Top 10 Trick Taking Games of 2025 - with Mike DiLisio

0:05 Hey there everybody. This is Mike Delisio and today I'm going to be talking about my top 10 trick taking games from 2025. Why do I say truck taking? Well, because I'm choosing to include climbing and shedding games into this list. They are closely related kind of under a very large umbrella uh of games. Many people are familiar with trick- taking games. They may have grown up with kind of traditional trick-taking games like Hearts or Spades, Pinole, Uker. There's a bunch of them out there. Um, but over the last several years, trick-T games have gone um kind of on an explosion in this hobby. And there's been a real kind of a renaissance, a trick-taking renaissance, some say, over the last several years. And um it's just it's taken something that a lot of people thought was a narrow design space and shown that it is definitely not that. There's been a lot of innovation um just exciting things happening within this sphere. I do also want to mention that not every game on this list is going to be something that you're going to be able to go to your friendly local game store or hop on to Amazon to be able to pick up. A lot of these games are coming from uh publishers from outside of North America. And while I did really try to focus on games that uh were not as difficult to get a hold of some, you know, your mileage may vary.

1:28 You may have a little bit more difficult time on some of these than others just because it inevitably gets brought up and and so you know, I'm doing the best I can on that front. All right, let's get started. At number 10, we have Faust versus Meisto. This is coming from um the designer KNIL who is well known for two-player trick-taking games. You did not used to see that very often, if at all. And now you're really starting to see a lot of really good two-player trick taking games. This is one of those coming from Mandu games. Um and this is an asymmetric game where you're playing either Foust or Meisto and your win condition will depend upon which character you are. And so that's a really clever twist. Um, kind of what you're, you know, you can do is play as one character and then switch and play as the other character and kind of combine the scores to have an overall winner. But it's a game where it's a mustf follow tricktaking game that has a variable suit hierarchy. There's a, you know, there's a a difference on how strong the suits are depending upon which cards are played when. Really clever. At number nine is depot. And this is one of those shedding games where you're trying to get rid of all of the cards in your hand. Uh, this is now coming from publisher Plate Games, a Korean publisher who does have a pretty large presence in North America. So, and in Europe, so it shouldn't be too hard to get a hold of this one. This is a game that is themed around sorting packages. I don't want to say that these cards look like Amazon packages, but

2:59 they're pretty darn close. Uh they're really it's just a fun little theme to add on to a game where it's really just numbers on these cards. And the what you're trying to do is get rid of the cards in your hand by playing either sets of numbers, two of a kind, three of a kind, four of a kind, or runs of numbers, consecutive numbers in a row. But the type and the amount of cards that you're going to play is going to be based upon an everchanging kind of central display. And so it leads to some really interesting card play where you have some constraints, but you can also influence through what you play what can be played in the future. Really, really an interesting game. Number eight is another two-player game. Another two-player trick-taking game, but this one's a cooperative two-player trick-taking game called The Slasher. And uh really really clever, unique, kind of a a bit odd and quirky um but really really clever where you are through the playing of cards and do tricks trying to kind of dig through a deck of cards that have uh escape items that you need to win the game. But also within that same deck is the killer who's going to potentially damage you.

4:05 And so you have to be clever through limited communication. kind of play the cards you need to to be able to heal yourself from wounds, also to dig through the deck and get the escape cards that you need. Really clever game. At number seven is a game that I'm going to do my best on the pronunciation. Yonkai no Yokai, which I believe is kind of a pun. I believe Yonkai is like fourth floor and Yokai is like a a spirit, a Japanese spirit. This is themed around spirits in an elevator. And believe it or not, this is not the only game on this list themed around spirits on an elevator. Yes, it's true. But Yonkaya Yonokai is very, very clever. It's a game where you are going to be playing cards. You're trying to to get rid of the cards in your hand and you are playing them um based upon where the elevator is, what floor it's on essentially. So basically the idea is that you are playing cards if the if the elevator is going up, if it's ascending, you are playing cards of higher values and potentially of greater numbers depending upon what was played before.

5:18 And it has a really clever uh system where it's just three cards that show the fourth floor through the first floor and a little slider card that you move that always tells you the range of cards that you can play. So, like I said, let's say if someone had played a single five and the elevator is going up, it's telling you that you can play between a single six, double ones, twos, threes, fours. What did I say was played? A five. I think that would be it. Double fours. But the card kind of tells you what you can play. And you can also have you go up, you can it could automatically, if someone plays four sixes, which is the highest number in the game, it can automatically descend. But everybody has an elevator button that they can play that allows them to change the direction of the elevator mid game. Super clever game. Really, really fun game. Uh Yonkai No Yo-kai. At number six is another game about ghosts in an elevator. This is called Ghost Lift. Um it's so amazing to me that two games with a very similar theme that even have kind of some similar ideas feel so different. They're they're both terrific. In Ghost Lift, um what you're going to be doing is you are going to be uh playing out cards that are g again going to kind of be determined um by what was played before, how many cards you can play, what cards you can play, and there are certain cards that have arrows on them that are telling you whether the elevator is going up or down, which means that you're playing cards of a higher or lower value. It sounds very similar to

6:48 the one I just described, but it plays quite differently. The scoring is um there's a little bit more going on in the scoring in Ghostlift than there was in in uh Yonkai No Yo-kai, but they're both terrific games. Um two great games about spirits and elevators. Who knew? At number five is Torch Lit. This is coming from All Play Games, so it should be very easy to get a hold of this one. Um, Torch Lit is a really, really clever game where you've got a essentially a dungeon that you are going to be a character and as you win tricks in a mustfollow trick taking game, you're going to be moving your character along this number dungeon that will eventually wrap back around to zero. And the person who wins the trick moves forward, but the person who plays the lowest card in the trick is going to be the I don't I think it's called the torch master. And they get to determine which cards get played into these different dungeons.

