A thematic trick-taking coop?

🗡️ The Slasher was a must-buy for us for the theme alone, but even more so after finding the gem Bahamut Dispute from Jelly Jelly Games last year. 

The Slasher is a co-operative 2-player trick-taking game, in which you are trying to survive the night, fending off the attacks of a killer, while searching for items to escape.

The game builds on basic trick-taking rules, but there are several fun twists and additions! 😁

First up, each round is played at a random camp ⛺ location, and each of these add extra rules you have to follow - e.g. ‘1’ and ‘5’ value cards cannot be in the same trick. If you fail at these, you have to flip over 1 of 3 trap tokens. You can guess what happens when all 3 are flipped over. 😱

Each round you play 8 tricks, using your 8 dealt cards. There are always 4 cards taken out so you have imperfect information - though 1 of these is face-up, showing the trump color for the round.

Playing the tricks while obeying the rules of the current location is exciting already, but it doesn’t end there. 😉 When you are finished, you have to resolve the Item phase. For each Yellow card you won, you draw from the item deck. This is nice, because you need to find 4-5 escape items in order to win the game, plus there are other useful things to find. However there is also a Killer card which you don’t want to draw! 🙀

If you draw the Killer you have to discard all other items and then take damage according to the Red cards you won this round. However, your Green cards can help negate these! The ability of White cards depends on your current health - the more wounded you are, the worse you are off. 🩸 And if one of you perishes, you lose. ☠️

These card-color mechanics really make the game great. If someone starts winning many red cards, you then want to also have them win green cards. Of course you cannot openly communicate regarding your cards. Cleverly dividing up Yellow cards is also important, so you steadily find the game winning escape items. 

So far we did pretty good in the game, but I wouldn’t say it is easy. Trick-taking normally has nothing to do with theme, but The Slasher nails it. Super fun! ☺️