Tricky Seasons: Finland Card Game Preview
- Jim Gamer
- 2 days ago
- 4 min read
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. You can follow the board game geek page here.
Tricky Seasons: Finland comes from trick-taking guru Ren Multamäki. The man behind other trick-taking master classes such as Tolerance, White Hat, and Justice. Three brilliant trick-taking games, that all add their own little twist. This time, with Tricky Seasons: Finland we have another trick-taker, the twist this time being the game has been blended with tic-tac-toe and a bidding element. The game will be coming to kick-starter soon, I will add a link here when it is live.
The game works simply. First, give each player a player number from one to five. Then, roll any six dice, and then place the six blank dice onto the spots matching these dice faces on the board. Place them in order of the three white dice first, then the yellow, then black, and finally the green. Consider the blanks as sixes. Any doubling up of numbers, simply leave that dice out. It should look something like this after. The black blank dice wasn't placed as it was the second six.
Then deal out all the cards, taking some out for lower player counts. And then each player will pick two cards from their hand so use as their bidding the cards. The card are all multi use, and show either the suit and rank at the very top corner, or the bidding value just below that. In the cards I have, this is in a star just below this, but in the updated art you can see below it will be in on the bottom left in a white diamond. The cards each player places down at this stage as their bidding cards will total the intended points each player will be aiming to score this round. Each player will now be left with ten cards.
Players will then play ten rounds, in the usual trick-taking way. Placing one card down from their hand, each subsequent player must then follow suit if they can. The highest card of the initially played suit wins, unless the hand was trumped. The trump suit is always the next season after the initial played card's season. So, if you played an Autumn card first, trumps for that round is now winter.
The winning card will be the highest card of the lead suit if no trumps were played, or the highest trump card if a trump was played. The player that wins the trick can then place a die on the game board. If the lead card was Spring or Summer, then the winning player will place a green growth die. If the lead card was Autumn or Winter, then the winning player will place a black decay die.
When you place a dice, do so with you player number showing as you place it. You can place it onto any empty space on the board. The next round then starts, starting with the player who won the previous trick.
The idea is that you are looking to manipulate the board to suit your pre-game bid. But the board will change a lot during the game as more dice are placed. Also, when a die is surrounded on all four sides, the player who placed the final die is allowed to change the surrounded dice from a green growth die to a black decay die, or vice-versa.
At the end of the round, after all ten tricks have been played and won, and ten dice have been placed on the board, a scoring phase occurs. Here, any dice in rows or columns of three or four of the same colour (the yellow dice counts as wild) will score one point for each player with one die within the row or column. A die can only count once even if it is in a scoring row and column. Players then score points based on their bid if they scored the same amount of points from the dice on the board as their initial bid. A correct bid of zero or six scores four more points. A bid of one or five gets three points. Two or four gets two points. And finally a conservative bid of three gets just one bonus point.
The game plays over as many rounds as their are players, three to five. Or you can play to an agreed amount of points. Games will fly by though, and you will find that after each early game, your understanding for how you can manipulate the board in your favour will increase, and your bidding accuracy and scoring will get better. Which moves the game from a simple trick-taking game, to a tactical strategic battle of wits that will captivate you.
I am a huge fan of trick-taking games anyway. At first, while playing this, I was enjoying myself but felt very unsure about how to play it tactically. I was unsure how to bid and where to place my dice. But after a few rounds, it clicked into place.
As such, for anyone who enjoys trick-taking games, I would highly recommend this game. It has enough to make it stand out and feel different from other trick-taking games, but it is so familiar and similar to other games, you will be off and running within minutes. The teach is a breeze to anyone who has played a trick-taker before. The tic-tac-toe part does take a little more getting used to strategically, but the rules are simple enough. But then when it falls into place in your brain, the choices you are making throughout the game feel meaningful, satisfying, and enjoyable each round. No matter how you are doing, you always feel in the game and never too far behind.