Designed by: Stefan Dorra
Nyet! takes the standard trick-taking idea (- a card is led and players must follow suit if they can) of a game like Whist and adds a couple of interesting twists to it.
Firstly, before each round begins players take turns placing markers on a communal board to determine the dynamics of that particular round: whether cards may be swapped or not, which suit is trump, which suit is super-trump (more on trumps and super-trumps below), how much a trick is worth, and who the starting player is. When all the rows on the card are filled except for one option, what is still visible defines the parameters of the current round: for instance maybe the red player starts, everyone passes a card to their left, blue is trump and green is super-trump and each trick is worth 3points. As with most trick-taking games, if you can’t follow the suit that was led, you can dump a non-matching card or play a trump, which wins you the trick – assuming nobody plays a higher-trump of course. In Nyet! the super-trump beats everything but will only be the value 1 card of a certain suit.
Before play begins, the starting player may choose a partner with whom they’ll combine with for this round, sharing the points they make. In a four-player game the other two players also combine – with 3 there’ll always be someone going solo, and they get to double the points they win. With 5 the teams go 3 v 2 with the 2 players doubling their points.
Then the game plays out as a series of tricks – someone leads, everyone follows (following suit if they can) and the highest card wins the trick. Note too that any non-supertrump ‘1’s won from your opponents count as a bonus trick (you can’t claim these bonuses off yourself or your partner). After either a set number of rounds or an agreed points target, the player with the most points wins.
I'm a big fan of trick-takers, and also of partnership games. The shifting partnerships in Nyet work brilliantly, as you try and decode the meaning of the other players' choices on the communal board before picking your partner.
Nothing arbitrary to speak of, short of denying each other the sought-after starting position.
Low - once play begins decisions tend not to be agonizing...
...because your choices are often made for you (follow suit!) and if not, whether to dump or trump isn't at chess-levels of cognitive overload. That said, when you're leading the trick decisions might get a little trickier...
It's the type of game that rewards repeated play.
3-5
Players
10+
Years
30-60
Mins
Sam says
What makes Nyet! so interesting to me is the information players give out (or bluff) at the start of each round. If you don't have many green, for instance, you might eliminate green as a potential trump, and in doing so your opponents get an idea about your hand. This is key to who the starting player elects to team up with - or whether they do at all. A first play can seem a bit of a lottery but it's clear that if it became a favourite that familiarity would give you more of a sense of control. We do like trick-takers here at GNG, and Nyet is ne isklyuchenye.