The Definitive Trick-Taking Game Ranking

Trick-taking games are everywhere right now, but not all of them earn a permanent spot on the shelf. We put Clay’s full taste on the record with a ranked list of 35 trick-taking games, from “still happy to play” to the titles that absolutely nail what we love about the genre: clean decisions, readable hands, and one great twist that changes everything without adding a rulebook’s worth of exceptions.

Along the way, we warm up with recent plays that hit very different corners of tabletop gaming. Clay breaks down Game Makers, a big box board game about making board games, complete with a rotating wheel, resource timing, and contract fulfillment choices that constantly ask “keep this for scoring or spend it for upgrades?” Travis shares thoughts on First Giants and why some modern worker placement and set collection designs can be solid yet still struggle to stand out once you already own a few favorites. We also shout out Pictomania as a drawing party game that actually feels strategic, with speed, deduction, and scoring pressure baked into every round.

Then we hit the main event: Clay’s definitive trick-taking ranking, including classics like Hearts and Spades, modern hits like Skull King and Cat In The Box, and why cooperative trick-taking games like The Crew are so satisfying when the whole table becomes your partner. The top spot goes to a story-driven Lord of the Rings co-op trick taker that keeps the mission magic and adds theme and progression for maximum payoff.

Subscribe for more board game rankings, trick-taking game recommendations, and honest takes, and if you disagree with our list, share the episode and tell us your top three trick-taking games.

Transcript

Welcome And The Ranking Challenge

SPEAKER_01 0:16

Welcome to the Operation Game Knight Podcast. We're back and better than ever. And today we are going to do a trick-taking ranking. Try and say that three times fast. He's three five times as fast as all of you. He's Clayton Gable. How are you doing, Clay?

SPEAKER_00 0:30

I'm doing good, Travis. I keep getting thrown off by the new, the new old-ish intro. Yeah. Because it pops up that picture of us like we're live on air. And I was like, oh shoot, did it uh did something go wrong? Are we already going? Uh, but no, it's I'm good. Um I'm really back in the flow with this long form thing. I really like the space we have to breathe. I think the troops are loving it, so this is good.

SPEAKER_01 0:56

We always answer the call of our fans, and the call of the fans want to know what Clay has to say about trick-taking games. So today we are going to rank every trick taker that Clay has ever played.

SPEAKER_00 1:10

It's not as impressive of a list as some people might have, but there's 35 games, so we'll we'll get to the bottom of it. We're gonna go from 35 to one, it's gonna be awesome. Spoiler alert. Travis loves when I spoil an episode right up. Right up, right up. This is that kind of spoiler. I like them all. All right, none of those games are bad, so it's gonna be fun.

SPEAKER_01 1:31

Okay. Well, before that, we're gonna do a three times fast debrief of some of the games that we've been playing this week. Uh, spoiler alert for mine. I have not been playing that many games, and there's a reason for that that I will uh divulge in our over the fence at the end of the episode. But uh why don't you why don't you kick us off with your debrief? Because you got a big chonky boy in the mail this week.

SPEAKER_00 1:54

I did. I

Game Makers Big Box Breakdown

SPEAKER_00 1:55

I got the chonkiest of chunks. I don't know. I think this this is one of those things like you black out and you back the game because all of a sudden I just started getting updates about the fulfillment status of the game makers by Bezier Games. And I was like, I must have backed that at some point, didn't I? Um, and sure enough, it showed up last week in intimidating fashion. Yeah, this is one of the larger boxes I have now. I got the uh completionist pledge, whatever that included, which I think the completionist pledge only added like some extra cards, maybe, um, and some like weird-looking meeples that had special art on them. So that was fun. But yes, I was I knew very little about the game makers other than it looked like a love letter to board gaming, which this board game enthusiast couldn't say no to.

SPEAKER_01 2:53

It very much is. I I mean they have a digital implementation of it on BGA, or at least they did for a while. Yep, and yeah, it's pretty cool to see like actual games that you would play and pick up in a store, or you know, everyone's fan favorites are contained in this box.

SPEAKER_00 3:09

So many games. I I should have come prepared with the number, but trust me, there's a lot of games, and the box comes with an entire almanac just dedicated to all the games that are included in it, and it gives shout outs to the publishers and designers and has all the box art. So essentially, this game scared the bejesus out of me because of the big box, and I did not know what the gameplay was, but I was excited about it, so I immediately got to work reading the rule book, watching the videos, and admittedly, I had to watch a whole separate video on just how to put everything back in the box. But trust me when I tell you that once that was figured out, this is one of the better gaming inserts there is that I have anyway. Yes, I mean once everything's where it should go, it is a very seamless transition from box to playing the game and putting away. And this game has it the box is super large because there's one just ridiculous component, which is this huge wheel, which is a lazy susan, and it's a magnetic lazy susan, too. And in the box, there's a separate like knobby turny thing that when you set the lazy susan on the table, you also take the little knobby out and magnet it to the lazy susan, and then it like is like a little like forklift steering wheel that you uh use to turn the wheel.

SPEAKER_01 4:44

What do I call it? In cars, like the suicide handle or whatever. Yes, it's like that. Yeah, that's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 4:51

So, anyway, that that's this is all production notes, but box insert, great, lazy Susan, awesome gameplay. Let's talk about that because that was the big question mark. So, this was designed by Ben Rossett, who I believe, 90% sure, he designed or was part of designing fromage. Okay, and this game shares a lot of similarity with how the core system of fromage works in terms of the placing of workers and getting certain level actions and then having to wait for your workers to come back to you. So essentially, you have these different wedges of this lazy Susan, and every turn, and this is simultaneous gameplay. Every turn, anybody's forklift who is in the ready wedge can move that forklift either one, two, or three spaces forward to gather resources that are either level one, two, or three. Spoiling it, Travis.

SPEAKER_01 5:52

I know, I'm sorry. I don't know what happened. I have to cancel it.

SPEAKER_00 5:58

Anyway, we have our our wedge. You can move one, two, or three spaces forward, and you will get either a level one, two, or three resource, and the resources change as the wedge moves. So maybe in this turn, the level one resource is wood, which wood resource also are meeples. Um, and the level two resource is plastic, and the level three resource is cards. So I can take my forklift and I can move it to level three card space, meaning I will get to draw three cards, but I will not get that forklift back until three more turns of the lazy Susan. So it has the same Romage intention. If you want to get the good stuff, you gotta wait a little longer to get it back. You've got these three forklifts, you're managing to collect your resources. And like I said, some of the resources are wood, you have plastic. So they're the components of board games, right? Because we're making games. So you've got wood, meeples, you got plastic, you have cards, and you have tiles, and maybe something else. But those are the four I can think of right this moment. And so every card that you have can be a game that you complete and put in your display shelf. So it's basic contract fulfillment. If I decide that I want to make wingspan, I get to put it in one of my three contract slots, and it'll tell me, okay, wingspan's a game that has a lot of cards. So I bet I'm gonna need to have cards as a component of this game, and probably it'll have like dice or something. Oh, dice is the other one. So you have dice, you got tiles, plastic, wood, all the things. Um, so every game has its required components you need to complete it. The fun part is all these resources serve double duty. So as soon as I acquire cards, I have to either decide whether I want to keep them as a contract to complete and add to my display shelf. Okay, or I can just immediately flip them face down. I never care about what they are again. Those are simply cards, they're a resource to fulfill my contracts. Plastic, again, some games are gonna need you to spend plastic to complete it. So I can keep it as a game component that I'll use to complete a contract, or there's structures on my player board that require plastic pieces to like upgrade my abilities. So each person has three structures that they can upgrade throughout the game, but you have to put plastic there to fill certain spots, and once you complete all the spots, now that structure's uh engaged and you can get its benefits. So that's plastic. Dice, instead of using them for a game, you can roll the die and you can move your marketing tracks up.

