Crits & Tricks Kickstarter preview

The trick taking craze doesn't seem to be losing any steam, so everyone's showing off their chops by putting their own spin on the genre. I got my hands on Pete Wissinger and Inside Up's D&D themed entry, and right out the gate, it's got more going on than any other I've played (maybe excluding Arcs). Cards don't have values on them, instead everyone's got a set of polyhedral dice they roll at the start of each round or when playing a card if they don't like the values they initially rolled. After everyone's got their hand and rolled, they also draft personal quests that'll determine how they score in that round e.g. 2.5 points for winning a trick with a d4, on top of the communal scoring quest that determines the number of tricks you're trying to win.

The tricks themselves have an extra layer, with each one's win condition determined by the lead suit: barbarian tricks want the highest value, rogue the lowest, and so on. Players also have two extra cards that they can discard throughout the round for special abilities that are, again, suit-dependent, like making yourself play last for a trick, or reusing a previous die.

I was pleasantly surprised by the production quality of the prototype we got sent, with the textured and foil-embossed card backs being a real treat. The Kickstarter is live now, so go give them a look if you want several layers to your trick taking but weren't in love with the integration of actual boards in Arcs and Brian Boru.