trick-taking games.

There are a few other cooperative trick-taking games. I can think of two off the top of my head, but I feel like The Crew really shines in its ability to play fast, play quickly, play casually, and be super modular. I don't know if you remember when we started playing, but we basically just played the first mission, and it was like, "Oh, that's it?" I mean, we did fail it a bunch of times because not all the players-

Brian Eng:

I think it's a good way to just learn the rules. It's a good introduction to just learn the rules, which, I mean, I think we're going to get into that a little bit more later in this episode, but...

Dave Eng:

Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's right.

Brian Eng:

But I think it actually, as simple as it is for... We're gamers, we pick up these games pretty quickly. As simple as it is for us, it helps out newer players, and it's quick enough that seasoned players... That's fine. You're not going to get bored. It's like a couple of minutes per mission.

Dave Eng:

And that's what I really like about the game. There's just a book full of missions that get-

Brian Eng:

Right.

Dave Eng:

... increasingly more complex in difficulty. So I think the difficulty for experienced players plays well. And like you said before, Bri, I think you're right about it being kind of a legacy game because it does benefit by playing with the same people multiple missions in a row.

Brian Eng:

Right. And I know people have talked about treating it like a campaign and just, "Oh, I'm going to play with this group now, so we start at Mission 1. And we'll play with Mission 1 this group." And I always like theme in my games, so I like that the missions are broke up with story and things like that. So I think, as simple as it is, it's very well done.

And I'm just going to go on a tangent here, and sorry to take away from your turn here, but you mentioned a couple other, and we both Kickstarted a game that I was interested in because people compared it to The Crew and said it was basically a good two-player version of The Crew, which is Sail.

Dave Eng:

Yep.

Brian Eng:

Now I haven't had a chance to play that yet. I know you've played it, but how would you-

Dave Eng:

I've not played it yet.

Brian Eng:

Oh, sorry, I thought you had played it.

Dave Eng:

No, I own it as well because I think we backed it at the same time-

Brian Eng:

Oh, okay. Right.

Dave Eng:

... but I have not got it on the table yet.

Brian Eng:

Oh, okay. Sorry, I thought you had played it. But we have since played on Board Game Arena. And I did not know about... I guess it's... Is it a semiofficial or an official variant? But there's a-

Dave Eng:

Of?

Brian Eng:

Of The Crew, the Jarvis variant-

Dave Eng:

Oh, that's right, that two-player Crew game.

Brian Eng:

... which is for two players. I mean, I'm hoping that I will like that Sail game. It has good reviews as well. But I feel that had I known that The Crew... I feel that that system works well enough that I might just get The Crew anyways. Because it's just a really good game. It's very inexpensive. And I like it a lot. I'm assuming it works with the second one too, but I haven't got through all the missions of the first one, so...

Dave Eng:

Yeah, me neither.

Brian Eng:

... there's no rush to go grab it. I don't think it's going anywhere because of how successful it is.

Dave Eng:

Yeah, that's true.

Brian Eng:

But sorry, you can go back to what you were saying.

Dave Eng:

Well, those are all really good points, but it leads me to my second point here, which is I had the same significant ladder climbing game, which is SCOUT.

Brian Eng:

Right.

Dave Eng:

And like you said, Bri, with SCOUT, it's true, one of the constraints in the game is that you cannot rearrange your cards. However, they do have asymmetric numbers on them, so if you fan them out and see the numbers on one side, if you flip it over and fan them out, those are different numbers on the other side. So you cannot rearrange the cards, but you can choose which side you're going to start on. So you may have a really forgiving side that you may start on.

And I think that saved me in a bunch of games where when I first get it, it's not a good hand, but I flip it over, and it's still not a great hand, but it's better than the other hand. And I think that's one of those aspects where they innovated on ladder climbing and kind of added a new mechanic and a new setting that made it something new.

Brian Eng:

Yeah, that definitely sounded... I do want to try it, and also, correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding is when you get a card, you are able to place it into your hand wherever you'd like.

Dave Eng:

Correct. Yeah. That's the only time when you can do so.

Brian Eng:

So that might help save it for me too because I think in Bohnanza, you're just drawing and keeping them in order, and it was just driving me insane.

Dave Eng:

Well, Bohnanza has an exception there where-

Brian Eng:

I mean, it's a different game, yeah, but...

Dave Eng:

Yeah, yeah. But Bohnanza is a trading game. So when you play Bohnanza, you want to trade out cards because they may be in an inopportune position in your hand. So that's an incentive to trade.

Brian Eng:

Right. Yeah. All right.

Dave Eng:

Cool.

Brian Eng:

So we both had the same ones there, but yeah, I mean, it's hard to really object to those as being the biggest and most noteworthy in the genre.

Dave Eng:

Yeah, at least by when this episode was recorded, that's what was most noteworthy.

Brian Eng:

Yes. All right, so we will move on to the first games we played with these mechanics.

Okay, so for trick-taking, and you said it as well, I'm sure that either Hearts or Euchre were the first trick-taking games that I played. I actually haven't played Spades. I think I had already known Hearts, and I think Spades is just a simpler version.

So I'm going to name maybe lesser-known variants because if we're talking about first games, I don't think there was much that I knew back when I was playing these because this would've been... Those were school cafeteria games or playing as a kid, family event kind of things. So I definitely played a lot of Euchre, especially in the cafeteria in high school and stuff. And then I learned a variant of... I guess it's a variant of Euchre. I mean, it's not quite Euchre, but it's called Nine Five Two. I don't know if you've heard of that.

Dave Eng:

No.

Brian Eng:

It has many other names. Because I went to go look it up to remind myself of the rules a little bit, apparently, this particular variant called Nine Five Two is the Canadian variant, surprisingly.

Dave Eng:

It's covered in maple syrup.

Brian Eng:

So it's three-player Euchre, in the sense that it follows mostly Euchre rules for trick-taking, but the difference is you use your full deck of cards, your full 52, you deal them out except for four, and then the dealer chooses trump... Sorry, the last four cards go into a kitty. And then the dealer picks trump based on the cards they have and then takes those four cards and can discard four cards. And then you go around, and you play all the tricks.

And the Nine Five Two comes in that the dealer having most of the power is trying to get nine tricks, the net player to his left is trying to get five, and the final player is trying to get two tricks. And then, at the end of the round, you get a plus/minus based on how far you are off from those goals. And usually, you play to, like, plus or minus 15.

And then, after each round, though, whoever's the most negative... No, wait, I'm messing up these rules here. Sorry. The dealer also picks trump, gets a kitty, but the other players have to give their best trump card to the dealer. And the dealer can trade out whichever card they want.

