The 25 trick-taking games I played in one weekend
I recently attended the first-ever TTUTCON, the Trick-Takers of Utah Convention. These are the 25 trick-taking games that I played that weekend.
Around the U.S. (and presumably outside the U.S.), it’s become increasingly common to see small, play-focused trick-taking conventions emerge. From PGC Con in Portland to T3C in Texas, folks have been gathering to play trick-taking games. This year, the first-ever TTUTCON — the Trick-takers of Utah Convention — took place in Layton, Utah, not far from where I lived for a bit over a decade. As such, the opportunity to attend was one I simply couldn’t pass up.
TTUTCON’s inaugural year (I say inaugural only with the hope that this convention happens again in 2025, not with any foreknowledge) was about as good an experience as I could have hoped for. The games were plentiful owing to the organizers and even some attendees bringing boxes upon boxes of games (I’ve included a weird panorama below that I took — it’s for illustration, so I’ll take the weirdness of the shot in stride), with game rules readily available with some handy links to Google Drive. There were hundreds of games available, from the newest trick-taking hotness out of Japan (see: The Kakapo) to German-designed classics long out of print (see: Bargain Hunter). It made for an incredible two days of play, and I could have spent weeks longer playing games without much repetition.
You’re here for the games, though. Rest assured, if this happens again, and I have the opportunity to attend as I did this year, I’ll be making my way back to Utah once again.
Day Zero — before the convention
Rebel Princess: This is one of two trick-takers I played with friends in Salt Lake City before the convention started (the other is Enemy Anenome, which comes next.) It’s an interesting spin on Hearts, in that it’s basically that game but with a theme — avoid too many marriage proposals from princes — and with some significant chaos thrown into the mix. It’s not that “anything can happen!” chaos; it’s that every round, you’ll be playing with a slightly tweaked set of rules. You might play two cards to a trick, or you might have to follow the lead card’s oddness or evenness. Each player has a princess card that gives them some ability throughout the game, too. It’s very cool, but it’s definitely not one for those who want a more deterministic game. I, for one, like it a lot. Designed by Daniel Byrne, José Gerardo Guerrero, Kevin Peláez and Tirso Virgós. Second/deluxe edition published by Bezier Games.
Enemy Anemone: This remains one of my favorite trick-takers for groups that understand trick-taking but don’t understand the nuance of the hundreds of interesting trick-takers out there now. All that to say: It’s simple enough to explain to basically anyone who could understand, say, Skull King, but there’s enough of a game there that it’s legitimately interesting. In this underwater-themed must-not-follow trick-taker, the player who plays the lowest card in a trick gets an anemone card, which can later be used to adjust a played card by 1 or 2 in value. If you ever can’t play a card, you’ll discard a single card to score as points. I really, really like Enemy Anemone. Designed by Daniel Newman, published by New Mill Industries.
Day One
Bridge City Poker: I’ve wanted to play Bridge City Poker for a long time now. Years! Or at least one year. Maybe two. Before you get any ideas, though, no — it’s not a vriant of poker. No, thing is a climbing/shedding game themed around the bridges of Portland, Oregon. It’s a Portland Game Collective game, so that tracks, right? Yeah. Your goal is to end up shedding out, and you’ll get a tidy negative-five points for the effort. That’s good. There are power cards that provide interesting one-time benefits, but after you play one, you’ll be getting positive points. That’s bad. But at the end of every round, if you’ve not shed out, you can discard all of one suit — the game calls this “burning a bridge.” That’s good. You get positive points for every card remaining in-hand. That’s bad. Cool game! I hear it’s great with two players or with teams. I’ll have to give that a try.
Burgle Bros Trick & Take: You know how I feel about cooperative trick-taking games. (Good. I feel good about them.) That’s what Burgles Bros Trick & Take is — it’s a cooperative trick-taker wherein you’re taking loot that gives you some sort of disadvantage. This one was a prototype, so I won’t speak too much about it, but I’m excited to see where it goes. Designed by Mauricio Torselli, to be published by Fowers Games.
