Eternal Sevens Review: The Magnificent Seven
Transcript
Hey there everybody. I'm Mike Delisio.
I'm Chris Ye.
Today we're going to be talking about Eternal Sevens coming from designer Heroken and publisher TrickTakers Games. The publishing imprint of this designer. This is a followup of sorts to a game that's made quite a bit of buzz, Eternal Decks. And I say it's a follow-up of sorts because the the games are two very different games.
They have cards.
Yes.
And outside of that, I mean, they have similar artwork and that mythos and and everything to it, but yeah, it's a completely different game. Also, neither of which are tricktakers.
They are not, even though that's the name of the publisher. And this designer is well known for doing some fantastic trick-taking games, including one called
Trick Takers. Hey, you're getting confused. Let's make you more confused. No, no, I I'll try to make you less confused by showing you how the game works in a kind of an highle overview. Here we go. Eternal Sevens can be described as a game system. It's built off of a traditional game called Sevens. And there are actually two different modes. You can play the casual mode, which has the rules here, or you can play the gamer mode, which is a slightly more uh complex, more involved, and it has its own little rule book. And within each of those two modes, there are two levels. So, uh, four particular ways you can play the game. I'm going to go over all four because there's not a huge difference between them. So, the first thing is casual beginner. And in this case, what's going to happen is that h you're going to have for every player uh three pass tokens which are going to be in the player colors. You're going to get a deck of cards. They're going to be dealt out. This deck is going to be dealt out evenly amongst however many players there are. And then you're going to have your player area up here, which is going to denote three pass actions.
All right. So, once the deck is dealt out, you'll roll this little die to see who goes first. In this case, it is red. On a player's turn in this mode, they're doing simply one of two things. They are either playing a card from their hand or they're using one of their three pass actions that they' be placing along these spots in the board. There are two possible winning conditions. Either you shut out your hand completely, meaning you play meaning you play the last card from your hand, or you gain two of these star tokens. Most often what you're going to be doing is playing a card to the player area or the play area here. So in this game you see the numbers four, five, six, and seven that have these little uh kind of arrows pointing to them. And that denotes that the first card in each of the four rows must be played as one of those four numbers. So let's say this is the red card's um hand. They have a couple of different places they can go. They can play this yellow four if they wanted to. They can play the green four. They can play the blue seven. They could play the red five. Let's say they do that. They play the red five. Okay. So, that would be their action, pure and simple, playing a card from their hand. Let's say the clockwise is going this way. Now, blue is doing the same thing. They have the same restrictions. They could because they have a card that is to the left or the right of a previously played card, they could play it here if they want to. Or they can start by going in and opening up a different row. Let's say they played the blue four. All right. It's going to continue to go along like this. Yellow will get a shot.
They'll play one of their cards. Maybe they play this. Okay. So, this is going to be the main aspect of the game, which is trying to play out the cards that you have. And that would be one way to win is by going out. The other way to win is by getting two of these stars. And the way that stars work is that when cards are played to these different rows, once a card is either played to the one or the 10 spot, then one of these infinity cards can be played. There's one of them right there. So, let's say that um they had played all these cards out. That was the blue 10. Now, you can play a card here. Once a card is played on either side, uh, of one of the purple cards, you're going to take the star and you're going to move it in the opposite direction from that was from where that was played up to the card. So, this would actually go to this blue three.
Okay? If instead cards had been played going this way and this was a blue one and someone had played here, then the star token would actually move here. Okay? So, we can say that that's an example at that point. Once this uh has been established, now another player can go from here and you're having to go from the opposite side and you can continue to play. And whoever is able to play this blue six would take this and place it into their player area. Two of those is another win condition. So, you're either trying to get two stars or get rid of all your cards. The other thing you can do on a turn is you can pass. You'll take one of your pass tokens and you place it on one of these three spots. the in this mode, all of the pass actions are the same for everybody. If you go here, you're getting a rare card and you're adding it to your hand and it's double-sided, so everyone knows if you've got a rare card in your hand. Basically, a rare card can be played as any number or color. So, you can put this anywhere. All right, so that's one of your pass actions. The other pass action you can do is to discard face down into the discard area.
