Trick taking with polyhedral dice!

Yesterday we already talked a bit about the Twisted Realms series by InsideUp Games. Since the Kickstarter campaign launches today, it’s the perfect opportunity to take a closer look at one of the games: 🎲 Crits & Tricks! 😉

It is definitely our favorite of the series! If you follow our account you might have noticed that we have been enjoying trick-taking games more and more - especially those that work well with 2-players. I am happy to report that while it accommodates up to 4 players, Crits & Tricks plays wonderfully with only 2 too! 😍

This game does something I think no trick-taker has ever done before: it uses polyhedral sets of dice. 🎲 From a 4-sided die to a 20-sided die you have everything! The numbers you roll will become the values of the cards you play. Brilliant right? 😁 First I was afraid how this randomness would work out when the card draw can already be a bit swingy in similar games, but it just works! When you play a card, you also place a die on it as its value. You roll your dice at the start of the round so you already know what you are working with - though you can do a random reroll to pull risky plays. 😉

The colors (or suits) in the game are RPG classes. The type of class that starts a trick determines how the trick can be won:

💪 Barbarian: highest number wins
🗡️ Rogue: lowest number wins
🔮 Wizard: value closest to 5 wins.
🌱 Druid: second highest number wins
🪕 Bards act as wilds, helping you more easily follow the lead player.
(There’s also the Paladin 🛡️ class, but it’s still being tweaked.)

It’s not just about winning tricks though. To get coins you need to fulfill quests, which have specific - and very diversified conditions! You draft 3 quests every round, or compete for 6 public quests in a 2p game. Additionally you have the Barkeep’s Challenge that everyone can accomplish to earn extra money. Plus, each Bard you win is worth an additional coin! 💰

And that’s not all, there are the CRIT abilities of cards. You see there are 6 tricks in a round but you have 8 cards. You can use the 2 extra for their ability! Each class has a unique power, often modifying dice rolls, giving you plenty of ways to boost your gold stash. 😉