CATsle Builders: This was one of the last games I played the first day of the convention, and as a result, my memory’s a bit hazy, and I’ve had to jog it a bit. The basic idea here is that you have a “blueprint board” that starts with a lane for one card, then for two cards of a suit, moving up to three or four depending on your player count. When you come in first or second (or third when playing with five players) in this trick, you’ll take a one or two cards, with the last of those players having to take two. You’ll have to place those cards on your board. As a result, you’re sometimes not just trying to win a trick, but you might try to come in third — maybe late game when you’re looking to fill out your board for points. Once you’ve filled your board, you’ll end up shifting toward a trick-avoidance strategy. It’s neat, but it felt dangerous to win a trick, and thus I was not particularly good at figuring out the right balance. Designed by Fukutarou and Yozaemon Matumoto, published by Fukuroudou.
Cheez-Tricks: This game of cat-and-cheese is interesting. Each round, there are three cat cards available (and there are a bunch of cards to choose from), and they’ll “chase” the player who meets an objective on them. Maybe it’s about winning the eighth trick, or maybe it’s about getting more of one type of cheese (read: suit) than any other player, or getting the least — that sort of thing. If you’re caught by no cats, you’ll get two points per trick won. One cat, one point per trick. Two cats, no points! And if you want to really go for it, if you’re caught by all three cats, you’ll get three points per trick. It’s a pretty simple premise, but as each cat will catch at least one person, you’re going to be scratching your head as you try again and again to be caught by all three cats, failing each time. That’s my experience, at least. I like Cheez-Tricks, but it has a way of getting me to bite. Maybe if the cards weren’t themed around cheese … Designed by Mauricio Torselli, self-published. You can get a copy from Tricky Imports.
Dual (3p): Cards with two values, one on top, one on bottom. The ability to force a player to flip their hand over. Visible suits on card backs. What’s not to like? I don’t want to describe Dual as a dud, particularly, because there was something interesting here, but I think playing this at three players might have not served it super well. It felt a bit more like a two-player game. There are some interesting ideas here. I do have a copy, so I’ll have to give it a try at two players. Designed by Amelie Le-Roche, published by Zerua Games.
Eleven: No, this is not the Football Manager board game. (That one is gracefully titled Eleven: Football Manager Board Game, and I want to play it, but mostly I just want to play Football Manager again. I shouldn’t (I’m not great at stopping, like most people who play Football Manager. I digress.) This is a climbing/shedding game in which you’re playing runs in front of you, and other players can take those cards. You’ll draw cards equal to the number of suits you use in a run. Neat! When you have just a single card remaining after drawing, you score that many points, then you draw that many cards. 11 points wins you the game. This was a bit weird, but we played it toward the end of the first night, and it just felt perfect for that. Light enough to make it into our brains, fun enough to be memorable. And who can forget the iconic first line of the translated rulebook? “There is no story to this game.” Indeed. Designed by Yusuke Sato, published by New Board Game Party.
The Kakapo: Buddy & Party: Everyone’s been raving about this game online (well, not everybody — but the people who I’ve seen raving about it have really been raving), and it’s easy for me to see why. Cooperative trick-taking hit a nice stride with both iterations of The Crew, and The Kakapo iterates on cooperative trick-taking play by melding with polyomino tile placement. Basically, each game you play will feature bird tiles placed on a grid, with more and varied birds played at the different levels of difficulty. After each trick has been played, you’ll find the tile matching the winning card, then you’ll place that on the board. You’re doing all this so you can surround bird tiles, sometimes with matching colors. But you can never place tiles of the same color adjacent to each other, making this one a tricky little thing. I love this game. It was the first game of the convention I played, and now I want to play it every day. (This might be hyperbole. Then again, it might not.) Published by Chatra Games. I think they’re a design cooperative? I could be wrong. Do you know?