And this could even be the last card you have in your hand. So, uh, if you had one card in your hand only, but you had nowhere legally to play it, as long as you had that pass action, you can do that. And now you go out. The last thing you can do is do an eternal action, which is from this deck right here. You would flip it over. And now this is going to have some type of power that happens to everybody until this card gets replaced. In this case, if the Pegasus came up, you could play one or two cards on your hand. One other thing to note is that the twos and the nines have this symbol next to them. And uh you'll also see them on the cards. When cards are played to either uh the two or the nine in any of the colors, you're going to flip over one of these instant eternals and it's going to have some type of an action. In the case of the minuteitar, it shifts all the stars from the side they were on to the opposite side. Things along those lines, but that's an instant thing that happens.
And then you continue to go. That's it. The first player to either get rid of all their cards or to get two of these stars would win in the beginner casual mode. In the standard casual mode, the only thing that changes is that now you've got these player boards that give you some different passing options and you're going to end up having four pass actions instead of three. The win conditions remain the same, either going out or getting two of these star tokens. But now every player has some additional that they can choose from. Now, there are six possible, including the three original that everyone has, but you're only going to have up to four that you can take. It just gives you some slightly different things that you can do. And it also adds in these three different types of tokens, which are the mustplay tokens here, the play again tokens, and the X tokens. And essentially, the difference obviously is that everyone has slightly different things they can do. The red player here has much more options to get these um eternals that they can get access to.
They also have a second rare card they can get. And anytime you see that little symbol, that means you get one of these additional play tokens, which means that on your turn, you can play a card, turn this in, and play a second card. Okay, this one has the mustplay tokens. When these come out on the board, you can place them anywhere you want. And then whenever this becomes a valid spot to play, whoever has the card would be incent they have to play it there. So whoever would have the blue eight would have to play it there if the token is there if it's a legal placement. Right now it couldn't be placed because there's no card on either side of it. But that's the general idea of the mustplay tokens. Um this is allowing you to pick one star and move it from one side to its opposite side, which I talked about a little bit before. And this player just has more options. They can discard a card up to three times.
Um, which could help them certainly go out more easily. But that's really the only difference between the standard mode of casual and the beginner mode of casual. Now, let's talk about the gamer mode. All right, the first level of gamer mode is known as expert. And there's a few changes here. Number one is that the victory conditions are different. Now, this is played over two rounds. Both of the gamer mode uh variations are played over two rounds. And your goal is to in a four-player game either reach 20 hearts or four stars. In a three two or three player game, it would be 21 hearts uh or 21 victory points or five stars, but essentially you're trying to do that over the course of two rounds. Um there are new boards here that are going to determine uh how you're scoring, and I'll talk about this in just a moment, but uh those are the main differences.
Then also over here, the eternals are replaced by these dragon cards. And so you've got your instant uh dragon actions, which are your twos and nines. When you play cards to two or nines, you're going to be able to pick, take a cube, and put it on any one of these to trigger that particular action. When all of these have been chosen, then you're going to flip it over, and you're going to be able to uh have it for the next round where you are having some different things that you're going to be able to do. And these two uh are going to be taken from top to bottom. They go down and then they'll flip. And that's going to be when you take these types of passing actions is when you trigger each of those two cards. Okay, those are the main differences. Otherwise, you're playing the game exactly the same, playing out cards, putting your uh tokens onto the pass actions that you have, maybe getting some extra play tokens. So, the uh the the big thing to keep in mind here is that not only you playing over two rounds and have these different kind of scoring conditions.
Let me actually There we go. That's going to help. Sorry, I was referring to things you couldn't see. There you go. Now you can see it. There are different ways to kind of end the round. Okay. Now, when you go out, that's still the same thing that you can do, but when you go out, each other player is going to get one more turn. This also uh is going to be bringing it uh in something called the hard pass, which doesn't uh take place in the casual mode. At the start of your turn, if you have two or fewer cards in your hand, uh you can discard it face up and declare a hard pass. If you do that, then every other player is going to get two turns. So going out gives every other player one turn. Hard pass gives every other player two turns. and uh you could get eliminated if you cannot do either of those two things within the time frame that you have allocated to you. When you look at these different player boards, they're also going to have different ways that they score. So for the red player, if they go out, they're going to gain two stars and then two victory points per any unused pass token they have. If they hard pass, they're going to get three victory points plus a victory point for every red card they have left in their hand.
So, you can get up to two more victory points here because you have only two cards left in your hand. Okay? And these are different for all the different players. So, depending upon which player you have, you're going to score differently. And again, you're going to be doing this over two rounds. In the pro version of gamer mode, instead of playing with these predetermined boards that tell how each of the different colors are going to score, you're actually going to be drafting these different boards that will tell you the ways you can score. So, you'll be able to look over the hands that you have and then try to draft the uh board that's going to give you the best potential scoring. And so, they all have different uh pass actions on them. And then they also have different uh things that will score. Also, some of them will tell you to do something during the preparation phase which is towards the beginning.
