Proving Grounds Card Game Preview

This is a preview copy sent to us for our early opinions. No money exchanged hands. Some art, rules or components will change in the final game.

Proving Grounds is a new trick-taking game (with a twist) from the people that have brought us many other trick-taking games (with twists!) Such as Justice, which incorporates deduction, Tolerance, which uses a historical background to make every card played in a trick available to be used by the player who wins the trick; and my personal favourite, White Hat. A trick-taking game set in a hacking universe, which incorporates a board that you move along, alongside the usual trick-taking mechanic. So these peeps have pedigree!

But what have they cooked up for us this time? Well, Proving Grounds is an intriguing trick-taker that incorporates a clever card playing mechanic that simulates a fight between rival clans. There are six suits in total, but across three colours. Two colours have two sub-suits you see. These six suits all linked in a circle, like the hexboard below. And when you lead with a suit, players can follow with the same suit, or either one of the suits that reside next to it on the hexboard. Twist number one. All the cards are multi-purpose too, and you can flip then round to any orientation, and use each card for either one of the two suits and value it shows on either end. Twist number two.

As such, when players play a card, they must make it clear which side they are using, and then all other players must follow with either the same suit, or one that is adjacent to the lead suit on the Hexboard. If you do not want to do this, or cannot do this, you must pass. When play returns to the lead player, that does not end the trick. They can decide to play another card if they wish. Maybe they are no longer winning the trick and they want to change that! Play does not stop until two consecutive players pass. Twist number three.

At the end of the trick, if any player has not played at card, they must then discard a card from their hand and take a penalty token. If ever any player has seven penalties, the game immediately ends. Penalties will score you minus one point at the end of the game. player that ended the game with seven penalties will come last no matter what the scores were.

The winning player then places a white marker into a space within the hexboard either to their left or to their right. They must place this into a space matching the card they just won with. Then at the end of the round, when the first player runs out of cards, all players score both hexboard's to their left and right. This way, players share each board with one different player but score the cumulative score of both boards on either side of them. The way you score is by seeing which side, the red or blue, has the most white markers in it. Then you will place down a score marker on the centre of the hexboard with the plus two oriented towards the side with the most white markers. You then score two points for each marker on this side.

The white markers on the other side lose you a point for each one.

This way, as you play the tricks, you are not just thinking about how you may win, but how the card you are trying to win with may either help or hinder your scoring at the end of the round. Will it be placed on a side where you already have a majority and thus increase the chance that side gets the plus two over the minus one? Or could it do the opposite of that? You have two choices of hexboard to use each time you do this, and other players will, of course, affect them when they win tricks too. Twist number four!

The game works like this, over three rounds. After each round, all white markers are replaced with orange ones, which block spaces but do not score for the next round. So, as you continue into later rounds, you need to find ways to manipulate the game and your two hexboard's so you can win tricks with new cards from new suits. All the while, tracking how your neighbours are scoring on their other hexboard that they don't share with you, so you can monitor who is ahead of you, which side hexboard you need to focus on, and how you can best put yourself into a position to win the game.

All this combines to create a trick-taking game, where every hand matters. Every card is important. And every card can be one of two things, and you have so many options of how and when you should pay each card, and then how, if you win the trick, you score that card. It keeps your focused and in the game at all times. And considering this is just three rounds, this is a quick game. But you are fully engrossed at all points.

It never fails to impress me when people come up with new ways to use old mechanics. And this is not just the fusion of a few mechanics into one new experience. It feels more like the development of a new mechanic. I am not sure what that would be called. I suppose it is the combination of multi-use cards in a trick-taking game, with multi-score zones, in a semi-cooperative, hand management card game?

If that sounds like fun to you, then check out the upcoming crowdfunding for this game. I will add the link when it goes live. I believe it will be late 2025.