The final Pack O Games review from me for a little while (until I find more that are available at least) so let’s delve into the art of tiny trick taking and see what’s what.
Introduction
This is a slightly difficult one to write as I really want to like this one, but I’m not entirely sure MAD works for me. And as always, “for me” is the important part – your views can and will vary. Trick-taking can often be hit and miss for people, some games work incredibly well (Skull King and Cat In The Box are real favourites of mine) and some don’t.
The final Pack O Games review from me for a little while (until I find more that are available at least) so let’s delve into the art of tiny trick taking and see what’s what.
Introduction
This is a slightly difficult one to write as I really want to like this one, but I’m not entirely sure MAD works for me. And as always, “for me” is the important part – your views can and will vary. Trick-taking can often be hit and miss for people, some games work incredibly well (Skull King and Cat In The Box are real favourites of mine) and some don’t.
I’ll start by saying this is at the top end of the Pack O Games difficulty scale – a full 3/3 dice pips so bear that in mind if you’ve read any other reviews in this series. It definitely is a step up from the simpler end and as we talk through the setup, play and scoring I think you’ll see why.
I’ll explain how this one works and let you decide for yourself on whether it’s one you want to find out more about.
Setup
We begin by placing the two science lab cards in the centre of the table with the 3 or 4-player sides facing up depending on your player count. This is specifically a 3-4-player only game. It’s easier to make sure you’re all sat at on different sides so a single edge of the lab is facing you. I’d point out that this isn’t a game-breaker, but there’s a lot to keep track of and this helps.
Next, shuffle all the lab cards (remove one if you’re playing with 3 players) and them deal them equally. You’ll have 9 cards in a 3-player game and 7 with 4-players. There are four different suits (colours) and each card has a positive and negative end (a 7 and a -7 for example). You should arrange all your cards so the positive ends are facing up.
Pick a player to be first – they will lead the first trick – and we’re ready to go!
Seems straightforward so far…
Yes. And it’s not necessarily complex, more complicated. Cards run from 1-7 in each of the four suit and four of those seven cards have “madness/science” symbols on them. These look like swirly-whirly spirals. I personally don’t love the “madness” label, and the fact they’re also called “science” symbols suggest that was a lot of effort to keep the 3 letter game name going than anything else. They are loosely tied into the core of the game as you’ll see below, but I’m as certain as I can be that you won’t choose to interact with it in that way.
For ease, I’ll refer to these as science symbols for the rest of the review.
For the most part it’s a fairly standard “must follow” trick-taking game. That means after the lead player has played a card, everyone else must play a matching suit if they have one in their hand. When everyone’s played, the highest value card of the lead suit wins.
If you have no matching cards, you can throw anything away but you’ll be out of contention to win the trick.
Here’s where it starts to get complicated
There’s a few things coming up that will both show you why this is probably quite different to other trick-taking games you may have played, but also why it’s fiddly and perhaps just one too many things to keep track of.
Firstly, the science symbols. If ever the total number of science swirly whirlies equals or exceeds the number of science symbols for your player count (four in a 3-player game, six in a 4-player game – all illustrated on the lab chart) you immediately flip all cards in your hand to their opposite side. The first time this happens; you’ll rotate the cards to their negative side and so on. It’s only within a single trick.
The science symbols are on cards 3, 4, 5 & 6 so there’s a pretty strong chance you’re going to experience this pretty quickly (and often). So it becomes hard to really “plan” too much after you see the first card. If someone plays a 7 first, you have no incentive to do anything, but you’ll likely end up flipping to the negative numbers for the next round just by sheer virtue of what gets discarded. If you then play a -1 as the biggest negative number, it could quite possibly flip to positive rendering your choice relatively pointless.
I’ll admit that’s bordering on edge case, but it’s not so unlikely you won’t experience it.
Secondly is the scoring… the winner of the trick takes any one card played by any opponent and adds it to their scoring pile for that suit. The lab chart you all sat around at the beginning of the game as a positive and negative scoring start for two of the four suits. If you’ve started with a -4 blue and +2 purple, taking those suits will add to those score piles. Taking green or orange starts the score pile for those colours…
If you’ve got the perfect card in your own hand, then it’s tough luck because you can’t choose it.
But wait, there’s more
After the first round is over (when everyone’s played all their cards and added one from each trick they won to their score piles) you play a second round, discarding one card from those remaining and dealing 5 or 6 out depending on player count, doing all the same stuff as before.
Then we get to final scoring…
Each player adds up all their suit scoring piles independently (e.g. 4, -1, 3, -5 is a total of -1) and then finds the Absolute Value (GCSE/A-Level maths here) – essentially keep positive numbers positive, make negative numbers positive, and then add up all the absolute the values from your score piles and the closest to an overall zero score wins…
Final thoughts
I promise I’ve not made that sound any more complicated than it needs to, and you can go online to find the rules and see for yourself. Half of the folded sheet is taken up with a single trick example and an end-game scoring example.
I do like trick taking games, and I do like innovation, but I think for me, we’ve perhaps flown a little too close to the sun and asked people to keep track of one too many variables in a small game. I think it’s one step too far down the complicated road and it borders on becoming work rather than a game.
If you’re after something different with this style of game, take a look for sure. If you want something that’s probably going to give you a more consistent feel of gaming without being too taxing, maybe look elsewhere.
You might like
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It’s certainly different
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I think there’s probably a lot of skill to be demonstrated if you stick with it
Might not like
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It’s a lot to keep track of all the time
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A little less like a game and almost more like maths homework
Artwork – 3/5
Complexity – 4/5
Replayability – 2/5
Player interaction 5/5
Component quality 3/5
Overall 60%
Zatu Review Summary
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