Eric, you wondered in the entry of the Japanese game of Origin of Failingwater how you could play cards in reverse order.  It’s actually an ingenious quasi-deduction game.  You do indeed play your cards in reverse turn order.  So, since you each have 6 cards, you play cards to the sixth trick first, followed by the fifth trick, and so on.  These are played face up to a grid in the middle of the table, so everyone can see each card played.  The order in which cards are played rotates with each trick.  Winning some tricks gives you positive victory points and winning others costs you points.

After all the cards are played, you look at the first trick and resolve it normally, using No Trump rules.  So the highest card of the led suit wins the trick (the players know ahead of time who will be leading to the first trick).  Once you find out who won that first trick (and assign VPs), you now know that that player is leading to the second trick.  This determines who wins the second trick (since you now know the led suit).  Do this for all six tricks to see who won the most points.

Players have to work out the possibilities as the tricks are played out in reverse order.  So it might work out that if Fred over there wins trick 4, I’ll win trick 5 (since I have the high card in the suit he played to that trick).  That’s good, since trick 5 is worth 2 VPs.  But I don’t want Ethel to win trick 3, because that will mean that I won trick 4; not only will that keep me from winning trick 5, but trick 4 is worth -1 VP.  And so on.  It’s definitely brain-bending.

We thought the prototype had some rough edges (which are hopefully improved in the final version), but the basic idea is unique and excellent.  I look forward to seeing the published version of this one.

Thanks for the details, Larry! There’s clearly a lot more to the game than was packed in the distributor’s tiny description. This sounds like another entry in the category of “trick-taking games I would love to death if only I had more players nearby who felt the same.”

Wow, no information about the new Queen game Giganten der Lüfte?  It’s by Andreas Seyfarth!  And there’s been no advance notice about it at all!  Where did THAT come from?

By the way, I assume the title translates to “Larger than Life”?

Larry;

Queen = Worst. Advance. Info. Ever.

No surprise that no info’s at hand - this is the way it goes with them every year.

The title is actually “Giants of the Air”, which usually means Zeppelins and such but has also been used to describe superaircraft such as the new A380.

pk