SPEAKER_02 8:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:55

And so at the end of the game, one of the cool things is no matter how it's kind of like scythe in the popularity track, no matter how well you did on blue game scoring, which blue is like set collection games. Yeah, if you don't, if you haven't marketed blue games and you never got above the one, you're gonna get zero points for that end game scoring. Four main types of uh marketing tracks, I think, are blue is set collection, purple is co-op, you have red, which are war games, and then there's yellow engine builders. So you've got those tracks that you've got to every time you get a die, you're like, do I roll it and move my tracks up, or do I keep it aside here to use in a contract to complete a game? So the whole goal is to complete 12 games. That's not the goal, but that's the end of the game. And then you have your you know, marketing scoring conditions, and then every card will have some type of scoring condition, probably. Um, there's also this cool bit where you have these little trees. We want to be a sustainable um board game developer. So I want to plant trees, and you know, there's just so oh, tiles. I forgot to mention tiles. When you get tiles, you have this little assembly line where you can lay the tiles down. And if you make make three in the row of this type of resource, you get a discount on that resource for the rest of the game.

SPEAKER_02 10:21

Cool.

SPEAKER_00 10:22

So such a fun, such a fun moment where you get something and you have to immediately decide do I keep it to make games with it, or do I use it to upgrade my player board in some way? So super fun. Um, I will say that this is a very solitaire experience. I mean, the the player interaction is next to none. It's simultaneous, which is nice. Like everybody, like once you move that that you know, steering wheel and all the forklifts are ready, everybody just you know moves their forklifts, takes their resources, completes their cards. Everybody's just humming and going at the at the same time. Okay, and I really couldn't care less what they're doing. Like you're pretty focused on your puzzle. They try to make you care a little bit because the war games at the end, whoever you only score war games if you scored more than every other player. Okay, right.

SPEAKER_01 11:19

But you have more war games compared.

SPEAKER_00 11:21

Yeah, yeah. So it's kind of like um Seven Wonders in that way, like you compare, um, and then co-op games, you want to make sure that everybody at least has done one co-op game, or nobody can score co-op. So you're all working together to score those. Um, and yeah, but that's that's uh the extent of the interaction, really. But yeah, I'm uh it it looks intimidating, like it looks like a big to-do, but at the end of the day, it's not that difficult.

SPEAKER_01 11:51

You go around the wheel, gather resources, make games.

SPEAKER_00 11:55

Yes, exactly. Yeah, the rule book is not that great, I'll say. It did it was kind of hard to figure out, especially some of the scoring um was kind of hard to suss out. But now that I know the iconography and things, I'd think next play will be pretty seamless. But yeah, game makers. I am so glad to have this in my collection because it

Why Board Games Need Almanacs

SPEAKER_00 12:20

truly is just a uh an ode to board gaming. And as you flip through those cards and see all the games you have, it's freaking amazing.

SPEAKER_01 12:28

Yeah. Talk talk to me more about uh I that was a great rules explanation. I feel like I have a good grasp on it. Talk to me about the almanac that it came with, like it just has like the picture of the board game, and then it has the creators and publishers and stuff, or is it like an actual brief about like how it was made or where it came from or any of that stuff?

SPEAKER_00 12:48

No, no, it's just it's just a picture of like the card in the game, and it just shouts out the designer and publisher and artist, I believe.

SPEAKER_01 12:55

There's a lot of games about, or there's a lot of books about board game design and um board game theory and all this other stuff, but there's one thing in like the video game sphere that you don't really see in board gaming, which is those big chunky almanacs that say, here's every game that I don't know, uh Roxley Games has ever made, and here's the designers, and here's where they came from, and here's the story of the design, and here's how they came to this conclusion. You don't see a lot of that. I want to I want to ask some of our uh board game designer friends of the show about stuff like that, because I don't think that's captured anywhere, and I think that that's like that would be a really cool keepsake. If you're a f a fan of all play and you collect all their tiny boxes, wouldn't it be cool to have a giant book that can go on your shelf next to all your games? It says, like, here's a catalog of every small box game that they've ever made, and who made it, how the design came about, what was it, what it was inspired by the art, where did that come from? Like, yeah, I would I would love to have something like that.

SPEAKER_00 14:02

I get behind that.

SPEAKER_01 14:03

Yeah, that's nice. We should write it.

SPEAKER_00 14:06

We should.

SPEAKER_01 14:07

We should literally write the book in our free time.

SPEAKER_00 14:10

Let's do that.

SPEAKER_01 14:10

Yeah, let's do that. Okay. Uh my my night, my next question about uh the game makers. Yeah, when you land on the same space in the in the um kind of what the rondell, yeah, the lazy Susan. Yeah, if you land on the same space as another player, you both can reap those benefits, right? Like there's no blocking.

SPEAKER_00 14:31

Yes, they're I mean, they are just as multiplayer solitaire as best. In fact, I I fired it up on board game arena today just so I could and I started a solo game, and I was like, Yeah, I don't miss a person at all. Like it's just you know, I I was just in the same puzzle loop as I was before. Um, okay, it's not necessarily my style of game, but if I was going to play a game like this, it would certainly be this game because the production is just so top-notch, and yeah, it the theme is you know, wow, okay. It's pretty easy to market a game about making board games to a bunch of board gamers. So yeah, yeah, that's that's how I feel about it.

SPEAKER_01 15:15

Okay, nice. Well, thanks for sharing.

SPEAKER_00 15:18

Of course, Travis, what have you been playing?

First Giants Feels Too Familiar

SPEAKER_01 15:20

I had the chance to play First Giants, published by Space Cowboys. Uh, the designer is a Matthew Dunstan and Brett J. Gilbert, artists by Maud Chamel and Jessica Cocknard. Um, this is a re-implementation of Elysium, which is a worker placement set collection game where you are going out to dig sites to collect dinosaur bones. And these dinosaur bones will earn you amber and or victory points. And so you play you have four different dig sites that you're going to. Your worker placements that workers that you're placing are like little fossils, kind of like the you know, the T-Rex or the uh Velociraptor claw. You'll put that on a space, a dig site. And each dig site has two fossils that you can select from. When I select a fossil, I take that fossil out of the dig site and I put it in front of me as like a display or as a uh kind of a holding pattern right in front of me, and I will earn benefits from that card every single round that it is in front of me. So um let's say it gives me one amber per turn. Every time that one is just sitting in front of me, um, I will get an extra amber. And the amber is kind of like your currency, and the fern leaves are your victory points basically. Once I decide that I have had enough of that benefit, or it doesn't jive with some of my other benefits that I'm getting, or I feel like I need to start converting to endgame scoring, I can go and pay the price of this dinosaur bone in amber and flip it over into a display. And the dinosaurs have different kinds of categories, size, and type. So there's like flying and herbivores and carnivores, and like these different kinds of categories of dinosaur, but then they also have size, which is largely equal to their cost. So you go you have like one through five as the cost. Let's say I take a pterodactyl that I have. Pterodactyls earning me extra amber for each other flying dinosaur that I have. So every time I want to draw from one of these dig sites, I'm always trying to pull flying dinosaurs so that I can compound that. When I want to start displaying them, I have to pay that amber back, flip them over, and they become either sets of like there's different ways you can combine the sets. Uh there's either like style or type of fossil, or there's size. So I can have um the type of fossil be flying dinosaurs, but I want to have like one through five cost of that dinosaur, of that type of dinosaur flying. Okay. Or I can have multiple types of dinosaurs of the same size, flying, carnivore, herbivore, whatever, these five different categories of dinosaur, each with the value of two, and that would be a complete set. If I can lay all five of those down, I earn like a newsprint, which are like the victory tiles. It's kind of like catan, or not catan, it's kind of like uh castles of burgundy when you fill out you know your yellow tiles, you get that kind of bonus chip at the end.