Monster Trick: There are four tricks going at any given time in Monster Trick. You can play to whichever you choose. You have three cards in front of you with values or 1, 2 and 3 on them (or in later rounds, 2/4/6 and 3/6/9) in an order of your choice. When you win a trick, you’ll turn over the next card, cycling back to the beginning when you reach the end. This game seemed like it was going to get chaotic, but it didn’t. It’s a real treat when a game manages to pull that off. Weirdly, this felt like a game that would have been released in the year 2000. It came out in 2015. Board games! Designed by Ralf zur Linde, published by Ravensburger.
Le Plateau: This was one of my two favorite games of the convention, I think. (The other was The Kakapo: Buddy & Party.) That’s saying a lot, because I played some truly spectacular games over the course of these two days. Le Plateau is a trick-taker that feels like it could conceivably have been played 150 years ago in France, but it’s a game that was published in 2021. That antique quality comes because the game is played with a 78-card French tarot deck and a hexagonal grid featuring tokens representing high-value cards and trick order (e.g., the first round, second round, and so on.) Players will bid to be the player (or pair of players, depending on the bid) connecting at least two sides of the board. If you’re the high bidder, when you win a trick featuring one of those cards or at that point in the round, you’ll place a token on the corresponding spaces. Bidding to connect more sides of the board nets you more points, but it’s considerably more difficult. This was such an interesting game, and I’ll never forget the first round I played — I ended up part of the connecting team with Chris Wray, and he powered us to a resounding victory in that round. We should have bid really high. We didn’t. Games that produce lasting memories are just the best. Published by BrownCastle Games, designed by Dr. Steven Brown and Raymond Gallardo. BrownCastle sells a board, but you’ll need to buy a French tarot deck separately.
Rocket Punch: I played Rocket Punch, but I remember well only two key things about it: First, the game box mistakenly spelled the game “Roket Pounch,” which made us all laugh a bit. Second, each player represents a robot training gym with names like “Flame Thrower” and — I might get this wrong, so bear with me — “Spine Smash.” Something like that. The names were great. This is a weird one, though. Also: you can only play a card to a trick if a card of that rank hasn’t been played; the player who plays the lowest value card leads the next trick; and the second-lowest player gets a gear token, which can be used to adjust the rank of a card played to a trick. I dunno, this felt a little like there were too many ideas colliding. Oh, and the player who most recently touched the robot gets to go first. That became an ongoing reference throughout the convention. Designed by Nagi-an, published by Goraku Shuzou.
Seers Catalog: It’s funny. I wrote a couple of weeks ago about how this is one of the games I’ve been wanting to play more, and here I am, having played it more. A reimplementation of Of What’s Left, Seers Catalog is a shedding game in which you don’t actually want to be the player to have shed out. That player gets zero points. All other players get negative points equal to the number of cards remaining in hand. Players who have fewer than six cards remaining score positive points equal to their lowest-ranked card in hand. Such a cool twist. Designed by Taylor Reiner, published by Bezier Games, who provided a review copy.
Short Zoot Suit: Another ‘trick-taking game with a twist’, Short Zoot Suit (I keep writing variations of “Short Zuit Soot” — ugh) has players creating a little five-card deck after they get their hand. When you play off-suit, you’ll set your card aside. You’ll earn one point for each trick you win and three points for each pair of won trick and off-suit card set aside — but if you manage to win an equal number of tricks and played off-suit cards, you’ll get five points for each pair. Again, super neat. Designed by Taylor Reiner, published by Gotcha Gotcha Games. This one’s out of print, but there’s supposedly a new version of it coming soon. Time will tell!
Day Two
Bacon (6p): I’d played Bacon at four players, and I had a nice time but it didn’t feel like anything to write home about. Bacon at six players? Hoo boy, this climbing/shedding game was a ton of fun. The focus really becomes honed in bombs, which the game calls specials. There are five types of specials, from quads (four of a kind), quints (five) and hexes (six) and straight flushes (five cards of consecutive rank in the same suit) and stretch flushes (six.) There are 10 types of meld, which the game calls combos. Oh, and each players starts the game with two wild cards, which can be used anywhere. I’m not amazing at fixed partnership games, and that can invite a sort of pressure — but this felt like a blast throughout. Designed by Sean Ross, published by Allplay.