Dave Eng:

And can you just clarify, because I've heard it in other games before, the kitty is a discard pile or a common pile?

Brian Eng:

So you deal out all the cards, and the last four... A kitty's just, like, extra cards, basically. So there'll be four cards left. Those go in the middle. So everyone can look at their cards, but they don't know what those four are. So it's a little bit of unknown information, I guess, and a little bit of an advantage because the dealer has to take so many tricks. So they can name their trump based on what they can see, pick up those four, and then they have to discard four out of their hand. So it just lets them prune their hand a little bit more. So that's one that we played a lot of. I think I actually learned that with Chris when I was working at Citibank with him.

Dave Eng:

So Nine Five Two is your first trick-taking game.

Brian Eng:

I mean, outside of the Euchre and Hearts, that's the first one I can really remember...

Dave Eng:

I see.

Brian Eng:

... specifically as a trick-taking game, yeah.

Dave Eng:

Got it, got it. Okay. What about your first ladder game?

Brian Eng:

Okay. ladder climbing game, again, it is kind of a classic. It goes by many names, another cafeteria game. I think the more PG name is President. We called it A-Hole. Yeah. I don't know how popular that one is. I kept it on here because it didn't show up very high, or I couldn't find it in BGG very high, so I assume it's lesser-known. So it's pretty simple. It can be played with almost any number of players. You just add more deck of cards. I think we used to play in high school with, like, 12 people.

Dave Eng:

Oh, wow.

Brian Eng:

And you just dish out the cards, and somebody takes lead who would be the president, usually. So you can play singles, doubles, or pairs, three of a kind or whatever. And then everyone has to... As we talked about in the mechanic, you have to follow that number of cards but play higher, or you can go up to another, like you can go from pairs to three of a kind, until someone can't play anymore. And the goal is to shed all your cards first.

Whoever's the first one to shed all their cards becomes president, the next one becomes vice president and so on. I'll use... I think some variants call it Scum. So on the other side of it, the last person to get rid of all their cards is scum. And you have vice scum. And then, in the next round, whoever was scum has to give, I think their best three cards or best two cards or whatever it is, and exchange that with the worst cards from the president. And vice does one card, switch with the vice on the other side. And you just keep going. We would just play that continuously. I don't even know what the goal... Where that game ends.

Dave Eng:

The goal is to just keep playing it continuously.

Brian Eng:

Yeah, I think we'd just play until our lunch was done.

Dave Eng:

Yeah. Yeah. Nice.

Brian Eng:

So those are my two first... The first ones that I remember, significant ladder climbing and trick-taking games.

Dave Eng:

Got it. Well, I think we had similar history here. I know that you talked about Hearts and Spades. If I had to go with the very first one, it would definitely be Spades for me as my first trick-taking game. But I can tell you, the first time I learned it, I was very, very, very confused. And I was like, "How can you get away with just breaking the rules in this game?" If I just say, 'I don't have that,' I could just play any card, right?"

So, at the time, I didn't really understand the dynamics of the game and how it worked, but I also was still kind of a novice with tabletop games and board games, in general. So I would have to say, out of modernity here, my first trick-taking game is called Skull King. Are you familiar with Skull King, Bri?

Brian Eng:

Nope. I don't think I know that one.

Dave Eng:

So Skull King, again, it has that same simplicity as President, that you were talking about before. Skull King is by Grandpa Beck's games. It's a very small footprint card game. It's great in that it has a clear hierarchy of what cards beat what, but there's also some loopholes. You could play.... I forget the names of the individual cards, but pirates will beat this card, unless there is a mermaid in play, anyone can play a mermaid, in which case, it's reversed. Then pirates are actually lower on the rank than something else.

So it's interesting in that regard. Out of all of the modern games I played, I would say that is the first trick-taking game I played. I've been trying to acquire a copy. It's just very nice. It has a lot of replay value, and a lot of people have played it in the past.

My first ladder climbing game... Which again, we're combining for this episode trick-taking and ladder climbing because they have a lot of crossover here. ladder climbing also has a lot of crossover with card-shedding, which is something we did not include for this episode but is still an important mechanic. Unironically, my first ladder climbing game is a card game called Ladder 29. Have you heard of that game?

Brian Eng:

I haven't heard of that one either.

Dave Eng:

So it's very on-the-nose because it's a ladder climbing game about firefighters. The score track is you climbing the ladder to play sets of cards, like pairs, straights, a full house, four of a kind, et cetera. But, like Skull King, they do have some specialty cards in it, which I think makes the game interesting.

And it also has goal cards in it, which means that you gain the points on the goal card if you're the first to go out, but you also have a handicap. So it means... I remember some of the cards being like, "You can never play three of a kind, but if you go out first, you're going to get nine points, as opposed to six points for normally going out." So those are my two. First trick-taking game would be Skull King, a trick-taking game in modernity. And my second one, which is my first ladder climbing game, Ladder 29.

Brian Eng:

Okay. All right. Yeah, those are not ones I have heard of. I have to go look those up.

Dave Eng:

Yep, they're pretty good.

Brian Eng:

Okay, so we will move on to our favorite games in these two mechanics. So, for trick-taking games, this is another more recent acquisition for me and one called Cat in the Box.

Dave Eng:

Oh, yeah.

Brian Eng:

I think you were here when I got it, actually.

Dave Eng:

Yep, yep, yep.

Brian Eng:

So this is a twist... Again, very Euchre-like, except it's not teams, you're playing on your own. And the catch with this one is that the cards don't have suits on them. You determine the suit when you play the card. And what I really like about this one... I mean, theme is a big one for this. They very much play up the Schrödinger's cat thing in this, and I'm a physics nerd, so I like that.

As you play your cards, they have a board to keep track of the cards that are played. And you put your token and the number and suit that you've defined your card as you play it. And you're trying not to create a paradox. Or sorry, you're trying not to be the one who creates a paradox by-

Dave Eng:

A paradox is going to happen regardless.

Brian Eng:

Yeah. Generally, the paradox will happen, which is when you are forced to play a card that can't exist based on the other cards that have played. And by that we mean, so at any point because your cards don't have suits... I think red is always trump in that game. So you can lead whatever suit you want, but at any point, you can just say, "Well, I don't have that suit, so this card is red, so it's trump," and you can take it.

But by declaring that you no longer, let's say, have blue, you now can no longer play blue cards. So you can't say that any of your cards that are in your hand are blue anymore. And I just find that really interesting. I've definitely never seen that done before where you just kind of determine on the spot, but then it actually... The act of declaring what you have changes what's in your hand, changes the weight of what's in your hand, which I thought was really neat.

