Game Review: Supreme Court Decision (solitaire)

Continuing the theme of emulating the mechanisms of government, Eric Miller does his take on the judicial process with Supreme Court Decision. While initially a solo trick-taking game, it can be played with two or three players, though this review will cover the solitaire.

You play the role of a lawyer trying to appeal to enough judges in the jury to make your case. The other side also has a lawyer so your goal is convince each judge enough to take your side, as represented through tricks.

Each jury has an odd number of judges of which you play to get the majority of. Judges are court cards and each rank has its own disposition(method of play) while their suit is the trump suit. Deal the cards between you, the other lawyer and the judge. Each trick starts with three of the judge's cards shown face up representing discussions. Before card play you can ask for clarity by drawing a fourth card and discarding one, this can only be done a few times per round. Either way, the majority color of the three cards signal who leads the trick, this is how every trick begins.

Your can lead any card to a trick but must follow suit otherwise any card can be played. Opponent play is by turning over two cards from its pile face up and following suit, otherwise the higher card will be played. Judges play depending on their rank: Kings will prefer to trump, Queens will follow suit but otherwise trump and Jack will follow suit but otherwise play the highest card. Equal choices of either opponent or judge play is decided by the player. Highest trump then highest of suit led wins the trick. The other two cards from the judge are then discarded.

Each round consists of seven tricks, a first stage of four then a second stage of three after a shuffle of the discard pile. Usually you win the judge if you win with the majority of tricks, but if you don't take the majority your opponent gets the judge if it has more tricks than you, but if the judge does who wins depends on the majority color on its discard pile. Winning all seven tricks gives the judge to the opponent; no judge likes a show-off.

From the get-go the game uses an unusual mechanic in who leads a trick, instead of the winner leading to the next the lead is dependent on the judge's cards. Initiative is important; you can control who wins the trick based on your lead. In the solitaire where your opponent plays rather randomly, though, there's still some surprises from the luck of the draw so do try to remember the unplayed card. A slam being a loss means skill in losing a trick.

Speaking of strategy, judges having personalities gives the whole court scenario some personality, it also forces you to change strategy every round, every round is also a different bunch of hands.

There are some downsides: The hands are never used up in a round, and the opponent's algorithm's unpredictability is hampered by its lack of satisfactory bite. Having to pick on behalf of the judge or the opponent when the choices are equal, while slightly tactical is also giving more to the player than needed. The game as it stands is essentially whist with asymmetrical goals, which might work with two players, but not as a solitaire.

But this only covers the solitaire, and as a solitaire it plays fine but can do with a more robust opponent.

Game Review: Optrita: Lines

Open information and trick-taking rarely go hand-in-hand, unless you're playing alone apparently. Optrita: Lines does this by adding a hint of strategy to a straightforward trick-taker. Chance and skill comingle in a push-your-luck style game of risk and foresight.

You face a grid of cards and a selected trump suit from a card in your hand for the round. Each trick starts with choosing a row or column and starting with the card on the perimeter, you turn each card one at a time until you reach a card of the same suit as the card played (this includes any cards already face up) and highest card wins the trick, taking out the relevant card from the grid. If you've revealed an entire row without following a suit, your card will lose to the lowest trump which you will remove unless there are no trumps and you win and can take any card from the row. You can only play a trick on a full row so you lose options on each subsequent trick. After all cards are played out the grid is refilled and another round is played.

First to a set number of points after a round wins, if the grid reaches the score you lose (it's implied it doesn't matter if you tie). Normally this is a race to 21, but a harder mode has your goal at 31 and the grid only needs 11 points for your to lose.

In this game your imaginary opponent can actually put up a fight and you're not at the mercy of a random number generator, not that such fights are inherently bad. In this game you always have the initiative that the grid counters through secrecy. The fog clears with every turn but danger still lurks, a different feel from a constant fear of ambush.

With every new piece of info comes lesser options every trick and revealed cards might be rendered less useful if you can't use them. The strategy of card play is between playing a card assessing a likely win and the grid tossing a possible wrench in your plans. 

The choice of trump is important, while the trump suit is only of use to the grid you still decide it, neutering any chances of being trumped can go along with working around them through cardplay. Since the chosen indicator card is out of play during the round that is also another factor to consider.

Optrita: Lines doesn't play like the usual trick-taking game, but in this game your opponent is more than just an algorithm to follow, but a diagram to analyze. It's is more fun to risk when you think you have enough information.

Game Review: Deck of Spies

The dungeon crawl genre of playing card solitaires might need some new ideas, but we're getting a free retheme too.

Deck of Spies is James Newman's take on the dungeon crawl, where instead of killing all the monsters in the dungeon you have to recruit enough top spies in a wide field of espionage. With a low starting hand you are to outwit and recruwit your way through a graduating deck with the goal of recruiting more than half of the court cards that appear at the end.

You face one agent at a time, to counter it you play any combination of cards equal or higher than its value (Aces 1, courts 11, 12, 13), recruiting it is similar but you have to match the agent's suit. For the purposes of recruiting, you can use an ace to change the other cards in your hand to its suit, still keeping value. The ace's single point still counts and the card will be used. To simplify, countering removes a card from the game while recruiting puts it in your draw deck.

If your hand does not have enough cards to counter, an assassination is necessary, using any ace still in play to remove it from play, but so will the ace(if you run out of aces for an assassination situation you lose the game). You can clear your hand of cards after a counter or recruit but only in multiples of the same rank.

While at first glance this plays as a game where you have to plod through a gallery of enemies, the key difference is the goal, instead of simply killing everything, you have to bring into your side enough of the bosses at the end. This change in goal also means a change in strategy; the balance between hand power and hand shape favors the latter in this game.

The graduated approach to enemies gives the game a manageable difficulty curve and makes building your hand less chancy, you can even strategize which cards you'll counter. Aces can be a bit too powerful for recruiting, but the more aces you sit in your deck the less powerful your hand becomes, so it evens out strategically. Still, aces are key players and will take the bulk of recruiting.

With an interesting approach to a theme and the simplicity of its execution, the game won both the solitaire category and the overall winner of the inaugural Traditional Deck Game Design Contest, a worth winner and a fun bit of strategic card gaming, even if the powercreep might not be to everyone's liking.