Designed by: Philippe Latarse
Set and Match is a flicking game inspired by, and closely resembling, tennis. Players – one v one, or two v two – face off over a ‘court’ and flick a ball back and forth hoping to win points. The scoring is exactly as the real thing, with points winning games, games winning sets and sets winning matches . What Set and Match does rather cleverly, though, is the rallies.
In tennis a rally is where the players hit the ball back and to over the net, each trying to force the other into a mistake. A drop shot forces the opponent to run to the net; a cross court makes them rush from side to side. In a rally during Set and Match, where the ball is hit has the same import: on the side of the game board is a rally tracker with a marker that records which player is in the dominant position. If you hit – flick – the ball centrally, it won’t move. But by the net, the sides and back of the court all score ‘rally points’ (between 1 and 3; all clearly marked on the board itself) and bring the rally marker toward you: if the marker gets as close to you as it can you win the point and a new point begins. You can gain additional points for making the aforementioned drop shots and cross courts as well, and can even ace a serve, winning a point instantly. A single game takes minutes, or play the first-to-three sets to take the match.
It's a battle of sorts, like most sport is. But any frustration is most likely self-inflicted, as so often the case with flicking games!
Extremely low. Almost not there.
Rules-wise it's all very straightforward, especially if you have a passing notion of tennis (and how it scores).
It's a very samey game in terms of variation from play to play, but if you enjoy it the first time we suspect you'll enjoy it the twentieth.
2-4
Players
6+
Years
15-30
Mins
Sam says
It could easily have been a bore-fest of flicking a disc back and forth over an imaginary net, but two things save Set & Match - indeed, more than save it - from feeling rote. It's loyal adherence to the sport of tennis - this is as close as you could possibly get, with no extraneous 'gamification' - and the rally system, which gets incredibly tense! Pulling off a cross-court drop-shot to wrench momentum from your opponent and pull off an unlikely point is as satisfying as, ooh, walking out at Wimbledon and hearing the crowd chant your name. Possibly. If not, it's still a lot of fun. If Push It is the most accessible (and portable) flicking game out there, Cube Quest the funniest and Ascending Empires the most epic, this is the one that genuinely feels like a micro version of its inspiration: made with love.