Not for everyone, I don't think. I played it with a couple different groups. And some like it, some are just... I think you have to already be familiar with trick-taking, otherwise it might be a little too much at once.

Dave Eng:

Yeah, I would agree. Yeah.

Brian Eng:

So that's my trick-taking game.

Dave Eng:

And your Ladder?

Brian Eng:

Now, my ladder climbing game is a little older, actually quite a bit older. And you mentioned it earlier. And I did not know the name of it until recently. And I may not have been playing it by the full proper rules because someone just introduced it to me, and maybe we were playing a variant of it. But it's Tichu, actually.

Dave Eng:

Oh, nice.

Brian Eng:

I think I played this in university. But we played with a regular deck of cards. My understanding is that there's some extra cards in a real Tichu deck, so we didn't have those. But essentially, it is a ladder climbing game played in teams, kind of like the Euchre setup. You sit across from your teammate. That's a four-player game.

And again, you're trying to shed your cards. The hierarchy here, what I liked was it goes by poker hands, which was neat. I'd not seen that. That was kind of different. Generally, it's always the pairs and singles or even straights, things like that. So this was a use-all, that you can do full houses, all kinds of stuff.

But the team thing was interesting because at the beginning of each round, each player has to pass a card to the player on their left and the player on their right, which are your opponents. So there becomes this little bit of a meta, where you generally come to an agreement that you always pass... We did... I think you always pass odd cards to your left and even cards to your right.

And the reasoning behind that is if you and your partner, you don't know what you're passing... You generally want to pass low cards, but if we both pass twos to the same player, we've now given them a pair. So by making sure you're doing even and odds, you're trying to not give them better cards instead of your worst cards or whatever.

So, yeah, there's an interesting dynamic there. And it kind of had that Euchre feeling because you're playing with limited information with a teammate. It also had some betting in it, or at least we played with betting. I think the real game has betting. So when you get your cards, you can declare Tichu. We didn't say Tichu. That's why I didn't know the game. I forget what we said.

And basically, you're saying that you are betting that you're going to be the first one out. And you get a bonus a hundred points or something like that. And an even harder thing to do is when you're dealing out the cards, you deal out the first eight cards to each player first, and you wait, and you look at your eight cards, and you can say... I think in Tichu, it's, "Grand Tichu"?

Dave Eng:

Mm-hmm.

Brian Eng:

And if you declare, "Grand Tichu" by looking only at your first eight cards, you're saying that you can get out first without the rest of the information of what the rest of your hand is going to be.

Dave Eng:

Wow.

Brian Eng:

And if you can do that, you get 200 points, I think, on top of whatever the points is. And then you play it at whatever, like, 1500 or something like that.

Dave Eng:

Wow, yeah.

Brian Eng:

And there's other points you get for, depending on when you get out, how many cards the other team has left and stuff like that.

Dave Eng:

Nice.

Brian Eng:

Yeah, it was an interesting Euchre-like ladder climbing game instead of trick-taking.

Dave Eng:

Well, now I really want to play Tichu. It's been talked about in many circles, and it's been on my want-to-play list for a while, but it just sounds really interesting, especially the whole teammates and passing-

Brian Eng:

Yeah, I need to find out what those other cards do. I think there are, like, four special cards that do something.

Dave Eng:

Yeah, yeah. All right. So I'm going to go into my favorite trick-taking and ladder climbing games. I think that one of the aspects that I consider for my favorites is that it's going to be played around multiple player counts, specifically if the game is designed for a specific player count or if it plays well at a higher player count or lower player count. For me, I really like games that are able to spread out their player count.

And I know that there are going to be trick-taking games that are optimized for two players and games that are optimized for more than two players, so so long as you've made that differentiation outside of that, I want it to scale well.

So that goes into my first one, which is my favorite trick-taking game, which Brian and I have been playing a lot on Board Game Arena right now, which is Twin Palms, which I backed on Kickstarter and I really like because there's essentially only three suits in the game. All of those suits have one wild, and then they all go from 1 to 10, and the suits have a rank order.

And basically, it's like any pair of queen palms in any number is the quote, unquote, "trump," and it goes down from there. And I really like the simplicity, although Brian and I talked about this before we started recording. The only thing I would be critical about with the game is that there is a runaway leader aspect to it, which is, especially two players, which is what we've been playing, if you get a very good lead early on in the game, you basically need to do nothing for the rest of the game, and you can just lean on the other player to prevent them from getting points. So I'd say that's the only negative aspect to it.

Brian Eng:

Right. And that problem might only exist in the two-player.

Dave Eng:

Yeah, it's not optimal for two.

Brian Eng:

Because you may be able to get enough points from the other players when there's more than two. I've only played it with you at two players.

Dave Eng:

Yeah. I played it at all player counts, but... I still think it plays well at two players. It's just that if you get behind, it's not likely you will catch up in Twin Palms.

My favorite ladder climbing game is a game that we've already mentioned before, which is SCOUTS. It's by Oink Games, which I'm a big fan of that publisher. I like that it's a small-box design. I feel like it's a very intuitive, but also interesting game design, specifically with not being able to rearrange the cards in your hand. You're climbing up the ladder, which is a familiar mechanic.

And it's a nice game to play, and you get a real sense of euphoria for playing a better set than your opponents and going out first. And I just think, at least since the recording of this episode, it is my favorite ladder climbing game out there because of its simplicity and how fun it is to play.

Brian Eng:

Yeah, I definitely have to try that one out, so maybe our next time we're together, make sure you bring that one in.

Dave Eng:

Yeah, yeah, I've got that...

Brian Eng:

We can get one in there. Because, yeah, I mean, again, there's some mechanics that kind of push me away from it, but I got to try it. It's definitely... Enough people like it that I got to at least try it.

Dave Eng:

Yeah, yeah. But again, at least three. It's not a two-player game.

Brian Eng:

Yeah. That seems like it would play better with more players.

Dave Eng:

Yeah, it's better with more players. I'd say five is the optimal, I think.

Brian Eng:

Like four or five? Yeah.

Dave Eng:

Yeah.

Brian Eng:

Okay. So that is our major examples of our double episode here today. So we'll move on to the... We don't have a catchy name for this section, but the aspects of the mechanics.

Dave Eng:

Yeah. So, starting with the last episode, what Brian and I are trying to do right now is we will find common aspects about this mechanic, and then we're going to discuss those particular aspects in order here. So I believe, Bri, correct me if I'm wrong, I've got six different aspects we're going to cover today for these two mechanics.

Brian Eng:

Correct.