7:48 And so there'll be cards played below each of these numbered dungeons. And so the zero cards will go into the zero dungeon, the three cards will go into the three three dungeon, etc. It's just it's a game that you have so much kind of um control. You got you got a lot of mitigation because at the very beginning of the game looking at your hand, you're going to pick where you decide you're going to be. Like so if you think you're going to end up on the number four dungeon, you play a number four card face down. But it also gives you this ability that at the last trick, you can switch the last card that you've kept with the one that you had played before. So it gives you some mitigation there. You're you're kind of predicting how many tricks you're going to win, but you can kind of change that at the last second. Really early clever game and a beautiful production by All Play. At number four is Quattro Tricktaking from designer Tiki Shinszawa, who I feel in my opinion is the best tricktaking designer out there. Um, and this is probably one that would be a little bit tricky to get a hold of. I do know that there were some North American company uh um publishers, not publishers, stores, online stores that had kind of brought this over. So, you may be able to get a hold of it. Um the idea, the kind of the the hook for this game is that everyone is playing a trick-taking game, but they're all scoring differently, and you're going to rotate those scoring methods so that every player is going to be playing all of those different scoring methods. Really, really clever. uh game where you might

9:20 be, you know, at the beginning after looking at your hand, you may be trying to determine how many tricks you're winning of which color or what kind of your your range of of points are going to be. And so you're kind of betting on bidding on those. And um it's just it's so clever. It's like you're kind of playing depending on player count three or four. You're either playing like three trick- takingaking games in one or four trick-T games in one, but it's really one game with four or three different scoring. Really cool. Love this game. At number three is Lunar Trick, which is maybe one of the most unique and hard to describe trick taking games I've ever played. So, I'm not going to get into the weeds here, but this is a game where essentially there uh can be anywhere from one to three suits in the game depending upon cards that players play face down and then they simultaneously reveal. It's going to kind of set some ranges um that are going to determine which tricks you're going to win because they're going to have different kind of suits depending upon how those numbers lay out. I'm doing a terrible job of describing it. Just know that this is a really unique game that plays like nothing I've ever played uh in the trick-taking realm and um yeah, I just adore it. That is Lunar Trick. Number two is Origin Story. This is coming from Stonemer Games. Will be very easy to get a hold of. You can get a hold of it right now. This is a really

10:50 thematically interesting trick-taking game. The idea behind this is that you are an alter ego of a superhero and through five rounds, you're going to eventually reveal what your superhero is. But that's all thematic. Mechanically, what you're doing is you're playing a trick- takingaking game, but you're adding in elements of special powers and abilities that you can kind of charge up. And the the the further you go in the game, the more access to more of these abilities you have that just lead to, you know, some very chaotic moments that lead to some very highintensity moments that lead to push your luck elements that lead to just crazy things. And the fact that all of these different powers can work simultaneously and and and still really still feel like you are playing a game, right? It's not just completely devolve into chaos. I think is really really clever. Um and it's one of those games where every power someone else gets, you want that power because they're all great. So, uh Origin Story, just a really terrific trick-taking game. And my number one game, uh tricktakingish game from, uh 2025 is No Loose Ends. And this is another one from Tiki Shinszawa. Uh this is coming from Game Head, which should be readily available to I think most people watching this. And this is a re-implementation of a game that was called uh shut the books, but it's a a game where you are after looking at the cards that you have been dealt. you are

12:20 determining not only how many tricks you're going to win. That's something you see in a lot of trick- taking games where you kind of are saying, "Okay, look, based on the strength of my hand, I think I'm going to win two tricks this round or I'm going to win three or none." Not only are you doing that, but you're also predicting how many tricks you're going to win of a particular color or number as well. And that twist really leads to this incredibly clever emergent game play where you have a little bit of flexibility, but not a whole lot. You really have to be uh thinking about what do I have? What do I think I can safely put out there to bid with to get the highest scoring possible without leaving any quote unquote loose ends? meaning tricks you've won that cannot cover one of the things that you predicted at the beginning. Absolutely outstanding trick- taking game. Um, subtle changes from Shut the Books and every change made was for the better.

13:22 So, No Loose Ends is my number one trick-T game of 2025. All right. Well, there you have it. I I sure love me some trick-T games and uh I'm excited to see what comes up next. But for 2025, here are 10 fantastic games. I'm Mike Delissio. I'll see you on the next one.

13:46 Hey folks, I'm Tom Vassel. Thanks for watching this video. Check out our channel. We have a lot of videos on our channel. We have live videos that go up each week from live Q&As's to videos where we take a look at the newest stuff on Kickstarter, crowd surfing to top 10 lists and more. There's lots of stuff on this channel. We encourage you to explore it. You can find out more at our website, dicetowwer.com. I'm Tom Bassel. Thanks for watching another video on the Dice Tower.