It’s not quite area control; it’s more feeling the stress of safe locations slowly disappearing while you’re holding “bad” cards.

I particularly like how inventive the concept is, both on its own and against the larger backdrop of trick-taking games. The most recent example that I can think of (or at least that I have played, though there is actually another trick-taking game in my July post coming up) is Cat in the Box.But playing first is a pretty good way to get rid of cards that are crowding your hand, especially if you’re worried that you’re going to get stuck with unplayable cards.

I wouldn’t say focus on your bet to the detriment of avoiding a paradox, but it’s at least worth keeping your bet as your goal. The game does use the “trump must be broken” rule, meaning that a red card cannot be lead to a trick until it has been played by a player who could not follow suit. I also found the lack of wrap-around on the board very limiting – the game would be more interesting, in my opinion, if wrap-around was allowed.My main goal is to analyze and critique games at a deeper level, so that we all may think about them differently. The “observed” tokens are small black cat heads, and are used to cover up unused spaces based on player count. Plan your tricks carefully as you cannot claim the color of a card with the same number that has already been declared. To subscribe to GeekDad’s tabletop gaming coverage, please copy this link and add it to your RSS reader. I’m always very impressed with folks pushing the boundaries of trick-taking games; it’s a very classic genre, so bringing in some modern design to try new things almost always results in a very interesting game.

If somebody plays the highest Green, for example, most of the other players are going to play a Green something. When a hand is played to perfection, the bonuses from the contiguous area come flowing in, but if you’ve hit your bid well without managing the contiguous area in a similar manner, you likely would have been better off going for max amount of tricks. If all four 6 spaces on the board are filled and the only card I can play is a 6, that's a paradox and all of the points that I might have scored for winning tricks will now count against me. If you’re able to achieve that exact trick bid you’ll earn additional points for any of your adjacent tokens on the game board.The most I’ve seen someone lose is 4 points in a round, but you’re looking at potentially losing 6, which would be wild. At some point, you won’t be able to continue to connect to your previously-claimed cards on the board. That same situation arises with any other color where you choose to not follow suit early in the round. There are those who only want to be challenged by the presumed skill of their opponents in abstracts like chess and those who want everything to be a free-for-all like, say, Chutes and Ladders. If you’re not a fan of trick-taking, you probably aren’t going to be converted here… but I wouldn’t be surprised if it forced you to give trick-taking a second look.

Others will be spent trying to secure your bid and then quietly building as large of a contiguous area on the board as you can.

I’m not exactly sure what that means, but I think it has something to do with a scientific study involving unwitting participants and the potential to create a cataclysmic paradox in time and space… oh yeah, and cats. The player tokens themselves are small plastic shapes with various science-themed icons: planets, mice, flasks, atoms, and apples. What makes Cat in the Box a brilliant design is how the quantum suit state interacts with following. You can really engage this aspect of the design and make aggressive maneuvers to push people towards a state of paradox – such as leading with a suit they don’t have. And if it didn’t quite break tradition, Cat in the Box certainly broke my brain and the brains of everyone I’ve introduced it to.