Dave Eng:

Is that right?

Brian Eng:

Yeah. That's what I got.

Dave Eng:

And are we also going to lead off with initiative here with a new roll?

Brian Eng:

Yeah, I'm ready to roll here when you are.

Dave Eng:

All right, so 3, 2, 1, roll.

Brian Eng:

All right.

Dave Eng:

I have 14.

Brian Eng:

Oh, I got a natural 1.

Dave Eng:

Natural 1.

Brian Eng:

Critical fail.

Dave Eng:

Critical fail. All right, so shared aspect number one that we're going to discuss is easy-to-learn and accessible rules. So we talked about this before, and I think this is a debatable fact that trick-taking games are easy to learn if you have already played other trick-taking games before because-

Brian Eng:

Right. The trick-taking itself can be difficult, I think because... Again, I played a trick-taking game when I was so young that it's just an inherent mechanic for me. So it's hard for me to empathize when people are just learning it. But once you know the trick-taking, I think that all the small variations off of that are minor in comparison.

Dave Eng:

Oh, yeah, definitely.

Brian Eng:

So you can pick up many other games once you learn the basics of the major mechanic being trick-taking.

Dave Eng:

Yeah, yeah. That's what I wrote down here in my notes. So you need to know common vernacular of trick-taking games. And I think those common words I've written down here are, "the lead, following, a trump suit-

Brian Eng:

Trump.

Dave Eng:

"... Must play," because-

Brian Eng:

Tricks.

Dave Eng:

Tricks, yeah. Well, there's must-play too, right, because there's some trick-taking-

Brian Eng:

Right. Right.

Dave Eng:

... games where if you have a card of that suit, you have to play it.

Brian Eng:

Yeah, there's definitely-

Dave Eng:

Whereas, with others, you don't have to.

Brian Eng:

I think that's harder for younger players of kind of an honor system in requiring to follow suit and things like that. You just have to know that that's the game, and you have to do it. And again, it just becomes natural if you played a lot of those games, but I can understand why if you've never been introduced to that, it would take a bit to kind of understand those rules right away.

Dave Eng:

Yeah, exactly. I go back to my instance with Spades. When I first learned that, I was like, "What prevents me from just cheating right now? Because I don't really know why I wouldn't just play off the rules." But my example here for easy-to-learn and accessible rules is actually a card game I had turned to right as the pandemic started when we were all just sequestered at home, is The Fox in the Forest. Are you familiar with that game, Brian?

Brian Eng:

I am, yes. Yeah.

Dave Eng:

So that's a two-player trick-taking game. Brian brought up Sail before, S-A-I-L, which is also a two-player trick-taking game. That is a cooperative game. The Fox in the Forest is a two-player competitive trick-taking game. And I think that if you're going to start with trick-taking with someone that's never played trick-taking games before and doesn't want to play something like Hearts or Spades or Euchre or anything else like that, Fox in the Forest would be my go-to as a shining example for easy-to-learn and accessible rules. How about you, Brian?

Brian Eng:

Yeah, I think Fox in the Forest is a good starter one, especially if you are just learning, if it's, like, two people just learning. You don't really want to have a big group and trying to learn something like that, I think. It's simple. It's a quick game. I think that's a perfect gateway for trick-taking games.

Dave Eng:

Yeah, exactly. Cool. How about you?

Brian Eng:

Yeah. Again, I think we kind of set it kind of the same, the trick-taking itself can be difficult for some people to pick up, but once you understand that, it kind of opens up many variations. And, I mean, it's been around for quite some time, trick-taking, so it's just in there in a lot of games, which, for gamers, maybe it's one of those things that makes them annoying explainers because they just don't understand why you can't understand trick-taking but... But, yeah, yeah.

Dave Eng:

It is difficult, if you've never played a trick-taking game before, to wrap your head around it. It's not easy.

Brian Eng:

Right. And I think you explain games more often, so you've probably seen it more-

Dave Eng:

Oh, yeah.

Brian Eng:

... where people are having difficulty understanding the concepts of trick-taking.

Dave Eng:

Very often.

Brian Eng:

All right. Should we move on to... I've got quick-to-play.

Dave Eng:

Sure. I will lead off on this one?

Brian Eng:

Sure. Yeah.

Dave Eng:

All right. So, on quick-to-play, like you said before, I agree trick-taking is an easier mechanic to learn, especially if you played other trick-taking games before because there's generally lower complexity. Usually, with trick-taking games, you're looking at cards, and those cards are going to have two values. You're looking at suits, and you're looking at numbers on the cards, so those values there. Same thing with ladder climbing games. However, now, you're usually combining cards with different suits and different numbers to form, like, melds or sets or whatever you'd like to call it.

So you brought this up before because you were saying about me teaching games. I teach games often, usually a few new games to the same group of gamers each week. And I can say the shared aspect number two here for quick play, the easiest, the easiest trick-taking game that I've ever explained, I picked up at the last PAX Unplugged, one because it was on deep discount and two, it just had really cute art... Brian, have you heard of this game called Gudetama: The Tricky Egg Card Game?

Brian Eng:

No, I have not.

Dave Eng:

Are you familiar with Gudetama? Because I was not familiar with...

Brian Eng:

No.

Dave Eng:

Gudetama is apparently this Japanese... And apologies to everyone out there that's listening that's a Gudetama fan. But it's a Japanese anime about an egg, like a yolk and an egg that just has an attitude. Basically, all the cards are the egg sitting on an avocado or sitting on a sandwich or sitting on a frying pan just-

Brian Eng:

Gotcha.

Dave Eng:

... saying really snarky things, basically. If you're looking for a highly-thematic card game about Gudetama, this is not the game for you because the theme ends there. It is just cards with Gudetama saying snarky things on the cards. But what is easy to teach about this game is that, unlike what I just said before, where there are suits and values, this game only has values on the cards, numbers 1 to 14.

Brian Eng:

Right, right, right.

Dave Eng:

And this may anger some people that I would say are trick-taking purists, but in Gudetama, each round is made up of a series of nine tricks because everyone gets dealt nine cards. And then you play tricks like you normally would, when someone leads and then you have to follow. However, the follow is contextual, meaning that if I play a five, Bri, if you're going to go after me, you have two options. You can play a five from your hand, you can play any card that's higher than a five, or if you can't do either of those, you have to play the lowest card in your hand.

And the reason you're doing this is because, and this is a common misconception online that I'll address in a moment, is that people say that the eight tricks leading up to the last trick don't matter because only on the last trick matters. Because whoever wins that last trick is going to use the card in their hand that they won. Say it's, like, a 14. They're going to put it in front of them, and you get 14 points. But points are bad. You want to have the least number of points in Gudetama.