SPEAKER_00 18:37

Yes. When you can relate things to games, I know. Look at my brain there.

SPEAKER_01 18:43

You're trying to snatch those kind of bonus points at the end. And once I lock that down, it is mine. And uh once I have that set of five, I lock that down, that's mine. That'll be in-game points for me. Uh some of them, though, will come to me if I have the largest group of flying dinosaurs or whatever, and I will hold on to that until somebody else has a larger group on display of flying dinosaurs, and they can steal that from me. And some of these victory tiles, these like news tokens are worth more points than others. They're largely either three or five points. And that's kind of where the variation in the game comes, is these different news tiles with the different types of sets that you're trying to complete when you display the dinosaurs. Um, that's really where the main variance comes from. The set collection and the worker placement is like you're picking one of four spots and picking one of two dinosaurs per dig site that you're going to. Um once I pull that dinosaur out, that space is not empty for the rest of the game. I don't block anybody from going to that dig site because the draw pile has a face-up dinosaur that everyone can see that is then going to immediately fill the spot that I took. And so I don't know how much the worker placement really adds to the game because you're not blocking anybody from dig sites and everyone can see what's coming next. Me taking a flying dinosaur does not preclude the next person from taking the one that's on top of the draw pile. So I I don't know how I feel about the worker placement. I don't think it adds much. Um, I do like the set collection and uh creating synergies across your different dinosaurs, but I don't find it interesting enough to make this like a go-to worker placement set collection game, you know. Like if I were to play something like this where I'm trying to create synergies across cards, kind of like an engine builder, it would be something like wingspan, right? Yeah, um, this is just kind of feels like a like a stepping stone from wingspan into other types of games like worker placement. Um, but I don't think it does anything interesting enough to really, you know, excite me much about it.

SPEAKER_00 20:56

I am so glad to hear you say this because I saw this game at the local game store, and I just had the feeling I was like, this is just gonna be just another, you know, I it I knew it would be fine, you know. And the what you just said uh is like almost exactly how I felt about Pirates of the High T's. It's like every games are so good at just being okay right now. Yep. But it's you know, that's not necessarily enough. You know, when we already have tons of good games we like, it's like, you know, it yeah, you you there's a good formula that people can come out with, and they're gonna make a game that's enjoyable. You're collecting things, you're making sets, you're scoring points, it's approachable, it has a good theme, but it it doesn't do anything that really just moves you to your core.

SPEAKER_01 21:44

Yeah, the most the most interesting decision to be made in this game is when to convert your dinosaurs that are on hold into a display. Because if somebody is racking up amber and has the money to start paying off all the costs to flip these. Into a display, they can rack up a lot of in-game points all at once, but you're also kind of wrecking your engine. It's one of those ones where you build up an engine where you're like reaping benefits based on card synergies, and then you break that engine apart to lock in in-game scoring points, and then you build up the engine again. And that's kind of interesting. There's a lot of games I think that do it better. Um, but yeah, I I don't know. It just didn't excite me a lot, but it was worth trying. I think it's cool. Uh, but man, I I don't think it does anything better than other games to make me go back to this one for long.

SPEAKER_00 22:37

That's exactly this. That's exactly I was saying the exact same thing about Pirates of the High T's. And it even had the worker placement thing that I was like, yeah, it's there, but at the end of the day, it's just a card game where you're you you're contract, you're collecting things to fulfill contracts. Like it it just added something to just like, oh, here's a new mechanism to you know make this a little different, but it didn't make it different in a way that made it any more interesting, which sounds exactly the same as your worker placement. Like, yeah, it was there, but did it make it more interesting?

SPEAKER_01 23:13

Not really, not really. Yeah, yeah, added one more uh popular mechanic to the BGG page, but that's about it.

SPEAKER_00 23:21

Yeah, so well, anyway. Well, I'm glad you played this so I can not have to. And not that it's bad, like you know, there's not bad games anymore, really.

SPEAKER_01 23:31

I mean except it has all the modern trappings, but board game design, it's just not exciting in today's board game sphere. Yeah, that's as succinctly as I can put it. Uh, if you want to give it a try, it is on BGA, um, which I played it a couple times there, did not get me going anymore. So, yeah, this one might be uh dead and buried like the dinosaurs.

SPEAKER_00 23:57

All right, move it on.

SPEAKER_01 23:58

All right, move it on. Uh

Pictomania Turns Drawing Into Strategy

SPEAKER_01 24:00

you have another game that you'd like to talk about.

SPEAKER_00 24:02

Yeah, I want to talk about one more, and this is I we're going party gaming, all right? Okay, um, because I was on you know, creeping on Facebook Marketplace. I I don't know why I always feel the need to talk about how I get games, but you know, I like to give the full picture to the audience about you know just what goes on in my mind. But yeah, I'm creeping on Facebook Marketplace, somebody's selling a bunch of games. I always look. I'm like, okay, what do they got? And there I see the box Pictomania.

SPEAKER_01 24:29

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:29

And on it I see the designer Vladel Shavatel. Now that's that's a household name. He's designed a couple good ones. Um code names, not to mention that one. And so I was like, I feel like I had heard board game barrage talk about Pictomania. Yeah, I don't remember if they loved it or hated it, but I know they felt strongly about it one way or the other.

SPEAKER_01 24:55

I if I recall correctly, I think they love this game.

SPEAKER_00 24:58

Okay, well, that that checks out because for five dollars, I grabbed this from my neighbor and I played it, and I was like, this is the perfect drawing game for gamers because it actually adds interesting choices, but in such a seamless way that you don't even realize you're you're like having to make them. So, how this works is there are three cards placed out, and there's a, b, and c cards, and all of them have numbers one to seven, and everybody gets dealt a number and a letter, and so mine might be C seven, and that tells me what I'm gonna draw. The thing about these cards is all the words are kind of similar, so everybody gets their their their assignment, they know what they're drawing, and you start drawing all at the same time, all right. So, and you can stop drawing whenever, and then you have a deck of your cards that you look around, and when you're finished drawing, you can start taking your cards and saying, Oh, I think Mary's drawing the the sloth, and I put my my number six over there because I think she's doing number six, and then I look at my dad, I'm like, okay, he's drawing, God, I have no idea what that is. Uh, what what's the other person drawing? And and you like try and assign all these things, and then when you're the first one to finish assigning your cards, you can grab the highest value point token. So there's kind of a rush to be done guessing because you get the highest value point token for that. And then you go through and see, okay, all right, mine was actually C7. And then I go through what everybody guessed on mine, and you know, the first person to guess it right gets my highest point token. The second person gets my next highest. If anybody guesses it wrong, I'm left with one of my point tokens, which counts against me for having a crappy drawing. Ah, yeah. So I always have three point tokens to give out. If all three nobody got mine right, those are all negative points against me.

SPEAKER_01 27:07

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 27:08

So there's such a nice tension of like I want to be finished drawing so I can start guessing and get the points right, and I can also grab that one for being done first. But also, if my drawing sucks, nobody's gonna get it, and then I'm gonna lose points that way.

SPEAKER_01 27:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:23

So is it it's so good. I love this as a drawing game. I can't wait to play it again.

SPEAKER_01 27:29

It's such an interesting way to like flip it on its head. It's not really it is about how good you can draw, because if you don't draw well, then people are gonna guess wrong and you end up with negative points. But it's how quickly you can convey an idea in a race to try and nab those top point tokens. Like, yeah, if I can draw something very simple in a one-line drawing in two seconds versus you know, somebody else that's spending 10 minutes on a drawing, like I have an advantage as long as they can, you know, as long as I can get that idea across. That's that's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_00 28:01

Yeah, I like this a lot. I'm happy I got this for five dollars because this puts any other drawing game I've played to shame.

