Episode 427 – Room to Grow: Trick-Taking Games

Trick taking is an especially hard genre of games to teach. But it doesn’t have to be!

0:00:00 Fact for 427

The world record for a Rube Goldberg machine with the most steps is 427 steps. The record was set in China in 2021, and here’s the video of it in action:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpLDfkLBJ0Q

Sponsor Message

If you’re interested in getting help planning through the financial ramifications of a change in your life, head over to firstmovefinancial.com/familygamers to schedule a free 15 minute call and see how First Move can help you.

0:05:30 What We’ve Been Playing

Dream Runners (our review)
Enthrone
Little Alchemists (our review)
Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring Trick-Taking Game
Endangered Rescue: Galapagos Penguins *
A Place for All My Books (our review)
Dice Words *
Suspend
Quacks of Quedlinburg
Unmatched: Stars and Stripes (with T-Rex!)

(*) first time mentioned on The Family Gamers Podcast

0:32:55 The Family Gamers Community

Shout out to our newest community members! Thanks for joining us.

#Backtalk

We asked about your hidden gem games.

Read the answers on Facebook (two responses) or #backtalk channel of the Discord.

0:40:30 Grow into Trick Taking Games

What is trick taking? A game mechanism used in many card games. A “trick” is formed by every player in turn playing one card from their hand to the center. Then the “trick” is won by one of the players and set aside. (Usually won by the highest value played in the led suit.)

Most trick taking games require players to “follow suit” and match the suit of the first played card, if they can. Many trick taking games have a “trump” suit that is considered higher than all others.

There are all kinds of variations with partnering, bidding, and how tricks are won.

Room to Grow

Our goal with Room to Grow is to bring your kids – or your family – through a series of games that grow in complexity. Normally, we take a beginner game, an intermediate game, and an advanced game (and some honorable mentions). They offer a plan for growth for players to get comfortable with that mechanic, and all are family-friendly.

Beginner: Hearts

Played with a standard 52-card deck. A “must-follow” game. No trump suit. No bidding (you don’t have to guess how many tricks you’ll win).

Heart cards and the Queen of Spades are bad, you don’t want to win them. But you can attempt to shoot the moon; if you can get all 13 cards AND the Queen of Spades, you take 0 (bad) points and all your opponents take 26 points.

We like Hearts because the rules are simple, the math is pretty easy, and it’s still enough to learn why you want to lose tricks sometimes and win tricks other times.

Bicycle cards has full instructions on how to play Hearts.

Intermediate: Add a little more with Wizard or Rebel Princess

Rebel Princess is very much like Hearts, but with a fun theme (princesses avoiding princes and frogs) and with some special powers. Read Nick’s review of Rebel Princess, and the expansion Happily Never After.

In the other direction, Wizard is a basic trick taking game with bidding. The first round is only one trick, the second round is two tricks, etc. After being dealt your card(s), you decide how many tricks you think you can win in the round. The closer you can get to your bid, the more points you get, and the round acts like a multiplier when you get your bid correct.

Learn more about Wizard on Wikipedia.

Advanced Twists with Two Players or Cooperative Trick-Taking

Jekyll vs Hyde is one of our favorite games, a trick taking game for just two players, with a much smaller deck and potion cards that can activate chaotic powers. One player wants to balance tricks won vs lost, the other player wants to maximize the difference.

Read or watch our review of Jekyll vs. Hyde.

An entirely different twist on the genre is cooperative trick taking games. And the best one to start with is The Crew: Quest for Planet Nine. It provides a series of missions, each with different goals and restrictions. Your communication is limited to a one-time-use token/card each round. Can you work together to get the right trick(s) to the right person?

Read our review of The Crew: Quest for Planet Nine.

Even More Trick Taking

There are lots of variations on trick taking. Some games, like Off With Their Heads! even do away with the “taking” part of trick-taking. Check out our list of trick taking games for more.

0:58:50 New Backtalk Question

What’s your best board game story? Were you playing against someone and able to “trick” them into believing one thing while you did something else?

Tell us on the #backtalk channel on our Discord, or in our Facebook community.

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