So people say, "Why am I playing these eight tricks? I'm just trying to... Only the last trick matters." And it's like, "No, the tricks leading up to it is curating your hand so that when you play the last trick, you do not win it because you don't want to win it."

Brian Eng:

Right. Right, right, right.

Dave Eng:

And there's some variations here, but I have yet to find a trick-taking game that is easier than this to teach because it has no suits. It only has values, and it only has those two rules. How about you, Bri?

Brian Eng:

Yeah. Again, one of the things that I like about trick-taking games is that they are quick to play. I mean, I'm going to speak to these now as someone who does understand trick-taking. But generally, if you're playing with a group of people a trick-taking game and everyone knows about trick-taking, those rounds are going to go quick. Those turns are going to go fairly quick.

It's usually you can make those decisions pretty quickly when it's your turn. You usually have your options limited before the other players have played, so when it comes around to your turn, it's down to a couple options anyways. And that's definitely something that is a big positive about trick-taking for me.

And ladder climbing, maybe not quite as quick as trick-taking because of the fact that you kind of have to look at different combinations that could be in your hand. But generally, if you're playing with people that are familiar with the mechanics, it's also pretty quick as well.

And yeah, I just find it just keeps you engaged, and it helps, especially with larger player counts, that you're not waiting forever for your turn. It's just moving around quick. There's only so much information you need to see as it's going around too, even though it's going quickly, that it's fairly easy to keep up with that as it's going around.

Dave Eng:

Right. Right. Yeah. So for shared aspect number three that Brian brought up before, competitive and solo. We discussed this before, at least on our side of the family, the Eng family is a very competitive group, and I feel that with trick-taking and ladder climbing games, that competitiveness shows because you're always comparing yourself against others.

And I feel like no matter what trick-taking Game or ladder climbing game you're playing, initiative is important because you gain more information by playing later, or you have initiative in order to go out first if it's a card-shedding game, which is often combined with ladder climbing games.

Although, and before I bring up my game, Bri, this aspect is called competitive and solo. Do you know any solo trick-taking and ladder climbing games? Or do you want to save it for your response here?

Brian Eng:

I think there is a solo variant also for The Crew because-

Dave Eng:

Oh, yeah.

Brian Eng:

... when I was looking up the rules for the two-player variant, for the Jarvis variant for The Crew, I think I saw a document for it. I didn't go and read it, but I think there is one for that game. ladder climbing? No, off the top of my head, I can't think of one.

Dave Eng:

Oh, okay.

Brian Eng:

It's generally competitive, or cooperative, or team-based. There's actually quite a bit of team-based, I think.

Dave Eng:

Yeah, which is also funny because we don't like team-based games.

Brian Eng:

Yeah, well, that's just half cooperative so...

Dave Eng:

Exactly. But on competitive aspects... And, regardless, I think a common element for all trick-taking and ladder climbing games is the competitive aspect. But one game I recently picked up as a gift is... Do you know the game, Bri, TACOCAT Spelled Backwards by the people who put together Exploding Kittens?

Brian Eng:

Yeah, I think I do know that one. I've never played it, but I think I'm aware of that one, yeah.

Dave Eng:

It was on deep discount at the Marshalls I went to, so I felt compelled to buy it mostly for myself, but I've since gifted it now. But, essentially, when I was reading the rules, which is a very small pamphlet, it is essentially like a trick-taking game because you're just comparing values for cards, and again, initiative is going to be important, but it combines this tug-of-war aspect, where when you are going to play rounds, one round is made up of series of tricks, and whoever wins the last trick is going to move the token one space closer to them, which is the tug-of-war aspect. And once it reaches one player's side, that player wins.

So it's not billed as a trick-taking game, but based on the description and the rules and everything, that's essentially what it feels like. And it's one of those small-box games that is meant for two players, but is... I don't know if it's a benefit to not call it a trick-taking game, but I think it's one of those.

Brian Eng:

Yeah, I am not familiar with the rules. I've just seen it. I think it shows up on Amazon deep-discount games too.

Dave Eng:

Yeah. Well, I'm hoping that my nephew, who I gifted it to, will open it on Christmas, and then we can play it.

Brian Eng:

Nice. Yeah. Okay, so we'll move on to synergy with other mechanics.

Dave Eng:

Yeah, this is shared aspect number four, synergy with other mechanics. So here, I wrote that, "trick-taking is a comparative example where you always have to evaluate units, those tricks in successive order." You've talked about this with other examples here before.

So this makes it that basic element for players to base their understanding on. So, like with action drafting, it's place a worker, take an action, et cetera. You brought this up before, Bri, where you were saying that it's relatively simple to follow along because you are communally resolving this one action. One player has led a card, and now we have to follow it and resolve all the way around the table. And once we do that, that trick is over, and then we move on to the next trick. I think the way you compartmentalize information with trick-taking games is very discreet. You can tell, "This is the thing we're working on right now."

Brian Eng:

Right. I mean, to an extent, I would say, if you're talking about things like Euchre, you definitely want to... A more advanced play would be that you're counting those cards as well.

Dave Eng:

Yeah, you should be tracking.

Brian Eng:

Definitely, in Hearts, you want to count those hearts and see what's left out there, keep it in your head, that kind of thing. But generally speaking, what you have to keep track of is on the table.

Dave Eng:

Yeah, yeah, exactly. But this aspect is called synergy with other mechanics. And we've discussed this before, Brian, but I don't think you've played it since when I brought it up originally. But the game is called Brian Boru: High King of Ireland. Are you familiar with this game?

Brian Eng:

Yeah, you've talked about it before, but I have not played it.

Dave Eng:

So this is one where, again, once you know the mechanics of how trick-taking games work, Brian Boru is a trick-taking game. However, the winners and losers of tricks determine area control on a map, which I think is a really, really cool combination of these two mechanics. Because prior to this, we'll talk about it a little bit, like this new renaissance of trick-taking games, I really hadn't seen trick-taking married with area control, so I thought that was a really interesting aspect.

Brian Eng:

Yeah. I think that the success of The Crew has led people to try and push it to combine it with other mechanics. Because, I mean, I just think of the older games again. Haggis has bidding in with it. Tichu had bidding as well in the sense that you're making that declaration that you're going to go out first. It's kind of like bidding and kind of like push-your-luck. I don't know what you would call it. But in Hearts where you have to either make that decision that you're going to try and take everything, it's like the opposite of push-your-luck.

Dave Eng:

Yeah. You have to... "How conservatively can I play?"

