🌙Violet and the Grumpy Nisse🌙 is the strangest game we’ve encountered this year – and in the best way possible! It is a unique game from AGIE Games that caught our attention with its unusual title when browsing through the SPIEL22 Preview list on BGG.

And why is this game so unique? Well it was made specifically as a 2-player only trick-taking game! We always felt a bit left out because we don’t know many trick-taking games, as they don’t tend to work well with 2 players. OK, this may not be the only one out there, but this is the only one we immediately wanted to play again after the first party!

Back at SPIEL we listened to the rules but unfortunately didn’t have time to play. It sounded interesting enough so we couldn’t resist to pre-order the game. 😁

So what’s this about?

It’s about a girl, Violet, who sneaks out at night to meet with his troll friend Ordep in the forest, while Torech (the Grumpy Nisse) is trying to stop her. To close up any loophole in the story, this expedition has to be during night because as you know Trolls turn to stone during the day. 

After googling what a Nisse is I found that it is a mythological creature from Nordic folklore. This guy may have some behavioural issues, as according to the lore he has been kicked out of every single household in the village and taken shelter in the woods. And of course he doesn’t like the idea of Violet trespassing in his newly claimed “home”… so he’ll play tricks on poor Violet and try to scare her off.

How to play?

One of you will play as Violet and the other as Torech.

The tracks

There are 3 tracks on the game board. One for Violet’s journey, one for the oil in Violet’s lamp and one that shows the fear sneaking up on Violet. The fear track merges with the journey track after a while – if the fear marker ever reaches Violet or the oil runs out, Torech wins. If Violet manages to reach his friend at the end of her journey track, she is victorious.

Trick Taking

Each turn you will play a trick (starting with Violet, then always whoever won the last trick). If Violet wins she can choose to move on the track and lose an oil, or stay and recover 3 oils. If Torech wins Violet gets to move one, but loses 2 oils. The deck of cards is made up of four colors, going from 1 to 9 in value. Whoever starts the trick plays a card – in order to win, the other player has to play a card of the matching color but of higher value. Unlike other trick taking games, you can decide not to match the trump color (and lose the trick on purpose).

The twists and Torech’s tricks

Each turn you are drafting a new card from 4 open cards. So you will always see what your opponent picks, but it won’t help you that much later on, trust me.

Still not sure why this game works well? Let’s see some of the interesting twists here:

  1. Depending on where Violet is on the journey track, certain colors will become the trump. If there is a trump color, it doesn’t matter what is played first, instead the trump color will always win. Don’t forget, you don’t have to play the trump color!
  2. Cards also have effects on them, and if you play one that does not match the current location’s color, you get to activate it! Even if you lose a trick. And these effects bring this game to the next level:
    1. 8s and 9s are powerful values so they don’t have any effects 
    2. 7s allow you to check the other player’s hand
    3. 6s shield you against the trump color if you start a trick with them, it doesn’t matter anymore where Violet stands 
    4. 5s are wild color
    5. 2s 3s and 4s are for drawing/drafting cards, so at this point, you won’t be able to track anymore what cards your opponent may have 
    6. 1s can defeat 9s.
  1. The next important thing to know is the fear track. If Torech won the trick, the two cards involved go on to the fear track. As card-pairs are added to the fear track the older ones are pushed one step forward. If they are completely pushed out you check the difference of the two cards and move the fear marker that many spaces. 

Thoughts

I like how there is no need for counting points or a scoring pad. Instead every information is there on the board – where is Violet? How is the lantern doing? Is the fear catching up? That way you always see at a glance who is winning, and how close the game’s end is.

The trump colors on the map and certain tokens will keep shaking up things as the game progresses. Some ‘bad’ cards you are holding also might turn strong as the trump changes.

The card effects are also a very nice feature, adding additional layers to the gameplay, and making low value cards useful too – not to mention the fact that they make counting the cards impossible!

Asymmetry

There is quite a lot of asymmetry between the two-players. In our first games, we did find it easier to win as Torech. But later on, with the right strategy, Violet finally also stood a chance! Of course –  since the game is using cards, randomness is a factor in your success. However you definitely have agency in what happens on the board if you are playing right.

If you are playing Violet, the turns are not only about winning or losing – you have to try to control ‘how’ you lose. You have to keep  the card differences as low as possible, since they are going to be converted to fear-movement as the game progresses! You also have to factor in the color of the card you choose for losing – you just might use its effect too! But be careful – imagine Torech plays an 8, and you would choose a 3… you would be getting cards, but that is just 5 fear-movement for him!

Torech on the other hand has it easier with the card drawing effects – he really doesn’t have anything to lose. If he can’t win the trick, he might just as well get some juicy new cards 😉

Torech also has some additional tokens that trigger at certain spaces on the fear track, turning things in his favor. 

Lastly, Violet has to juggle moving and filling up the lantern – this could be beneficial too, e.g. staying on a space for which you have strong cards remaining, instead of moving to the next trump color; but it can be bad too, because if you don’t move, the fear will catch up.

Summary

We are absolutely blown away by this cute little game and are happy to finally own a trick-taking game that doesn’t just work with 2p, but was explicitly made to be played with 2p. Violet and the Grumpy Nisse is a true hidden gem.

You could say card randomness can influence your success, but it never really bothered us (and generally we don’t like luck in competitive games). Here it adds to the tension and you eagerly wait for your next draw!