SPEAKER_01 28:11

Okay, that's great.

SPEAKER_00 28:13

I can confidently say that Pictionary, step aside. Telestrations, get out of here. Actually, telestrations are pretty funny. Yeah, that was good. Um, but no, that but this had this like actually feels like a game, you know, like where you where you can try to get points and you can try to win, even though that's not the like it's still a fun drawing game, and you still have those moments where it's like, oh, this was funny because what the heck was that? Everybody got it wrong. Um, but there there still is the opportunity for clever play and you know, trying to push your luck a little bit on on how quickly you can get that drawing done and get your guesses out.

SPEAKER_01 28:53

And it does the best thing about party games, which is drive that discussion about like how did you possibly think that that was a picture of French toast? Like, you have to have that conversation afterwards, and that's that's where all the fun comes in of those party games.

SPEAKER_00 29:06

Yeah, so Vlottle Vlottle does it again. I mean, this this is better than code names. I'm saying it.

SPEAKER_01 29:13

Put it on the box.

SPEAKER_00 29:14

Better than code names.

SPEAKER_01 29:15

This is the best game. I love it. Yeah, okay. Are we ready to move on to our main event,

Trick Taking Renaissance And Rules

SPEAKER_01 29:20

our special operation? Let's do it. Let's rank every trick-taking game that Clayton has ever played. Let's get beginning.

SPEAKER_00 29:29

Begin. We are hitting the mission objective. Let's get this, add this to the stage. This says definitive. Definitive's a stretch. Um uh so yeah, so background, people who are new to the podcast. I uh grew up playing trick taking games. I love I love the genre, and it is certain you like that better. Yeah, and it is certainly having a renaissance these days. Everybody's coming out with their own twists on trick taking, and I'm down to play them all. I mean, so anytime I see them, I buy them. Again, this is a piddly assortment of 35. There's hundreds upon hundreds that you could delve into, so that's why definitive is a misnomer. But I'm gonna do my darndest to rank them all 35, so you can you can know what's good, according to Clay.

SPEAKER_01 30:25

Clay is the banded list.

SPEAKER_00 30:27

And I will reiterate again, even number 35 is still a game I would be happy to play anytime. So, like, that's just how much I like trick-taking games, and none of these games are bad, in my opinion. Just some are better than others, and some are more suited to my taste than others. So let's get rolling, Travis. You got any clarifying questions before we go?

SPEAKER_01 30:49

No, I'm excited to have this finally cemented in stone. Carve it onto a stone tablet because this is the definitive list.

SPEAKER_00 30:57

This is definitive. Operation game night. Oh, let's uh get over here and click number 35.

The Bottom Tier And Too Many Steps

SPEAKER_00 31:05

This is gonna be a uh probably a shocker. I know a lot of people love this game. Tom Vassal sings Rebel Princess's praises. I'm moving us back to the side because there's more to this slide. Um, but I just hearts is a lot higher on this list, and all Rebel Princess does is take hearts and add something I really don't like, which is a lot of special powers and abilities that you have to remember. So everybody gets a princess and it has a special power, and you have to kind of understand what everybody's special power does to make good decisions, otherwise, you're just like kind of randomly playing. So it falls to the bottom just because there's a classic game that I like so much more. So that's Rebel Princess.

SPEAKER_01 31:56

Heart with more steps.

SPEAKER_00 31:58

Yes. Clay likes less steps. Next is Corgi Pile Up. Now, this one's this one took a beating on BGG. This got a 5.8. I think that's the lowest on this list um uh in terms of a BGG rating. But yeah, Corgi Pile Up, I just don't quite understand it. It I talked about it in um an epis an episode not long ago, but essentially you get dealt five cards, and then it all comes down to what the last card you play is in the hand. Uh, and then you move your little corgi up this corgi stack, and you don't want to be the first one to go over the top, or else you lose, and then whoever's the last up there. So it's all a manipulation of how you get your last card to be what you want it to be. And I don't really I haven't figured it out, so that's why it's 34 uh Corgi pileup. Have you played this, Travis?

SPEAKER_01 32:53

Uh I have. I like it fine. It's probably floating around the same level of enthusiasm as you, though.

SPEAKER_00 33:00

Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_01 33:01

Yeah, especially compared to some of the other game head games that came out in wave one. Like yeah, this one was felt like a little bit of the weekly link, or maybe the runt of the litter. Oh, nice, nice. So yeah, I I like it fine. Maybe I'll revisit it, it's on the shelf.

SPEAKER_00 33:17

Yep, I won't get rid of it, but it's uh not my favorite. Next is 500. This is a classic one, it's you know, a team-based trick taker. You you it just has too many steps. This is again the ones towards the bottom. There's many reasons, but a lot of them are just there's a game I like better, and this has more steps to it. So yeah, I like spades better than this because this has the weird thing where you're the jacks transform suits, and like now you have this weird ranking where the club jack is now a spade jack, and you have to keep that in mind. And also like the different suits have a different hierarchy in terms of scoring points. It just is a little it's a little extra, and yeah, I I prefer spades.

SPEAKER_01 34:07

Never played it.

SPEAKER_00 34:08

Yeah. Next is Wicked and Wise. Did I play this with you, Travis? Yeah, this one. This one's cool. I like this one. Yeah, it's an interesting concept. Like one person's a dragon, the other person's a mouse, the mouse is trying to help the dragon. Um, I honestly can't remember it that well. I played it many years ago. I know I got this is one of the few I actually got rid of. So that kind of speaks to it, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 34:32

But this is this is one where one plays the number and the other plays the suit, right?

SPEAKER_00 34:36

No, that's that's a different one.

SPEAKER_01 34:38

Oh, I thought this one did the same thing.

SPEAKER_00 34:41

It might actually uh again, I can't remember this one that well, so I just threw it kind of where I felt like a game I can't remember that well and got rid of should be.

SPEAKER_01 34:50

It has the same type of dynamic where you're playing trick takers on teams.

SPEAKER_00 34:54

Yes, it's trick, it's definitely team-based, and uh you're one player is doing one thing, the other's doing another. So there you go. That's 32. Wicked and wise. It only gets better from here, folks. Brian Boru. This is not where this is not where I'm gonna give you a better um analysis. This is just trick taking as part of a larger game. So I I liked it, I just didn't really hit the one time I played it with other people, so it moved on. But essentially you're playing tricks, and the tricks correspond to different regions of I guess is that Scotland or is it Ireland?

SPEAKER_01 35:33

Ireland, High King of Ireland.

SPEAKER_00 35:35

Uh, it says it right there. God, it's almost as bad as when I said what what do you call a Japanese warrior? Um God, okay. So yeah, Brian Boru. This is this is kind of an anomaly on this list because there's it's part of a much bigger game. This is almost like having arcs on here. I don't know why I put it on.

SPEAKER_01 35:54

Trying to move up in like marriage tracks and domination tracks and all sorts of tracks through trick taking.

SPEAKER_00 36:01

Tracks and trick taking. I think I put it on here mainly. This was a last-minute ad just to get to an even 35.

SPEAKER_01 36:07

So I can't wait for the tricks and tracks ranking.

SPEAKER_00 36:11

Tricks and tracks.

SPEAKER_01 36:12

Yeah. Every game that has trick taking and track manipulation.