Brian Eng:

Yeah. You play conservative until you're not playing conservative anymore. But you don't want to... So for those who are not familiar with Hearts, it's basic trick-taking follow suit, and you're trying to get the least number of points. And every time you take a heart, each heart is worth one point. The only other card that is an exception is the queen of spades is worth 13 points. And you play the full deck, and you're trying to take the least number of hearts, but everybody is trying to avoid them. If one person takes all of them, everyone else gets 26 points. Or is it everyone else gets, or you go down 26? I can't remember what it is, but-

Dave Eng:

It's the shoot-the-moon aspect where you can do so badly it's good.

Brian Eng:

Right. And so everyone's trying to avoid this, and they want to have all low cards so they don't take any tricks. But if everyone does that and one player decides... Has a really good hand, well, they can just clean house and take everything and either punish everyone or reward themselves. And I always thought that was actually really interesting. It kind of reminds me of Blood Rage, the Loki strategy.

Dave Eng:

Of just killing your Vikings?

Brian Eng:

Of killing your Vikings and getting points for it and going into big battles and just getting points for causing chaos. But yeah, so again, it's another twist on... An addition. Again, I don't know what you would call that from a mechanic standpoint, but...

Dave Eng:

Yeah, no, no, I don't really have a name for it.

Brian Eng:

Sorry, I think I interrupted your thought there.

Dave Eng:

No, that was it. That was it for number four for synergy with other mechanics for me.

Brian Eng:

Right. Yeah. Yeah. I think bidding and bluffing is big in trick-taking.

Dave Eng:

Yeah. We see that. That's a common element I've seen.

Brian Eng:

Twin Palms has bidding in it as well. I think the bluffing has a lot to do with... Because a lot of trick-taking, I think, is that control about whether or not you want the lead a lot of the times. And so you're kind of bluffing on whether you're playing your highest cards and trying to take a trick or trying not to take a trick and that kind of thing. Okay. So we'll move on to replayability or repetitiveness.

Dave Eng:

Yeah. So this is shared aspect number five-

Brian Eng:

Number five, yeah.

Dave Eng:

... replayability and repetitiveness. So I don't know if it's hyperbolic for me to say that these games are infinitely replayable. I think that they definitely have a following, based on what you shared before about President, because you don't really keep track of points, you just kind of played it to pass the time. It's more of a pastime than anything else.

Brian Eng:

Right.

Dave Eng:

But I don't know if I could play one of these trick-taking or ladder climbing games ceaselessly. But I can always see myself coming back to them. And one of the games that I'm going to cite here that we've played a lot on Board Game Arena so far is Haggis, which is... It's ladder climbing, but I think that there's enough in there and there's enough variety, even though the mechanics fundamentally don't change, where it's still interesting for me to play several different games in a row. How about you, Bri? What do you think?

Brian Eng:

Right. I agree. And I don't know if this is maybe something that's changed over time because I definitely can sit there and play Euchre every single day in the cafeteria in high school and not get tired of it. But I don't think that that would be the case now. And I don't know if that's because all these other interesting games exist.

And I think that that can be mitigated a little bit in what we've seen with things like The Crew, where they give you the same mechanics to play, but each of the missions kind of gives you a little twist and keeps it interesting. I mean, there's a lot of missions, but even though there's a finite number of missions, if each of those missions adds that you could play that mission, like, 30 times, well, that's a huge extension to the life of that game.

Dave Eng:

Yeah, definitely. Definitely.

Brian Eng:

And I think by adding that variability, you just extend that replayability. But we might just be spoiled because we play all these games. But if those games don't exist in your world and you have Hearts and Euchre... I mean, I did play those many, many, many times-

Dave Eng:

Many times, yeah.

Brian Eng:

... probably a lot more than I've played some of the games that I own now. But that's what I had. So I don't know if it's just that they held interest or that's what existed then.

Dave Eng:

Yeah. Yeah.

Brian Eng:

Let's go on number six, our final one here, which I think this is similar to our competitive and solo, or we covered it a little bit, and that is player count.

Dave Eng:

And number six, works with a variety of player counts. So we covered this and you talked about it, Bri, which is, both trick-taking and ladder climbing games... And I talked a little bit about too, about scaling well to different player counts. There're going to be games that are for two players. There're going to be games for more players. There are going to be some games that will scale up higher, but there's an optimal player count.

However, I don't think that means that... Again, games are not a monolith. There'll be some games that work with better... Some player counts over others. So some of the best and most contemporary examples I have here is one game I've actually been playing a lot, Brian, and I think that you'd really enjoy it because it's also by Oink, which published SCOUT. Do you know the game Tiger & Dragon?

Brian Eng:

No. I think I'm thinking of.... It's not a trick-taking game. I think I was thinking of... Is it Lady and the Tiger or something like that?

Dave Eng:

That's a card game, but no, that's not it.

Brian Eng:

No, I think the title just made me think... I'm not familiar with Tiger.

Dave Eng:

Tiger & Dragon. So I'll give you a quick overview, and I'll explain it to the listeners as well. But Tiger & Dragon is a... Not necessarily trick-taking game. I would call it a card-shedding game because you're trying to get rid of all of the cards in front of you, which, in this game, it's tiles. They look like Mahjong tiles. But it's like you are a fighter in a dojo.

And I think that this game plays best with two or four players. It plays up to five, but I think three and five players are not good because it's best in teams or against each other. But the tiles are all odd and even numbers all the way up to eight, one through eight. All of the odd numbers are red. All of the even numbers are blue. And basically, and I think this is what's interesting about it, you're basically fighting each other, but you're playing these tiles.

So, Bri, you could lead and attack and you'd be like, "I'm going to attack you with a seven." And then all of the tiles are distributed in the deck according to their value. So if you play a seven, there's seven tiles floating around somewhere. So then I can say, "Well, I'm going to defend your seven by flipping over my seven, and I'm going to attack you with a two." And then there's only two tiles in the deck, so if you can't defend against that two, you got to pass, and it comes back to me, then I get to lead again.

So it's really, really good to play at two and four players. I think four is actually the best when you play in teams because, like you talked about it before with the meta, you're like, "Okay, well, I think my teammate is on their way to... They're going to shed, so I'm going to set this up to get them to shed, but then they'll choke last minute and we lose or something."

But I'd say Tiger & Dragon is one of those games that is... It has a bigger scale for player counts, but it's really best at two or four. You brought up Sail, Bri, which unfortunately, I haven't played, but we both own, which is a two-player cooperative trick-taking game that we haven't played yet.