Bargain Hunter: The Uwe Rosenberg trick-taker! Released in 1998, the year after his iconic Bohnanza, this has two interesting twists on trick-taking. First, when you play off-suit (the game’s must-follow, so you’ll have to be void), you can choose to make your off-suit card the trump suit. Second, when you win a trick, you get to collect one type — the bargain for which you’re hunting, as the cards feature things like toasters, electric razors, microwaves, that sort of thing — for which you’ll later score points. You’ll put the remaining cards face down next to you — those will be negative points. After each round, you can convert one type of face-down card into your bargain for the following round. It’s an interesting little game. Designed by Uwe Rosenberg, last published by Valley Games in 2010 — this one’s long out of print, but you can still find a copy at a reasonable price.
Boast or Nothing: This is a grail game for many, and it’s easy to see why. It’s a quick-playing, smart trick-taker in which you’re trying to either win no tricks or two tricks in a round. Somebody will always lose out. If you’re looking for a physical copy, good luck — unless you’re willing to be patient, because Portland Game Collective is slated to release the game in the U.S. as Best of Neapolitan. (Hooray!) That’s 1) such a cool theme — I love ice cream, and 2) just incredible news. Boast or Nothing played so quickly, it felt tense, and it made me want to play more. Designed by Yeon-Min Jung, published by A.ger Games (and a future version coming from Portland Game Collective.)
Elephant Ball Balancing Act: There’s perhaps some inevitability about bouncing off a game during a convention, and for me, that game was Elephant Ball Balancing Act. I never felt like I had any particular control over what I would play into a trick, and that just didn’t feel spectacular. I’d be willing to play it again, but given it’s pretty hard to get, I’m not overly worried. Still, there’s a cool idea here — only one card of each rank may be played in a trick. And you lose points for cards remaining in your hand. Like, climbing and trick-taking merged, I guess? Yeah. Designed by mor!, published by 4tousei.
Fool!: This is basically classic trick-taking — must-follow, highest value in the lead suit wins the trick. But the player who plays the worst card (the lowest value on suit card if all players are on suit, then the lowest off-suit card) receives the ‘fool’ token, and they can’t play the next round. You’ll score negative points for cards remaining in-hand, and you’ll score ten positive points if you play your last card — unless you get a fool token, in which case, you’re scoring zero. Neat stuff. Designed by Friedemann Friese, published in the U.S. by Stronghold Games.
Kansas City: The Trick-Taking Game: This was a prototype available for play, and I hope I’m able to buy a copy some day. It’s a must-follow trick-taking game in which you’re aiming to capture three tricks for maximum points (at four players; at five, it’s two tricks.) Go too far above or below that and you’ll get no points. There’s a big twist: You can upgrade your cards to the trump suit, which is represented on the back of the card, which you can then play into tricks. It’s a really cool twist, and the scoring is delightfully tricky. Designed by Chris Wray. Unpublished prototype.
Nanatoridori: I’ve played this one a few times (and it’s in beta on BGA! Neat.), and I still find it a nice, light climbing game. It’s an easy one to explain: You have a hand of cards. You can’t rearrange those cards. One player leads with one or more cards of the same value that are adjacent to each other in their hand. You follow with either a higher-ranked adjacent set or with a set that features more cards. No runs, no full houses, just sets. After you follow, you can take the cards you beat and add them anywhere in your hand, keeping them together. If you don’t follow, you’ll draw a card and choose to keep it or not. Simple! Lovely. Fun. Designed by Toshiki Arao, published by Arclight.
