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How many trick-taking games is enough? This year feels like it’s going to test the appetite of TT fans — or perhaps inspire others to start counting cards and figuring out how to fit the word “slough” into as many sentences as possible. Here’s a sampling of titles I haven’t covered previously…and I’ll warn you that one of these titles will be, gasp, a ladder-climbing game. Brace yourself…
▪️ In February 2025, I wrote about Taylor Reiner‘s Sail Legacy, but now publisher Allplay has revealed more details about this co-operative, two-player, legacy-based, trick-taking game on its crowdfunding landing page: a map book, 40+ boxes and envelopes, multiple ship tokens, and tentacles galore.
▪️ In addition to Sail Legacy, Allplay is crowdfunding Sick Tricks, a new edition of Masato Uesugi‘s 2023 game Extreme Tricks from his I Was Game publishing circle.
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Sick Tricks is a must-follow trick-taking game for 3-4 players with four suits (numbered 1-12), with one being the trump suit. Instead of bidding on how many tricks you’ll win, you bid on how many different “tricks” you’ll land, tricks with conditions like “Win with an even number”, “Lose with an 8 or higher”, or “Win 4 tricks in a row”. When a round starts, players place cubes to predict the number of trick cards they think they’ll complete.
▪️ That campaign is also crowdfunding Savage Bowl, an English-language edition of URiO‘s 2023 game Savage Bowl: Trick Taking Game from ぶれけけゲームズ (Brekeke Games), which I originally covered in 2023.
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Here’s an overview of this 4-5 player game:
In the second half, the ref’s had enough and anything goes — no more yellows.
▪️ On top of all that, in Q4 2025 Allplay will release 3 Witches, an updated version of Corey Young‘s 2022 print-and-play game Five Deadly Venoms. Here’s an overview of this three-player game:
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The Lead Witch plays two cards (one face down), while the two Lesser Witches combine one card each. Two ingredients of the same rank or suit get added together, leading to tricky situations!
If the Lead Witch wins exactly the number of tricks that they bid, they receive two fate tokens at the end of the round; if not, each Lesser Witch receives one fate token. The first player to collect five fate tokens wins.
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▪️ New Mill Industries has a quartet of titles going up for pre-order on July 1, 2025, with two of them being new editions of older games and two being new releases through the company’s Little Dog Games imprint:
• Worst in Show is a new edition of Mashikamaru‘s 2022 game いやどす (No Way) from their publishing circle ましかまる (Mashika). Start a round in this must-follow game for 3-5 players by placing an obedience card in your unsorted hand so that 1-6 cards are to the right of it; you score for this bid if you take this many tricks (or ±1). During the round, if you can follow the lead, you can misbehave by playing from the right side of your hand; otherwise you must play from the left side. You lose points if you don’t clear the right side before you clear the left.
• Tezuma Trick is a new edition of Hinata Origuchi‘s 2015 てづま師 (Tezuma Master) from their own publishing brand 桜遊庵 (Ouyuuan). In this must-follow game for 3-4 players, the round starts with players looking at their hands, then drafting a pain card (they lose points for cards in this suit), an ability card, and a bid card (showing how many points they’ll score if they take the listed number of tricks). Each suit contains trump cards that win the trick if played off-suit, but are 0 otherwise.
• Crisps! is a two-player, shedding and ladder-climbing game from Shreesh Bhat. Players play escalating card combinations of the same type or can jump to special combinations if the opponent plays a queen. If a round ends without a player going out, the winner chooses which of two cards to add to their hand, with the loser getting the other.
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• Big Wave is a 3-4 player game from Daniel Kenel in which you must not follow suit in a trick. Players score by winning a trick and by not following suit, with those players in neither category gaining a special ability such as exchanging cards or getting a +2 market for future use.
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▪️ Révolte! is the debut title from French publisher Bravelion Games. This 3-5 player game from Team Kaedama — that is, Antoine Bauza, Corentin Lebrat, Ludovic Maublanc, and Théo Rivière — debuted on June 7, 2025 and plays as follows:
In more detail, the deck contains forty cards: ten unnumbered citizens and three families of cards (nobles, rascals, and blaggards) numbered 1-10. Each player starts with 1 coin and a hand of cards. The active player leads a card of their choice, then the next player can play a card of the same family, play a citizen (even if they could play a matching family), “cut” (ditto), or (if they can’t follow) play off-family; to “cut”, pay 1 coin, then play a blaggard as a trump. If a blaggard is played, the highest one wins, and if not, the highest card in the family led wins; additionally, the player of the highest noble receives 1 point, and the player of the lowest rascal receives 1 coin.
However, if more citizens are played than the members of any one family, then the citizens revolt! No one wins the trick, and no points or coins are awarded. The lead player of that trick leads the next one.
When all tricks have been played, score 1 point for each trick won. After three rounds, whoever has the most coins receives 2 points, then whoever has the most points wins.