And then I also have cited the game Gorus Maximus, which is a trick-taking game. And it plays up to eight players, but it is very, very chaotic at eight players. Well, but you said it before. You played President with, like, 12...

Brian Eng:

Yeah.

Dave Eng:

Or, like, with 12 people. But again, I don't know if you were really trying to keep score at that point. But for me, I think that there's so wide a variety of player counts here with trick-taking games and ladder climbing games that it's hard to section it into one area.

Brian Eng:

Right. Yeah. And one thing I think I do notice with the player count is that, especially with the trick-taking games, I think a game can be designed to work well at whatever the player count is. But I do notice for trick-taking, generally four players. And I think it works particularly well in this two vs. two team format. There's a lot of games where that just works well.

And, again, I think it goes back to that, similar to what we talked about with The Crew, your teammate is kind of just part of you solving the puzzle because you have imperfect information. You know that they're going to try and help you, but you don't know what they have. And you can kind of make some educated guess based on their plays, but generally, you're just using... It's another puzzle piece, which I always find interesting for varying the play.

And maybe that's why games like Euchre can have that long life because the variance of who your partner is and how they play can evolve over time. You play with the same group, and you kind of create these meta plays and things. And I'm sure that happens in Euchre and those older games too.

Dave Eng:

And you said it before, when we were talking about The Crew, where it is possible to track information if you just remember what cards are played. But it isn't always possible to track player intent, especially if you're trying to anticipate what they're going to do to help your team win. And that's, I think, an interesting challenge that a lot of people pick up on.

Brian Eng:

Yeah. And that can even be a trap. Thinking about The Crew, and I can't think of a specific instance, but I'm sure it happened, where you'll play a mission, and at one point, someone will have to go one way with a decision. Usually, it's, "Do I take this trick high, or do I go low and pass off the lead?" And they'll choose the wrong one for the situation. So the mission will fail.

You play again. That situation might come up again. And now, everyone is second guessing, is like, "Okay, well, do I do the same thing because then people know that's how I play it, or do I try and fix that and second-guess what everyone else is thinking?" And you get caught into this kind of, yeah, that trying to second-guess and jump ahead and, "Are they second-guessing?" that kind of thing. And that's the fun of, I guess, the limited communication.

Dave Eng:

Yeah.

Brian Eng:

All right.

Dave Eng:

You want to move on to twists and variations?

Brian Eng:

Sure.

Dave Eng:

Okay. So are we rolling again for initiative?

Brian Eng:

Yes. We'll do our initiative. I'm ready.

Dave Eng:

3, 2, 1. Oh, no. Critical fail, 1.

Brian Eng:

Okay. Oh, a lot of critical. I got 17 so...

Dave Eng:

Crushed.

Brian Eng:

Okay. So I don't have a ton in this area. I feel that we covered a lot of the variation just talking about different games because part of this is that trick-taking and ladder climbing are kind of a very base mechanic, so all the games kind of vary off that.

But just to go through some, some common variations to trick-taking is the type of deck that you're using, whether that's your standard 52, a portion, like Euchre uses a portion of the 52 card deck, or a completely custom deck, like Tichu is supposed to use, which I never played properly. Or Haggis has its own cards-

Dave Eng:

Special deck.

Brian Eng:

The... What is it? Twin Palms has their own special deck, things like that. So that's one variation that is pretty common in trick-taking, is that, what is your deck composed of?

Dave Eng:

Right, right.

Brian Eng:

Should we just go back and forth here? Maybe you want to give one?

Dave Eng:

Sure. One of my twists and variations?

Brian Eng:

One of your twists or variations, yeah.

Dave Eng:

So we've talked about this in multiple AP Table Talk episodes right now, and I think that if you've listened to this show long enough, you'll know that I am a fan of seeing novel mechanics mashed up together. So, again, for this one, because trick-taking

 is such a simple, elegant mechanic, it really lends itself to being mashed up with other mechanics differently.

There's this one game, as of this recording, that I think is the latest iteration in using trick-taking in this way. Brian, have you heard of this game called My Favourite Things? It was on Kickstarter recently.

Brian Eng:

I think I saw the campaign, but I don't think I looked into it too much. The name sounds familiar, but go ahead and give us a summary.

Dave Eng:

Sure. So it was bundled with another game, but My Favourite Things is the one that really shine here because this combines flip-and-write and a party game with trick-taking, which, to me, it just sounds insane because I'm like, "How do you combine those things?" But this is it.

And listen to it and tell me what you think about it because I thought it was very intriguing. So you hand someone a deck of, like, six cards, and these cards are all numbered one through five, and then one that has a star, I think, on it. And then you give them a category. If I were to give it to you, Bri, I'd be like, "The category is favorite sci-fi movies."

So then you, Bri, you would write in secret on a dry erase, because you then put this card in a sleeve, your top five favorite sci-fi movies in order. So on the one card, your number one, all the way down to five. And on the star card, you put actually a sci-fi movie you hate.

So then, after you write all that, you slide it back into the sleeve. So now all I can see is what you wrote, but not the number. And then, this is what I think is interesting, you play a trick. So someone will lead off and be like, "Well, this person..." Because everyone's exchanging their cards with other players. And it's like, someone wrote... Or someone just throws down a card and just says, "Pumpkin," because their list of categories was favorite pies.

So now you're like, "Okay, well is pumpkin their five, or is it their three?" And then other players are like, "Pumpkin," and then, "Ocean's Eleven," and then, "Alien Special Edition." And then you open up the cards to see who played the highest number. So if someone played the five, they win the trick, but if someone played the star or the one that they hate of that category, they win the trick.

So I was like, "Oh man, I hate it because I should have thought about this. This is genius," when I first thought about it. Because I'm like, "How do you combine these things?" This is how you do it. So I'm very excited to get that game in the mail because I haven't seen nothing like it.

Brian Eng:

Yeah, that sounds pretty fun. I've definitely never heard of anything like that.

Dave Eng:

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I'm excited. When I saw it, I was like, "Wow, genius. I'm so excited that someone has iterated on this."

Brian Eng:

All right. So the next one that I'll talk about here, and my example goes to trick-taking, more specifically, is the goal of... In that, I mean, are you trying to take more or less tricks or all the tricks? Or something that's different that I hadn't seen before in a game that we played on Board Game Arena, Jekyll vs. Hyde, I don't know if you had played that before.

Dave Eng:

Yeah. I have the physical version too.

Brian Eng:

Okay. So I had not played that before. And it's a two-player trick-taking game. And one player is Dr. Jekyll and the other is Mr. Hyde. And what I found interesting was the way they split the goals for them is that Dr. Jekyll is trying to keep the number of tricks won equal between Mr. Hyde and Dr. Jekyll, whereas Mr. Hyde is trying to make it have a discrepancy, either lose all of them or win all of them.