SPEAKER_00 36:17

Oh, yeah.

unknown 36:18

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 36:18

We'll get there. Origin story number 30. You hate to see Stonemeyer this low because I'm generally a fan, but this just never was for me. It it has everything I belly ached about about Rebel Princess. You just keep getting more abilities, and it just becomes to a point for my brain that I just can't keep track of my own abilities that influence the game, let alone what my what my three other opponents might be up to. So again, too much. Pies, small box all-play game. Yep. This one is one that you are doing contract fulfillment through trick taking. So every time you play a trick, whoever had the highest number gets to draft one of the cards played to the trick first. Those cards can either give you a contract you need to fulfill or beef fruit that you can use to fulfill a contract. I just found it a little clunky. Uh, every time you played a trick, you had to go through them this draft thing. It made it kind of drag on for a while, but it was a cool concept.

SPEAKER_01 37:29

It's got some cool decisions about like, do I put down the ingredient that I know that they need, or do I try and manipulate the numbers that I get the choice that I want?

SPEAKER_00 37:38

Yeah. Next is Pumafiosi. This is a Kenizia and Bitewing game. This is another one, honestly. This is gonna happen a few times where I played this so long ago, I can't remember exactly how it plays. I do know the main thing is you win the trick if you're the second highest, you don't want to be the highest. And then there's some like ladder ranking system that gets manipulated throughout the game. Um, it was it was fine. I it unmemorable didn't draw me back in for I play probably played it twice a few years ago, and uh I'll keep it around because I don't get rid of Kenizia games except for Cascadero. I don't know why I are just fine. Yeah, yeah. Hot lead's my favorite of them. Yeah, okay. Next is Lunar. This definitely is what you described earlier. Really cool concept where wait, you're uh it's a team-based game. If I play a card with a rank on it, so I might play a card that just has a seven. Well, that means my partner then gets to determine what suit it is, and they can just play a suit card. Um, so that's kind of how that works. It's got your typical like bidding for tricks and you know, seeing how you do. Some of these are just like, you know, I had to put them somewhere. Yeah, I like it, it's just a little too obtuse to play all the time.

SPEAKER_01 39:16

But it's like just over 5,000 on the BGG rank. That's it's pretty good for Trick Taker.

SPEAKER_00 39:21

Yeah, look at it go. Oh, here's Maury. Again, talked about this not that long ago. Maury is got some stuff going on. Oh, right. This this is this is the most complicated and strategic, probably. Trick taker here. Like this just warrants far more plays than I'm ever gonna convince people to do this because it it's you got these weird X tokens that you're collecting. If you get too many of those, it's not good. If you get the second most, it's okay. And then yeah, it's just this takes the right crew. It takes the right crew to get Maury cooking. But if you've if you've like dabbled in the in the trick-taking world and you're looking, you're looking to get into the hard stuff. Um, Maury's probably just right for you.

SPEAKER_01 40:12

But damn, that art that art by Beth Sobel is so good in this game. It's beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 40:16

Yeah, it's cool. And it's you got dice you can play as cards too. Like it's uh it's got it's got everything. Next is Euchre, another regional classic. This is up the list because this was one of the first games I played with my first game group in Colorado. This is how we got connected. Um, Mike and Hannah were like, You want to come over and play Euchre? And we played tons of Euchre with them. Um, again, spades I still prefer more, but this one is a good, a good alternative to a nice like team-based two-player classic card game trick taker. And it's probably one of those types that has like 50 different regional variants that you know who knows. Who knows?

SPEAKER_01 41:06

Everyone has their house rules, county rules, state rules. Yeah, but man, euchre gets the people going. Like when you win and you are jiving with your teammate, there's so many high fives going around.

SPEAKER_00 41:17

Oh, yeah. You can't beat that. That's that's the thing that I've always loved about trick taking games. The heart of trick taking for me was that was the team-based games, you know, where you have a partner. Um, so this is a ton of fun. Foodie Forest, Kenizia. This is a weird one, too, where you're not playing a classic trick, as you will, where people each play a card to the trick. You're playing cards to the middle. You have to follow suit uh if you can, but the trick ends when the total value of the cards exceeds 10. And then if you win that trick, you get all the cards. And each round of the game, you're trying to collect different suits of those cards. So they you might want the apples in one round or the blueberries in another. Uh, I just thought this took way too long for what it was. I thought the the core system was neat, um, but it just took forever.

SPEAKER_01 42:16

So we broke the 5,000 ranking on PGG.

SPEAKER_00 42:19

Yeah, yeah. This is a killer. This is a killer.

SPEAKER_01 42:24

Oh dang.

SPEAKER_00 42:26

Next is Freedman Freeze's fishing. Again, talked about this one recently as well, but I did play a lot of these recently because I wanted to do this. I wanted to get my definitive trick-taking ranking. Fishing was one I was so excited about, but ultimately it doesn't rise to like the top tier because I think it's overly balanced to the point where it doesn't feel like very meaningful what you do. And it does go a little long. This could take close to an hour, probably. But this the interesting concept of this is all the cards that you win become the cards that you draw for your next hand. And then the way it balances is if, like, hey, I didn't win many cards, now I don't have enough to draw up for the next round. Well, now I get to draw from this super Gucci stack of ocean cards that are almost guaranteed to win me all the tricks next time. So you just oscillate back and forth between you know winning a ton, losing a ton, and then but it's it's good. Gotta cast that net. Cast your net. We have cat in the box. This is an interesting cover for the box I've not seen before.

SPEAKER_01 43:35

Maybe that's like the definitive. They've they've republished it like probably three, four times. Oh, it's Japanese. That's the Japanese cover.

SPEAKER_00 43:41

This was probably the first like out there trick taking game that really piqued my interest. I was like, holy cow, they did what the cards have no suit until you play it. That's crazy. Yeah. Um it is really interesting. You know, you have this whole grid where all right, I played a five. I'm saying that's the blue five. Now somebody can say they don't have blues anymore and trumpet because everything's made up, but then you get yourself into a pickle later on in the round where you might end up with a paradox, and those aren't good. Again, this is one that's just like it's a little bit too much weirdness going on for people to like really get what you should be doing on like a first or second play. You got to play it a few times.

SPEAKER_01 44:32

Um, not great for newbies.

SPEAKER_00 44:34

Yeah, no, but it is a really cool, a really cool riff on the genre.

SPEAKER_01 44:40

I will say the production on this one is not good, at least on the the initial publications of it, because those little chits go everywhere in the box, they are just rocking and rolling. You have to sort them all every time you open the box. It's it is truly the cat in the box paradox because are the are the chits everywhere or are they in the place that they need to be? And the answer is they're always in disarray, but you have to open the box to find out.

SPEAKER_00 45:08

Absolutely. That's cat in the box. Next is prey, a tiny box from All Play. The shtick here is your cards are double-sided, kind of like Scout. The top has a number, the bottom has a number. You have your predator and prey value on each card. The first half, every hand you play the first six tricks with the predator side, and then the next six tricks with the prey side. So halfway through the hand, you flip everything over, and now you have a whole kind of different set of numbers. So you kind of have to manage what your bottom half numbers are going to look like. And the thing I like most about this game is that it takes away your power to bid. You roll two die at the beginning of the round, and you can choose to pursue either one of those numbers as the bid you're trying to hit. So I could roll

Clever Twists And Rising Favorites

SPEAKER_00 46:00

a six and a one, and I'm like, okay, well, do I either try and win six tricks or one? And I like that I like that. You know, sometimes bidding is kind of stressful, and you're like, I don't know what to do. And I like that it just says, Hey, just roll two die, and you know, see which one you can try and get.

SPEAKER_01 46:14

Shoot for it, and then it feels like it's not your fault if you don't get it.

