Tricks & Deserts
BGG rank
BGG #18,947
BGG rating
6.7

Tricks & Deserts

2014

Rules assistance for Tricks & Deserts

Plain-language explanations of turns, card effects and disputed situations, with official source references and saved question history.

  • 2–4 players
  • 30 min
  • 13+
  • Complexity 2.0/5

Rules assistant for Tricks & Deserts

What would you like to know?

Answers come from the official rulebook, with the page to check.

Tricks & Deserts is a board game released in 2014 for 2–4 players, 30 minutes per game, and ages 13 and up. It was designed by Muneyuki Yokouchi (横内宗幸) and its main mechanics are Commodity Speculation, Trick-taking, and Stock Holding.

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About the game

Tricks and Deserts is a trick taking game where players play as cunning human authorities trying to obtain controls of magical species with powerful abilities. Each turn, players will be playing 1 specie card either face up or face down. The player that played the strongest card (usually the card with the highest number) takes all face up cards. Playing cards face down is called "passing," and these cards are abandoned to the desert. The play continues until all cards are played from player's hands. The face-up cards you take scores points, but the abandoned cards will affect your scoring, sometimes positively, and sometime negatively. You must choose wisely when to play and when to pass.

Questions and answers

Tricks & Deserts supports 2–4 players according to the catalogue. This range comes from the publisher’s listed player count, so the game can be set up for any group size within it. Some setups, rules and scoring details may still vary by player count, so check your edition’s rulebook for the exact configuration.