Big Wave
Designed by: Daniel Kenel
Big Wave comes in a small box, but it packs a punch: a trick-taking game that flies – or surfs – in the face of convention.
The game takes place over three rounds, during which tricks are played and claimed by the highest-value card. The twist here is that, in a flipping of trick-taking norms, each trick has a must-not-follow rule: every player must play a different suit to whatever suits have been played so far. The highest value will win the trick, and an earlier card will win if there are two highest-cards of the same value.
When a trick is won, the winning suit – each one being a beach – has its value increased: this is tracked by tokens on the table. The winner keeps the card that won the trick (discarding all others) and so the ideal is to have a lot of high-value cards at the end of a round, which comes when all tricks have been played.
If you cannot follow suit in a trick, you get to chill: add a card of your choice to your stash of points cards. If you played a card but didn’t win or chill, then at the end of the trick you’ll get to choose a special action: one of taking a card back from the trick, taking two new cards from the deck, gaining a point and choosing the start player for the next trick, or taking a tow-in token, which can be added to a future trick to increase the value of your played card by 2.
After all tricks are played scores are tallied and a new round begins with all suits now reset to zero. And after three rounds, the game ends and the player with the most points wins.
Sam says
There’s a theme of surfing big waves here, but realistically you’d need to play on a beach to feel it. But that’s no criticism: trick-takers generally do feel devoid of theme and the fun of them is the experience they pack into a deck of cards with., occasionally, a few extra components. I happen to be a fan of the genre so I’m always a sympathetic audience, but with that in mind I really enjoy what’s happening here. It’s not the simplest or the most elegant, but it’s pretty accessible and always gives me interesting, challenging decisions as to what to do when. I’m not sure I’ve fully comprehended what the best strategies are either, but that’s no bad thing. It’s a little fiddly keeping track of the special actions – if one has been chosen, nobody else can choose the same – but the production is rather nice and the game itself has a level of intrigue I can really – sorry – get on board with. If the ‘Interested’ link is a dead end, consider checking out the publisher’s website.
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Take That!
There's a lot of indirect interaction here, but trick-takers are rarely games that feel spiteful
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Fidget Factor!
Very low
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Brain Burn!
Each round serves you options, from winning to chilling to special abilities. Timing is important too: if you can dump a suit, that can be really beneficial, especially if you play later in a trick
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Again Again!
There are enough moving parts here to keep the brain busy on every visit