SPEAKER_00 46:17

Yeah, yeah. You can be like, Well, I couldn't, there's nothing I could do. Uh three witches is great. Two versus two versus one, uh trick taking, really, really unique concept. The only problem with this game is you have to have just three people. Um, but yeah, and it's kind of it takes a little bit to kind of figure out because it's doing a lot of weird things, but I like it a lot. It's 20.

SPEAKER_01 46:49

Though, yeah, those that are uh listening and not watching, we're at number 20 with three witches.

SPEAKER_00 46:55

Yeah, I probably should be doing a better job announcing up. Or just go back, go back and watch the YouTube video if you want to see what's up. Like and subscribe. This is a killer slideshow we're going through. All right, 19 Jekyll and Hyde versus Scotland Yard. I love this one. Cooperative version of Jekyll versus Hyde. I think this is great. I do like cooperative trick-taking games, as you'll see later. No spoilers here, but uh I do think this is kind of hard. I've played many a time with Mary, and it feels like it just kind of comes down to that last couple cards in the city deck that you're kind of playing against. And it's like, well, you know, sometimes it can feel pretty hard to beat that.

SPEAKER_01 47:45

But what a what a uh intriguing design that it always comes down to those last couple cards. Yeah, you're never you're never like so far away at the jump that you can scrap it and just start over, yeah. But like when you get close, it it's always like to the very, very end.

SPEAKER_00 48:00

Yes, very true. Next is lose or lose or whatever. This is a Taiki Shinzawa game. Number 18. We're on 18, everybody. And this twist here is that your cards you face outwards. So I do not know what my cards are, but I can see everybody else's cards. I do know the suits of my cards, so I can see like I have four purple cards. I don't know what they are. I kind of know I know the order they're in, but I don't know exactly what they are. But I can look around and see what other people might have. And so you're just trying to play and win and bid and win tricks. Um, so I like that. I like that there's just that one core twist, but otherwise it's just like, hey, I'm bidding on how many tricks I'm gonna take.

SPEAKER_02 48:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 48:49

Cool. You'll see that's that's my jam. The one, the one core twist is what I like. Just one twist. Yeah, just one twist. Don't twist me around too much. I get lost. All right, I'm gonna be honest here. Number 17 is Fox in the Forest duet, number 16 is Fox in the Forest. I played both of these probably six years ago, and I thought they were good enough. I got rid of them both, but I suspect that I like them better than what I thought I did at the time.

SPEAKER_02 49:23

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 49:24

If you will, if you will. And I know these are both highly regarded, and I'm itching to play them again. So I'm putting them at 17 for duet and 16 for Fox in the Forest. Fox in the Forest has the thing where like you kind of either want to go low or high or keep balance. I can't remember, but you either get a lot of points for one thing, or yeah, it's kind of like a push your luck situation.

SPEAKER_01 49:52

We'll revisit, we'll we'll have to revisit that one.

SPEAKER_00 49:55

Yeah, we'll revisit when I play Fox in the Forest and Fox in the Forest duet again. 15 is spades, the uh the OG trick taker that got me into maybe just gaming in general. But yeah, I've played it more than any other game, probably. And it uh sits here at number 15. There's something so beautiful about just having your teammate and being in sync with them, yeah, and getting your bid just right and just rubbing it in your opponent's faces when you make them take sandbags, or you know, just oh my god, just so many good memories playing spades.

SPEAKER_01 50:37

Mentioned all the way back in our pilot spades.

SPEAKER_00 50:40

Yeah, this has been a through line for me. Next we have Sail.

SPEAKER_01 50:46

Love it.

SPEAKER_00 50:47

Yeah, co-op two-player only. You're playing cards and tricks to move a ship through an ocean, talk about novel. What a fun game.

SPEAKER_01 51:02

And they made it a campaign game too.

SPEAKER_00 51:05

Yeah, yeah, this is great. And and they're making Sail Legacy, which yeah, that's the campaign game. Oh, well, it's kind of a it's kind of a mini campaign game as it is, like you go through the different levels legacy, then okay. Yeah, same, same squabble over it. Did you back that?

SPEAKER_01 51:23

No, because I like sale by itself, like I I don't need more steps in sale. Like I think it's perfect just the way it is. It is a unique thing.

SPEAKER_00 51:33

Have you heard the all-play guy talk about sale legacy, though? He talks about it like it's closer to Gloomhaven than sale.

SPEAKER_01 51:41

I I don't know if I can handle that. Like, what are the odds that I'm gonna get that played versus playing sale, where it's just play one card from your hand and we're gonna move in the direction that is higher?

SPEAKER_00 51:51

Yeah, that's nice. Number 13 is Yokai Septet. Nice. Another team game, 2v2. The thing about this is you're trying to collect the boss yokai, which are the sevens of each suit. So I don't really know why it's higher than spades. I think I think it's just more contained than spades. Okay, you know, spades can kind of drag on for a long time. Yeah, this can be over in a good, you know, like 30 minutes, the way the rounds are structured, but it has a very similar, similar feel to it.

SPEAKER_01 52:27

Septet, do you play seven rounds?

SPEAKER_00 52:30

No, septet means the sevens are what you want to get.

SPEAKER_01 52:33

Well, yeah, I know what I know that sept is like seven, but I didn't know if you played seven rounds, like I'm pretty sure you play till somebody gets a certain amount of um wins.

SPEAKER_00 52:45

Maybe seven, maybe seven. It could be. It's all about the sevens, Travis. All right, pinadas.

SPEAKER_01 52:53

Oh, love it.

SPEAKER_00 52:54

Yes, can you we're at 12, by the way. Pinadas is 12. Pinadas is 12. I love pinadas, it would be higher, but there's one that just is a little bit better. Oh, yeah. In pinadas, you don't want to be the last person. So every round you have a goal number of tricks that you want to get, and you want to get that goal second to last. Because if you're last, you kind of get screwed. Um so when I achieve three tricks, I get to score points for every trick that anybody else who has achieved tricks before me has. So I want as many people to get tricks as possible before I get three, but if I wait too long, then I just get to score points for the tricks I have. So that's the cool piece of pinadas. And then it adds these funky cards that let you split tricks, and it's just a great game. Next is Mino Dice. This is essentially just a party game, really. I mean, number 11. It I just find it so fun to do your best to bid. Like I've got a lot of cool looking dice behind my shield, but when I go and roll them, they could end on a face with a flag, and my minotaur, which is technically the the trump of all trumps, could just do me nothing. So you have to be okay with just crap going wrong. But it's fun to just randomly guess at how many tricks you think you'll win, and then if it works out, that's fun.

SPEAKER_01 54:36

Yep. Yeah. I kind of I kind of equate this to um like the crits and tricks. Put this about on the same level because there is a bit of randomness when you either are committing those dice to the number that you want to bid or and or use for the trick, or you're rolling them, which introduces some randomness to potentially win a trick or lose a trick

Classic Staples Enter The Top 10

SPEAKER_01 55:00

to meet end goals.

SPEAKER_00 55:02

Yeah, so much fun rolling dice, man. There's no cards in this, it's just dice. Number 10 is hearts. I really like trick avoidance. Like I loved and even playing spades when when it was my goal to just not win anymore, or I wanted to go nil. Like, I love that. And in hearts, you're just trying not to win hearts, and that's the whole thing. But then it also gives you that fun moment where you're like, oh crap, I've got a bunch of hearts, but if I get them all, that actually sticks everybody else.