Same thing as the first F version of the gamer mode where you're playing over two rounds trying to get those different scoring conditions. All right, that is Eternal Sevens. Let's head back up and talk about it.
Okay, so as we mentioned during the intro, the this game is very different from another game uh called Eternal Decks, which you may have heard of. Uh that's going to have, you know, uh probably something that's going to draw some people into this review. Uh this is actually based off of a traditional Japanese game called Sevens. So, I think that's important to know going in is that uh it's going to be impossible to talk about this without comparing it to Eternal Decks. I think I guess you could, but I'm choosing not to. I am going to make some comparisons to to the two games. And this has a feeling of a game that is based off of a traditional kind of a framework in my mind. Well, because if you play I think there's four recommended or like four game modes you can play and I think that that first one is very much so sevens but with one wrinkle on it. Uh in my understanding of the basic game card, you know, empty out your hand of cards and you have to play higher or lower than what's already out there.
Yeah, I guess in the original game, you know, in here you can play from uh four, five, six or seven. Mhm.
In the original game, you have to play the seven, I believe.
Okay. Well, that would make sense.
Yeah.
Yeah. So, they made it even a little bit more quite a bit more restrictive in the original, and this changes that, makes it a little bit less restrictive to start the Rose. Anyway, let's not get too caught up in that. But, I do think it's important to bring up that this I feel like is going to give you a very different first impression to Eternal Decks. And it threw me honestly the first time I played the game. the the the the two main modes, you know, kind of like the basic mode and gamer mode or casual mode and gamer mode, I can't remember. The first the easiest version of this game is so simple. I was left feeling, is is that it?
Well, because it feels very much like a traditional card game. Yeah. High luck, you know, do you have the right card to play? Oh, I don't have a card to play yet because none of my cards line up. Yeah. Tough, right? And that's what that first game kind of feels like with that little wrinkle of you can start with a few wider starting areas. And [clears throat] there's not a lot to it. And uh yeah, we immediately after playing that we're like, "Okay, well obviously let's go to the next one because I have a little more trust with this designer uh and this publisher. But if you didn't know that, you might just say
this game sucks."
Yeah. All that being said, if you are playing this for the first time and you start on the beginner mode, it's not showing you very much of what it has to to offer. So, I think it's important to bring that up. That's why, you know, we're spending a bit of time on that on the front end. Um, so I would even go farther than that and say that really the game in my mind is the gamer mode. And you've got two kind of levels of that. I prefer the furthest along the spectrum. The pro level, I think it is, or the expert level of the gamer mode. All this nomenclature is confusing, but the of the four levels of difficulty, I think it's best at that highest level of difficulty because even at that level of difficulty, I don't think it's overwhelming. It's a meaty card game at that point, but it's still not like really outside of the realm of normal.
You have to worry about some different scoring, but it still has some very you're playing a card or you're passing essentially. That's what you're doing on your turn. Now, the pass actions can get a little bit more intricate as you go on, but really it's a game where you're doing one of two things on your turn and that's it, right? And in the the difference between the what is it going to call it level three and level four like the you know level three you kind of have preset um powers and like sets like oh this is this is what you specialize in
as the blue player or as the red player. Yeah.
Yeah. And that's so at that point it's funny because you're seeing for the most part the content of what's in the game
that highest level of difficulty you're just
drafting what combination of powers and specialties you'll have
which I think a lot of people will be perfectly happy playing at that third level of of difficulty because give me the blue stuff ready to go I can play towards that. Uh but I I think that's the thing is the game really presents itself at that stage,
right?
Um I I in the moment I'm trying to remember what the difference is between like the level two between the one and the but it's level two is kind of the starting point like the I think that's where you could really learn the game.
