HATS
Designer: Gabriele Bubola | Publisher: ThunderGryph Games
Although, it is not a trick-taking game, Hats, a small card game with a very loose Mad Hatter theme, will require players to wear the same type of thinking hat. This is a game about recognising patterns of suits and numbers, planning moves ahead, adapting on the go, while figuring out what the opponent’s strategy is.
During the eight rounds of the game, players are collecting cards of various suits and values to earn victory points. Cards can be played straight from their hand, but only as black hats, with a low one victory point value, or they can be exchanged with cards in the central board and then added to player’s collection. Simple exchange rules, like needing to swap cards of the same suitor of a higher number value, ensure that there are some limitations to how players can use the central board.
The most interesting part of the game is that the scoring rules are ever-changing. The central board also determines how the suits score at the end of the game. As the players are swapping cards as the game progresses, a suit that was worth six victory points at the start of the game could become completely worthless at the end. The interplay between the board, what players have collected and what is still in their hand makes for a very brain scratchy gameplay.
It is a clever, quick little card game, that at the same time packs a lot of strategy and nuance with few components or fanfare. What the game has, it presents very well.
From a book-style board game box, as if an instalment of Alice’s Adventures in the Wonderland to the cards with pretty illustration of different hats. It is a delightful package.
ALEXANDRA SONECHKINA