SPEAKER_02 55:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 55:40

So you can kind of shoot for the moon, but at its core, you're just trying to avoid taking taking tricks with hearts. So uh yeah, this is my favorite of the classic card games. Next is Skull King. Love it. All right, Skull King by Grandpa Beck. We're at number nine for those following along still. Skull King is great because you have this really intricate kind of like ranking structure. You've got your normal suit cards, then you have your pirates, which beat all those, and then you have a mermaid that um loses to the pirates, but she beats the skull king who beats all the pirates, and you just have these fun trick situations. And and the thing about skull king that I like the most, and I always reference it, is that you start with just one card. Yep. So you're teaching this to people, and you're like, listen, round one, we all just have one card. Everybody's gonna bid, somebody's gonna get a trick, everybody else is gonna get none. And then you yo ho ho, everybody says if they're gonna win a trick or not. You play one card, round one's done. Next round, we do two. And I love that escalation, it kind of gets people into the game, gets the flow of things, um, and very low stakes in those initial rounds as people are kind of picking it up.

SPEAKER_01 57:00

So I love Skulpt King, especially rock, paper, scissors in a trick taker.

SPEAKER_00 57:05

Absolutely. Vivo number eight, small box, all play. I like the um the dictation. Uh, see, I like being told what to do. And in vivo, you get constrained by a card at the start of every trick that says this is gonna be a duet or a quartet, and that tells you how many um different suits need to be in the trick. So if you're going solo, boom, everybody better follow suit because we can only have one uh suit out. Uh so I I like that, and then there's some interesting coring scoring considerations when you um finish the trick. It's like whoever had the lowest does best. It's fun. I like vivo a lot. Gotcha punk trick. This might be recency bias. I yeah, in full disclosure, I don't know if it deserves to be this high, but I've in I played this quite a few times now, and I just really like it. I think the aesthetic helps for sure. And I like every time you win a trick, you just kind of go shopping for cards and you're trying to just set collect with the with the things everybody else played. And the cards you play, you know, when when I'm trying to throw cards off that I'm not gonna win, I don't want to throw really low value ones because then whoever won the trick can buy those for cheap. So there's a cool little tension there. Uh this again, this could be a good thing.

SPEAKER_01 58:39

And the box is a toy, and you get to put the coin.

SPEAKER_00 58:42

This could be too high, I'll admit it. Number six is Jekyll versus Hyde proper. This is my most played two-player trick taker. Mary and I go nuts on this. Okay, Mary always wants to play Jekyll versus Hyde. One person wants the amount of tricks you win to be fairly equal. I probably which one of which one of them's the normal person?

SPEAKER_01 59:04

Uh Jekyll.

SPEAKER_00 59:05

So Jekyll would like everybody. I win four tricks, you win four tricks. That's a good round. Hyde wants it to be lopsided, one way or the other. Either Jekyll wins 10, Hyde wins zero, and vice versa. And you kind of keep track of that along this little track. And the goal is for Hyde to get the insanity track all the way to the end by the end of like three rounds.

SPEAKER_02 59:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 59:30

Um, so yeah, uh, this is so fun. There's potion cards that have little twists, but don't change it up enough that it puts me off.

SPEAKER_01 59:39

So it's almost like pure game theory. Like every single time you put a card down, you're trying to guess what the other person has. Yeah, I love it. Yeah, it's good.

SPEAKER_00 59:48

Five is marshmallow test. This is pinadas, but better. Some people might like pinadas better. I think marshmallow test is just a pure version of the game.

SPEAKER_01 59:58

The people that like pinadas better have never held one of those little squishy marshmallow tokens in their hands. Yes, absolutely. I think that's so great. I love it.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:07

Late gratification trick taking game. And sadly, I don't have this game. I know I have pinas. I know. Pinas has been holding me over, but at some point I'm probably gonna have to buy marshmallow test. It's so good. I love it. Number four is fives. That's confusing. I know. I should have just switched it up for the sake of it. But fives is uh CMYK magenta line game. Uh what you got going on here. I think this might be Takishinzawa, maybe. I think so. But what you have going on here is you're trying to win the trick, the card that you win a trick with, at the end of the round, you want all those cards to be as close to 25 in sum as possible without going over. That's how you do well. And then the other core twist is that every card on the back of it has a magenta five, and once per trick, somebody can say, Hey, I have a blue eight, but actually I'm just gonna flip it over and it's gonna be a magenta five because I didn't want to have to win a trick with that. So that's such a fun decision. I think this game's so clever.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:20

It is a Taiki Shinzawa. Okay, you are correct.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:24

I gotta be right about something. I really I really was fumbling there with the fox in the forest. One of the most popular uh trick-taking games, I couldn't come up with anything for. Um, anyway, number three is no loose ends. This is from our friends at game head, and this is another Shinzawa. All right.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:47

This man the myth the legend.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:50

Yeah, this game you have to call your shots before the round. You get a hand of cards, and if at your bid is putting cards down from your hand. So if I put down a blue two, I have to during the course of the actual trick taking, I have to win with either a two or a blue card to cover that up. I've got to cover my tracks. Um, and what else? You can also use that bidding mechanism to kind of short suit yourself and kind of create these interesting gameplay states.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:22

You are narrowing your chance to get away with the perfect crime by bidding more cards because you're limiting the cards that you can choose from later on during the tricks.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:32

Yeah, yeah, it's such so clever. Uh yeah, it's so clean. Yeah, this is number three, and it could stand to be number one or two, but the top two are just too hard to beat, man. I mean, number two is the crew. I have the quest for plant nine here, but mission deep sea is just as good or better.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:55

You gotta pre-order the new one.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:58

I probably won't pre-order it, but I'll probably get it. Well, it's coming out in a month. This took everything that I love about trick-taking games, which is that getting in sync with your partner, which was that's what made me fall in love with spades way back when was just being in sync with your partner, and it takes that to everybody's your partner. We're all working together, and we're trying to like accomplish these crazy missions. Mary's got to win six pink cards, and I have to win, you know, all the Trump suits, you know, and you're just you know talking to each other through playing cards, and it's just a beautiful thing that happens, and yeah, the crew just knocked it out of the park. This game, you know, is top 100 on BGG for a reason. Oh, yeah, you you can't beat it until you do. And my number, my number one took that core system of a pure co-op trick taker, and just gave it an IP that I I like.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:01

And a story.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:02

And a story, like as you go through, you actually hit the story beats of the Lord of the Rings, and you're doing the exact same thing as the crew. You're all working together to achieve your mission. So it just gets the nod just for the IP and you know, more story-based progression. But both of these games are so great. I mean, this has an 8.0 rating that was the best of all of them. So I'm not out of step with popular opinion here as I might be on some others, but yeah, man, the this was an exercise. All right. I feel I feel worn out. How do you feel about how I came down on these rankings, Travis?

SPEAKER_01 1:04:42

I think I don't think I would disagree with many of them. I know that you've played certainly more trick trick takers than I have. Um, but the ones, at least like the last 10, I'm lockstep with you. I think that you had it spot on. Um, yeah, this Lord of the Rings fellowship of this ring and the two towers trick taking game are so damn good. The art is so damn beautiful, it's so much fun. I can't get enough of those. I need

The Crew And A Clear Number One

SPEAKER_01 1:05:10

to go but bust this these out right after this recording so I can play them.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:14

Yes, do it. Well, that was it. That that's that's the definitive that's the definitive clay ranking.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:21

Can you do me a favor and keep this ranking like on that spreadsheet? And then when we play new trick takers, I want to see where it falls in. Like we can just kind of give a left and right bounds where it's at, yeah, and then we can revisit this like 10 years from now, and we can do the the absolute definitive list.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:37

Absolute definitive. I still won't know what the heck's going on in Fox in the Forest.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:42

Played this about 20 years ago.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:44

Yeah, people like it. I'm gonna see F 15. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:48

All right. All right, we

Travis Back Injury Update

SPEAKER_01 1:05:50

did it. Special operation complete. Let's go over the fence real quick and talk about what we've been doing outside of board gaming. I'm gonna let you catch your breath and I will tell you what I've been doing.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:59