Peter’s Two Sheep Dogs: Trick Talkers has talked about the two-player trick-taker Peter’s Two Sheep Dogs in the past, and the premise always seemed interesting to me: It’s a trick-taking game without cards. Instead, you’re playing with little animal tokens with numbers on them. The loser of a trick gets to do a bit of a mancala, while the winner gets to place pieces in their meadows. It’s a bit wild. I think it works? Honestly, I’d need to play it again. It’s super hard to find, so I don’t think that’ll be happening any time soon. Designed by Shibu, published by Suki Games.
Spring Cleaning: As the game is only just now fulfilling after pre-orders from New Mill/Little Dog (this is a very recent event, it seems), we played this one proxied with two standard decks of cards. It’s a suit-less climbing game in which you’re making sets and runs, and you can follow another player’s meld with either a meld of the same type and higher rank, or a meld of either type and more cards. And you can’t rearrange your hand. But wait, there’s more! Each round, you’ll add one card to an offer face-up in front of you from anywhere in your hand. If you ever can’t follow a meld, you’ll draw a card, either from another player’s offer or from the deck, then you’ll offer another card. Cards that are on offer can be used in your melds when following (never when leading.) The first player to shed their hand and offer ends the round. I’ve played a ton of this one on BGA, and it was great to play it physically, too. Designed by Jonathan Cox, published by Little Dog Games, a New Mill imprint.
Vamp on the Batwalk: What a game to end the night with — this is a trick-taking game where you can only see the suit of your cards, not the ranks. Because you’re always operating on incomplete information, most of which you’ll gain by looking at the cards in other players’ hands, you’ll have to spend time deducing what you might have. There’s a cool in-suit trump mechanic (stars and garlic and their interactions — it’s cool), too. The game really was just a good time. Designed by Jon Simantov, published by Jellyfish Game Studios.
Xylotar (2p): I didn’t play this during TTUTCON, but I did play it the next night with my brother-in-law with the two-player variant. It took an interesting game and twisted it in on itself, and I think the game itself miraculously survived: At two players, you’re playing with two dummy players on either side of you. As Xylotar is a must-follow game, the dummy players follow with their lowest on-suit card, and if they can’t, they follow with their lowest overall card. Given Xylotar is a game where you only see the backs of your own cards, and one of your opponents (in this case, the human opponent) sort your cards for you, that adds a really interesting wrinkle. You never know quite what’s in your hand until you’ve been able to deduce it, and having to also deal with two mechanical opponents who give no regard to whether they win a round or not? That’s tough. I like this variant a lot. Not as much as the full game, but a lot. Designed by Chris Wray, published by Bezier Games, who provided a review copy.
Whew! I can’t believe you made it to the end. Honestly, I can’t believe I did, too. Should I feel weird about this being nearly 4,000 words? No, I didn’t think so. Thanks for sticking around! (And if you cheated and scrolled to the end, that’s fine, too. I don’t mind!)
Next week: Replacing Carcassonne. Controversial? It’s not. Carcassonne still rules.
That's so many games! I knew the hype around trick-taking was strong, but I had no idea it was "dedicated convention" strong. Loved getting to know a little more about that, and about all those games.
It also made me realize I haven't played any of those games except for Cheez-Tricks, which I got to play in a late playtest last year. Lots of catching up to do! And glad to hear Mauricio and Fowers are working together in a Burgle Bros trick-taking game, it feels like my worlds are colliding.
I'm glad you could make it to TTUTcon and enjoyed it! We were really happy with how it turned out. You played a lot of good games there.
I happen to be a fan of Elephant Ball Balancing Act. It is different to wrap your head around what's going on at first, but it isn't out of control. Counting cards is difficult because of the two different pyramid numbering schemes at once, but it's worth it to at least track some of the cards you have the most of for specific numbers remembering that there are only so many of each number. It reminds me the most of the feel of Tiger & Dragon if you have played that one (it also has a pyramid structure and I saw it played a lot at TTUTcon) but less straightforward.
And yes, we are talking about next year. It's the first time any of us have planned a convention, so we had to see how it would work out. I think it worked out just how we hoped.