Dave Eng:

Oh, now I know why I've been losing.

Brian Eng:

Oh, did you think you only went for winning?

Dave Eng:

I thought I was only the neutral one.

Brian Eng:

No, no. It's just about-

Dave Eng:

So I've been playing the real game wrong.

Brian Eng:

... equal or discrepancy, which is... Yeah, okay, that explains our last game because I think I had a...

Dave Eng:

Crushed me.

Brian Eng:

I think I took all or gave you all or whatever, but anyways. Yeah, and that was interesting in that, again, it gives you that bluffing because you don't know if Mr. Hyde is going for taking all of them or taking none of them. Dr. Jekyll could be a little more reactionary when you're playing that. Because you switch so that it keeps it even or equal.

But I thought that was really interesting. I don't think I've seen that where one side's trying to keep the hands equal and the other's trying to just make it as more...

Dave Eng:

Lopsided.

Brian Eng:

Usually, one's going for either... You're either going for everything or going for nothing. So that was interesting to me.

Dave Eng:

Well, now that I know how you play that game, I find that as very interesting because now I'm going to go into the next game and be like, "Okay, I know how to play this now."

So my variation here that I am going to address is... I call this one less is more. So because trick-taking and ladder climbing games are still relatively simple, is there anything you can take away from them that still iterates on it? And you brought this up before, Bri, which is Cat in the Box, which is, you have the deck of cards with the values on them, but in keeping with the theme of paradox and the Cat in the Box, none of those value cards have a suit. You identify what that suit is when you play it, which I think speaks to the theme.

So I kind of want to know, is there a way to remove any of these aspects of these games and still have them work? For a ladder climbing game, I'm thinking, could you combine this with TACOCAT Spelled Backwards, where it is more of a tug-of-war, it's not just constantly going up the ladder? Or if you could make it so that it's kind of like Razz? It's a type of poker, it's seven-card stud, but it's to play the worst hand of poker. It's not playing for a high card. So could you play a ladder climbing game where you're climbing down? Could you play a ladder climbing game where it is a tug-of-war mechanic or something else like that? I'd like to see what you could take away.

Brian Eng:

I'm sure you could play one going down. I feel like that'd be very similar, but I think what would be interesting is finding a way to make it work where if it's teams or two players or something like that, one is trying to make it go up and one is trying to make it go down, or there is something tied to making it go up or down so that you have that as an option. "Oh, do I want to save these lower ones for when I need to make it go down?" or, "I want to reduce it, but I don't want to reduce it too much because I don't want the other player to be able to make it go up," that kind of thing. Yeah, I think that could be explored, for sure.

Dave Eng:

Yeah. That sounds interesting. I don't know. I can't really think of any game that does exactly that right now, but if you are listening to this and are thinking about it, please do so.

Brian Eng:

Go design it and then publish it so that we can play it.

Dave Eng:

Exactly.

Brian Eng:

Yeah, I don't have a lot here for twists and variations that we didn't really cover in our spring, so if you've got anything else...

Dave Eng:

Yeah, I just have one, and we addressed this before in passing, but I just want to talk about it right now. I really think that there's a renaissance in motion right now with trick-taking games in that, again, it's an older mechanic, but as of the recording of this episode, I think, Brian, we both backed that same campaign with the four different trick-taking games bundled together, Pies, Mori, Bacon, and Lunar. Did you also back that?

Brian Eng:

I was going to, but I think I only wanted some of them, and I think I had a lot in my backlog of things I had just backed. So I didn't, but I knew that you were getting it.

Dave Eng:

Okay, well, I guess I'm going to bring those up next time we see each other.

Brian Eng:

I think Bacon was the one I wanted to play, but...

Dave Eng:

I mean, they're all trick-taking games, so I guess, so long as we can get a third player, I think we're going to get them at the table. But I want to know now, will there be a renaissance of other quote, unquote, "old mechanics," like roll-and-move, which Monopoly is famous for, for rolling, and then you just move that many spaces-

Brian Eng:

I mean, I think there has been a little bit for roll-and-writes.

Dave Eng:

Yep, that's true.

Brian Eng:

Flip-and-writes and roll-and-writes, those have come up a little bit, but I think it just takes someone to refresh it in an interesting way, and then, all of a sudden, people get these ideas because it's like, "Oh, I kind of forgot about that mechanic," and start thinking about it, right? And it just takes that one to get big enough, though, to kind of widespread. And again, I think that The Crew had a major part in that because it just was so popular.

Dave Eng:

Yeah, and still is popular. I mean, popular enough to have a sequel, right?

Brian Eng:

Right, yeah.

Dave Eng:

Yeah, those are all my twists and variations, Bri.

Brian Eng:

All right. Okay. So I wanted to just say something in here before we get to our outro. So when we started doing this podcast and planning for it, we had kind of tried to figure out the mechanics we were going to go over. So we had come up with these six. And then we said, "Okay, let's do these. We'll see how it goes."

And, I mean, there's plenty of mechanics to go through, but I think I just wanted to put a call-out here to any of our listeners. If there's something specific that you want us to cover, if there's aspects of what we talk about that you think are more interesting... I know we've discussed our kind of twists and variations. I'm just going to say it. I've gotten a little bored with that segment of our podcast, so if there's a way that that would be more interesting to the listeners, hop on the University XP website and send a message and let us know.

Or if you're seeing this through the YouTube channel, put a comment in there and let us know what you want to hear. It might take a bit for that to reach us because I think we got a backlog of what you're releasing for episodes. So when this hits and we get that information. But for sure, we would welcome that feedback.

Dave Eng:

Yeah, that would be appreciative. This was kind of like a communal brainchild of ours to put this together, but if you have some insight on what would make a more useful episode, we'd be happy to hear it.

Brian Eng:

Yeah, that's it. Okay. So I think that wraps up our trick-taking and ladder climbing episode of AP Table Talk. If you'd like to hear more content like this, please be sure to subscribe. You can also check out more of our content, projects, and other information about us at www.universityxp.com.

Dave Eng:

So thanks for joining us, everyone. We'd love it if you took some time to rate the show. Again, we live to lift others with learning, so if you found this episode useful, consider sharing it with someone who could also benefit. So, until next time, game on!

References:

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Cite this Episode:

Eng, D. & Eng, B. (Hosts). (2024, July 14). AP Table Talk Trick Taking ladder climbing. (No. 116) [Audio podcast episode]. Experience Points. University XP. https://www.universityxp.com/podcast/116

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