Good.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:00

Please. So those of you that have been listening and you're like, Travis, why have you not been talking about any games? You're barely debriefing. You're barely weighing in on Clay's rankings. I'll tell you, uh, if you've been watching on YouTube, you may have noticed that I've been a little fidgety lately. I've been in the seat kind of stretching and doing weird things and like stretching my arm. So I have not been playing many games at a table because it hurts to sit down at a table because I have a some severe bulging disc and pinching of nerve bundles in my back. No. Yeah. Uh so that has been causing me some great discomfort. Uh sucks to have to sit at a desk. It sucks to sit down. It sucks. I'm like losing finger, uh losing feeling in my left hand. Uh things are not going well uh for Travis's back. I was barely sleeping this week, like getting maybe two hours a night because I was just pacing around the house trying to get my back to release or calm down a bit. I spent two days visiting the hospital so that they could jack me full of steroids and and uh some numbing drugs. So hopefully going to get some injections here soon, uh, but potential a disc replacement in my near future. Oh, geez. Yeah, so I like it hurts to sit at a table and like even using the computer, like being on the keyboard. Uh, trying to uh do my best to navigate that at the moment. And thank you for not being too distracted if you're watching on YouTube YouTube, because I have been really fidgety sitting in this chair.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:42

Man, I'm I I feel horrible now. I feel like I've just been torturing you while you're sitting here. That's horrible traffic.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:49

I save all my sitting for this hour that we have together every week.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:53

Dang, you need to get yourself a standing setup, all right?

SPEAKER_01 1:07:56

I do. Um, this desk is falling apart, anyways, and it needs an upgrade, so maybe that's next. Plus, uh the movers broke my stand. You may have noticed that I'm like sitting higher than normal on my camera level. Uh they broke my stand, and so my monitor's sitting lower. So yeah, it might be time for an upgrade.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:14

Well, hey, I'm sorry to hear that. I hope I hope the doctors get you sorted out. I know that's a a my murky road to start heading down when you I'm I know a lot of old men in my life that have been down the back and disc surgery type situations, and it's hit or miss. Like I don't want to scare you, but that can be that can be rough.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:39

I mean, the the doctor told me the other day they either go in through the front of my neck to repair the discs, or they go through the back and they like fuse all my vertebrae together.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:48

So yeah, neither sounds great. Yeah, I'm not loving that.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:53

Yeah, so we'll cross that bridge when we come to it, but uh for now, uh, I'm gonna go get some injections and see if that helps.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:00

Well, yeah, I hope they inject you and you're just back to jumping higher than anybody has ever jumped before. Are you still fighting people, by the way?

SPEAKER_01 1:09:10

Uh no, they I because of all these issues, I like trained a little bit when I was in Alabama. Uh ended up kind of maybe re-tearing my shoulder up. Yeah. Um, and I was there like just a couple of times. It was just a freak thing. Like, got up, shook the dude's hand after our bout, after our round, shook the dude's hand, and I stepped off the mat and I went, Oh, something's not right in my shoulder. And it's like just now starting to feel like really back to normal. So been trying to do what I can, but man, getting old sucks.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:45

Yeah. Yeah. Things ain't great, man.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:49

On a more

Obsession Review And Relationship Horror

SPEAKER_01 1:09:50

positive note, I guess, uh, I watched the movie Obsession, which is now streaming. This was a like recent kind of horror movie. Um it got a lot of praise and a lot of acclaim, so I decided to give it a shot, and it's not so much a horror as it is watching like a slow motion car crash of a relationship. Um, the premise is this guy is kind of shy and has a group of friends, but he has a crush on this girl in the friend group, goes into a store and buys like a wishing toy, basically, and wants to give it to her as a gift. Um much like every you know horror story starts, it's kind of gremlins-esque. Goes into this shop, buys the toy, uh, eventually wishes, like, I wish that this girl loved me more than anybody else in the world. And he breaks it and the wish comes true. But uh her love is like turns psychotic, and it's you slowly watch this kind of like immature relationship turn spiral out of control. And it's uh I need to think about it a little bit, honestly. I just watched it yesterday uh as we were kind of lounging about the house, and uh I need to think about like what it actually means. I can look up a review and and figure that out, but I want to like mold this over because I think the interesting interesting thing that it does is it holds up a mirror to like every immature relationship you may have ever had. Like especially up front, like they're very clingy and very like all over each other, and they like say these things that are kind of like banter-ish, but they mean it deep down, like, oh you know, you don't love me anymore, but like they just it just escalates, it just spins out of control in slow motion, and it gets a little crazy at the end, as most horror movies do. But uh the obsession becomes unhealthy, and that is the horrific part of it.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:46

That sound uh it sounds so interesting, but I really do not like scary stuff.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:51

I know it's not it's not really scary. There's a couple of um gory scenes that you might need to close your eyes when they come, Clay. But uh other than that, it's um got a little bit of like Romeo and Juliet at the end. Uh no spoilers, but okay. It's uh yeah, it's kind of an interesting thing, and I need to think about it a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:12

Dang, all right. Well, that's that's it. My brother saw it. He was he thought it was awesome. Um but yeah, it wasn't it like the like a super tiny budget and like a young filmmaker that did this.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:27

Yeah, they made it on like a I don't know, fifty thousand, hundred thousand dollar budget. Like it's it's very low budget. Um, but man, some of the effects are quite disturbing. And uh I think it made a you know bazillion dollars, it made 50 times what it what the production cost was. So yeah, I look forward to seeing what this guy does next because it's uh I thought it was pretty impressive.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:51

That's cool, that's cool.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:54

What you got?

Shoe Dog Goal And Two Year Milestone

SPEAKER_00 1:12:55

I I've talked so much, I'll keep it brief. I I just want you really to hold me to something because like I do have you know almost two hours a day in a car now driving to and fro from work, and so I started a book and I want to finish it, I need to finish it. I have been I have a freaking graveyard of half-finished audible books in my library, but this one, if next week I have not said I finished it, you have the right to publicly ridicule me and call me a quitter and a loser. But I'm I'm listening to Shoe Dog.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:34

Okay, nice. Phil Knight.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:36

Yeah, yeah, so it's good. I think I got like six hours left, so I should be able to be finished it by next Sunday. Right, and I want you to hold me to that. I like it. I um so far, it's it's just cool hearing about somebody's story and you know how something as big as Nike just kind of started with a this one crazy guy and just wanting to sell Japanese shoes in America. Uh man, it makes you makes you think anything's possible, you know?

SPEAKER_01 1:14:03

Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:04

Makes you think our humble podcast could someday go somewhere.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:07

That's right. We are just you know two underdogs that are looking to make it big.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:14

Yeah, we're gonna make it big.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:16

But we are coming up on our two-year anniversary, which is a good reminder. Uh August 22nd, we published our very first episode. So we're coming up quick. We're going to be within the month by the time, nope, almost by the time this airs. We'll be about a month away. So look forward to that. We've got some cool new guests coming up. Uh, got some cool new stuff on the pod. Um, and we are gonna just keep getting better every single time. Do you think we're getting better, honestly? I I will let the viewers decide. If you think that we're getting better, go ahead and leave us a review. If you think we're getting worse, go ahead and tell us what we can do to fix your needs, to meet your needs, yeah, to meet your entertainment and podcast needs weekly.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:59

And we'll do anything up to being more prepared for the show.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:04

We will do anything unless it's inconvenient.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:08

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:09

So there. Oh my goodness. All right. Well, did we do it? We did it. We did it. All right. Uh, this has been Operation Game Night Podcast. We have done the definitive trick tanking trick tanking ranking. Try and say that three times fast. Yeah. I have been Travis. He has been Clay. This has been Operation Game Night, and we are out.