Tether
Designed by: Mark McGee
Tether is a two-player game (there’s also a 4-player team variant) themed around astronauts floating – tethered or otherwise – in space. But whom is tethered to whom is important, and are they horizontal or vertical…?
The game is made up of a deck of cards numbered 1-99. The catch is that most cards contain two numbers: each one the mirror image of the other. So rotate the 49 card to make it a 94, for example, or rotate the 01 card to make it 10. Only the repeat numbers (11, 22, 33, 44 and so on) are the same both sides. You’re dealt a hand of five cards and can freely rotate to suit your needs.
But what are your needs? This is where Tether gets a bit screwy. One player is looking to connect cards horizontally, and the other vertically. Both are looking at the cards from opposite sides, and must respect the number value of the card that faces them: if you play the 17, it’s the 71 as far as I’m concerned.
The cards are connected simply by having cards of consecutive values in a straight line: on your turn, you can play a card form your hand to the table and connect it to other cards that have connecting numbers: these can be from your hand as well, from the adrift cards, or even from another group of previously-laid cards. In the latter instance, you must move the entire group together. If you can’t (or don’t want to) play, you must ‘set an astronaut adrift’ instead, discarding a card face-up where either player can add it to a group. If you do this, you get a replacement card from the deck, and if your turn ends with your hand less than six cards, you also draw another into your hand from the deck.
The point of all the card laying and connecting is that as soon as any group of cards hits (or exceeds) a certain number of cards – specifically, 6, 10 and 14 – that group will now score. Players draw an imaginary rectangle around it and the vertical player will score points for the ‘height’ of the rectangle, whereas the horizontal player will score points for the width. If either player generates a six point lead, they instantly win. If the deck runs out, or a group of 14 or more cards is scored, the player with the most points wins.
And both of you allow yourselves a little lie down to recover.
Sam says
Beautifully made – the cards are lovely, to me – and a really interesting idea. Our first play was an exercise in heavy brow-furrowing, but the second things went a little faster as the fog of numbers coalesced – very slightly – into a sense of opportunity. There’s definitely luck here: you can get a hand of cards that connect wonderfully for you, or a hand that looks thrown together by a bingo caller. The key is spotting opportunities as they arise – you might suddenly spot that you have the two cards needed to connect three big groups, score a huge haul of points and end the game! It’s quite niche in both how it works and who it will appeal to, I think, as it’s definitely a game that leads to (and needs) moments of pondering. But for every (few) people who find Tether a bit too dense and inscrutable, someone will love it for the same reasons.
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Take That!
Players need to keep an eye on opponent numbers and possibilities, but it's extremely abstract and it'd be hard to be offended by anything here
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Fidget Factor!
Moderate to high, realistically. Like a hungover sloth doing timetable spreadsheets
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Brain Burn!
Rules-wise, Tether is not laying it on thick at all. But the numerous numeric possibilities are something that may turn more people away than they welcome in
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Again Again!
For a certain type of player, this will be moreish. For others, it may lack the oxygen they need (see Sam Says)