I think that if you're watching this review and you say I don't want to just play a red card that's higher or lower on my turn, skip version one,
that introduction rule set. start at two, but also know that two is not even the full game really. I think when you get into three and four,
right,
two, what it does is it gives you four pass actions instead of three, and you have some specialized pass actions. And the first one, it's the same three basic actions for passing. And so, yeah, they all do have a little something different, but I think I agree with you is that you're really finding out what the game is in levels three and four. Um,
and that I think is quite interesting. And the reason why I do like the fourth level is that that's going to be the one that has a little bit more on the strategy versus luck because it is a game that involves a significant amount of luck. Yeah. Um but at least there you're looking at your hand first and choosing what do I think I'm going to best be able to score with this hand
and it plays over two rounds. So you get to do that draft twice. That's my favorite version of the game and it's one that I think if you've played, you know, card games that have a little bit of complexity. You could probably start on that if you had someone teach it to you. Um so, so let's talk about the the kind of the things that make this unique first of all. Well, or do we want to? Yeah, we'll do that. Sure. Um, I think what makes this unique, uh, is basically the the idea of a very simple structure, turn structure, play a card, do a pass action. Um, that that in and of itself has some interesting timing elements. Sometimes you're wanting to strategically pass. As a matter of fact, that's actually a huge part of the game is choosing to strategically pass or to use a pass action to avoid having to play a card you might otherwise have to have played for any number of reasons. I think that's a compelling part of this game. Um I think the the um the different ways that you can score in those later parts of the game where you can either go out or you can go out early. There's a word for it. I can't remember the terminology for going out early, but that is going to influence when other players have to have their accomplishments done by. I like those elements of the game. And the the thing that really makes it stand out and is a pretty big different from the traditional scheme of sevens is adding those instant and ongoing eternal powers, actions, whatever you might take
call them. Yeah.
Oh, yeah. Yeah. And and that's where that especially I find like the the timing of passing Yeah. is so crucial because something is out there and you go,
I don't want that to be out there. Uh, you know, I might take a pass action
when it might otherwise seem like it'd be more opportune to really just play, but I know like uh I I want to pass. I want to take advantage of this exact thing that's out there right now. Uh I I like that tension. It's a good source of of of tension that makes you feel like
this might make or break whether I win or lose this hand, you know? Uh, and that's great. I want that type of decision to come up.
Agreed. Um, so and production. We can talk about the production. I think the production is fantastic. I love this art and this aesthetic. I mean, it's got a really nice UV print on the front. Um, your mileage may vary whether you like the cloth board that's out there. It's I I feel like it's perfectly functional. Um, I think it works best when it's on top of a playmat or uh, you know, a t a game table because it doesn't slide around as much. Yeah. And so I think it's at its best there. It does work on a plastic table. I've played it on one, but you can bump it a little bit more easily that way.
It's the type of mat that doesn't have those folded creases. I like this type of playmat, but 100% that's just like a a preference type of a thing.
Sure. Good card quality, nice chunky wooden pieces with screen printing. I love the art and the aesthetic, but it is very stylized and it may not be to your liking. So, that's something uh you know that's going to your mileage may vary on that.
And if you have played Eternal Decks and it's fun to see a lot of the same stuff, right, just the the same motifs and everything, it makes me sit there and go, I wonder if he's going to do a third Eternal something game that I will then, you know, have some
some uh I love the term that Z uses, scaffolding, just some of that understanding. It's not like they're similar games at all. No,
but you teach a rule and you say this kind of happens and go that seems kind of familiar.
And if you're not familiar, it's not that complex, but it is nice having that little bit of familiarity.
Yeah, I I will say um if we're going to talk about negatives, um there's a couple. I've alluded to to uh some of them already. Number one is I think that this potentially will not make a great first impression for the reasons we've discussed. And I think especially in today's gaming uh atmosphere, culture, whatever you want to call it, making a good first impression is vitally important because there's so many games that could potentially be taking your attention. Um, and so I think that that's a potential negative is that I understand I believe why uh the designer chose to kind of put it in this stepped learning manner. He did something very similar with Eternal Decks um where it was kind of like here let me show you a basic version of this and then we're going to step it up um but that game was a much more unorthodox game from the beginning so I think it made more sense there to do it because you're starting from much less familiarity whereas here literally the original version of the game is have you played Uno you could play this
agreed
you know what I mean and so I think that is a slight negative I understand why it's there, but just you should know going in there's a lot more to offer than the first level of this game will show you. Um, so there's that. Secondly, I think that in a strange way, putting it in this eternal line that we assume is going to be a thing almost works to its detriment because it's almost impossible not to compare the two, but they really should not be. They're very different games. this is competitive whereas Eternal Dex was cooperative. This doesn't have any of that limited communication situation. It's not as you know um it doesn't have as much unorthodox elements to it. It doesn't also kind of go as wide in a breath as Eternal Decks does because it in it that's more of a puzzle solving game.
This is not a puzzle solving game. It's a traditional card shedding game. And so I think to some extent I had to kind of protect myself when I came in here and and be like I need to review this game on its merits,
not as a companion piece to Eternal Decks. And so I've really thought a lot about that when I came into preparing for this review. This is its own game and I'm going to be reviewing it as its own game, but it's really hard to not compare it to Eternal Decks. And in a weird way, that's almost a negative.
