Trickdraw

What if the iconic Western showdowns in the old movies had not just guns but also magical powers? Enter Trickdraw, a card game by House Fish Balloon and published by Good Games Publishing, for 2-5 players.

Note for Parents: Card art in Trickdraw uses symbols linked to the game’s magic theme. If you are uncomfortable with your children playing with pentagrams (or the pentacle, the five-sided star surrounded by a circle) you should avoid Trickdraw.

Setup

Setting up Trickdraw is about as easy as it gets. Each player gets two cards (three in a two-player game) and the rest of the deck forms a draw pile. That’s it!

Gameplay

The player who most recently watched a Western movie goes first. That player draws a card from the draw pile and then has a choice of actions.

The basic action is to play one card from your hand. Cards can be played one of two ways: face down for one point each or face up for the effect. The powers on the cards fall into one of three categories: On Reveal, Once Per Turn, and Ongoing.

These cards can allow you to flip one or more cards in front of yourself or others. Other cards allow you to steal an opponent’s card (including the titular TrickDraw card).  Some cards require another card to be discarded to activate, and others eliminate the cost of activations.

How you combine these powers to thwart your opponents while setting up devastating combos is the heart of TrickDraw. You can hide powerful cards by playing them as their point value before revealing them with a well-timed power card.

But this town ain’t big enough for all of us. When a player reaches ten points, the Ultimate Showdown is triggered. The player with ten points receives two face-down cards for two additional points (only that player can look at them), and then each other player gets one last turn.  Use your last turn wisely: try to increase your point count or decrease the point count of others. 

After each player has their last turn, everyone tallies up their points.  Any players tied for points are eliminated. The player with the highest points, if there is one, is the winner. There are certainly scenarios where every player is tied with someone else which results in no one winning. Sorry, the Wild West can be ugly sometimes.

But there is a second path to victory! Among the deck of cards are three special cards that have no inherent powers: the Key, the Temple, and the Treasure. If a player manages to have two of these three cards in play face-up in front of them, they win automatically.

Impressions

We expected this game to be fast paced and full of fun tension.  And it was, especially at 3+ players. The artwork is well balanced with a touch of gritty dark western flair and a healthy dash of absurdity. Kids and adults both like messing with each other.

If you like games like Fluxx or Munchkin where you can gang up on any opponents daring to try to claw to the top, you will probably like TrickDraw. You absolutely need to be a fan of take-that gameplay in order to enjoy this game. The simple setup and cards being able to alter the rules felt a lot like Fluxx. I’m personally a big fan of the dual-use cards and the ability to manipulate them throughout the game.

But…

But the ending fell flat. All the fun and intrigue of the mid-game went out the window as soon as we entered the Ultimate Showdown. The game made it feel like it was a better strategy to push an opponent to ten points than to reach it yourself. But then almost anything could happen after that, and anyone could win, or no one.

It left us feeling unsatisfied – whether we won or lost. Even if you set up an impressive last turn to catapult yourself from eight or nine points to the high teens, it simply meant that everyone would gang up on you to cost you the game.

The first edition of the game simply indicated that the first player to reach 10 points wins. The change to the Ultimate Showdown lets every other player get a turn after someone triggers the endgame condition. That makes sense.

However, unlike most games where players simply try to race to as many points as possible, this turns into a game of all-out sabotage to take down the player in front. But the stipulation that players who tie each other are eliminated is creative and thematic (two cowboys shoot each other at the same time).

If you’re ready for a Wild West showdown and you’re ready for the chaos of the endgame, find Trickdraw on Amazon, or get it directly from Good Games.

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The Family Gamers received a copy of Trickdraw from Good Games Publishing for this review.

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