That's funny. You know what I mean? So that was my thoughts. Do you have anything negative that you wanted to talk about?
The the biggest negative for me it just is how you will sometimes look at your hand of card and go, well I I know that I have those passing actions. That's a big part of giving you that feeling of control. But there are definitely times where you say there's not really much I can work with in this moment. The way that things have kind of shaken out. Is it because other players uh very intelligently played around it or is it because sometimes that's just kind of how the cards fall? Uh and the game's not so long that uh you know I I think oh no that's a huge negative if you just you're deal of cards and the way that the things got played out. It's not going to work out for you this round. I think the game does several things to help mitigate that especially with kind of these you can chase alternate scoring things and whatnot. But there's times where you look at it and say the game is two rounds, right? If you're not ahead at in the first round and you know in the second round, like well it's not working out to for me that I had this huge comeback and the writing's on the wall a little bit.
Mhm.
And so I think that has to deal a little bit with the structure it being based off of a traditional card game like you say.
And the two the the first two levels of the game are even only one round and so it's even less of an issue, right? Because the luck is higher there, but it's a shorter game. Yeah. Did you want to go into final thoughts? Would you rather I do? Okay.
Yeah. Yeah. I'll I'll start. I think that this is a very good game. I'll echo what you said. There's no real purpose in comparing it. So, this as a game, would I pick this? I'm going to recommend it. Yeah. I like this one. It's a 7.5 for me. I think that the the the luck the feel of luck in it is a little bit high. Uh but at the same time I recognize, oh, there's so many different ways that you can kind of focus on things, especially when you get to the levels in three and four where you can specialize in things. I can take, you know, I have the same pass action at the three times that nobody else has,
right?
That is that puts me in a weird advant, you know, advantages me in a strange way that no one else has, but then they have something that I'm jealous of. So, I like that. I like that little bit of asymmetry with a simple core. Uh, and so yeah, I'm recommending it's a 7.5, but because of that little bit of luck uh in that core more than I kind of want to to be able to play around, uh, that's why I can't recommend it higher. Yeah,
but I want to make that perfectly clear 7.5. I'm saying yeah, definitely if you get a chance to play this game, check it out.
Well, I can recommend it higher. I I am coming at an 8.5. And again, I put a lot of thought. I'm not saying you didn't, but I really wrestled with myself over this because I did have a less than satisfying first play. Um, and then I really thought about, okay, well, why was that? How much of that was because I was coming in with preconceived notions and what if I had been taught this and it was the first time I played and I had no knowledge of the I've been, you know, gears upon gears in my head. Um, so here's why I do think that this is one that for me gets into that excellence territory. Number one is that it is remarkably approachable. This is a game that I think I could teach to a wide swath of pe people. People that have only played Uno, I think I could teach them this first level. People that have played a bunch of different card games and want something a little bit uh more than that. I think I could teach them this one. Um I think that is one that has a wide appeal in in that sense. It's not going to be hard to get to the table. Um, number two is that I really, really enjoy the twists to the traditional formula that this game brings. Um, just in which of the Eternals comes out, which of the, uh, dragon powers, if you're playing in the later rounds, uh, are are getting activated. Um, the timing elements of the game and the passing turns, I think, are really really where it shines when you're playing the cards. Yes, there there sometimes there's more thought that goes into those turns than others.
Sometimes you're like, "All right, I've got a green five. I'm playing a green five." But when you get to a place where the card play is a little bit more impactful and strategic, that's when it really starts to shine. It's like, okay, someone's played a must a mustplay token here. I have that card. Do I go ahead and waste one of my pass actions so I don't have to play this card? Is it really that big of a deal if I play this card? But they put they put that token there for a reason. and they want me to play the card there. So, those little things I think are enough to to make it compelling. Um, I I really like the sensibility that this designer has. It's just there's no two ways about it. Some of my favorite trick- taking designs have been uh uh designed by this designer. Eternal Decks, which is an incredible cooperative game, has been designed by them. And this is a traditional feeling card game that has gone above and beyond that. And uh so there you go. It's an 8.5. if it does get into the excellence for me. So, look, we both like it, we both recommend it. I just put it into a little bit of a higher category. And that's going to do it for Eternal Sevens. Until next time, I'm Mike Delisio.
I'm Chris Ye.
And um play more card games. They're great.
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