by W. Eric Martin

▪️ I've already previewed the AMIGO dice game Biddle, which I first sampled at Gen Con 2025, but I also got a taste of another September 2025 release from the German publisher: Shadow Cards, a 2-5 player trick-taking game from Christopher Haviland and Bob Kamp.

As in many trick-taking games, Shadow Cards asks you to predict how well you'll do in a hand, but instead of predicting the number of tricks you'll take, you predict the number of points you'll score. To do this, pick two cards from your hand and place them face down before the trick-playing begins; the sum of these cards is your point prediction.

The trick-playing is traditional. Cards range from 0-14 in four suits, with red always being trump. You must follow suit, if possible, with the highest trump winning the trick, unless no trump is played in which case the highest card of the led suit wins the trick. The winner keeps one card from this trick face up as points, then leads the next trick. Once all tricks have been played, you determine your score for the round:

• Did you take fewer trick points than your prediction? Score only your trick points.
• Did you take exactly as many points as your prediction? Score three times this many points!
• Did you take zero points, whether by keeping only 0s or not winning any tricks? Score two times your prediction.
• Did you take more points than your prediction? Score your trick points plus your prediction...unless you take the most trick points of all players in the round, in which case you score the three highest-valued cards you kept minus all other cards you kept.

After three hands, whoever has the most points wins.

Hoo boy, lots to think about here. You want a prediction that you can achieve to score trick+prediction points, but you'd prefer to push that prediction as high as possible, although then you risk scoring only trick points. If you think you'll end up with more trick points than anyone else — and scored cards are all public during play — then you ideally want to stop at three tricks, although will that be enough to make your prediction?


By chance, I ran into Bob Kamp at the show, and he ran me through two rounds of the two-player game. With that player count, deal four stacks of 15 cards, with each player taking one stack and choosing three cards as their prediction. If you have the most trick points (and don't exactly match your prediction), you score your five highest-valued cards, then subtract the rest.

You then each take one of the remaining stacks and play another round, which means you (in theory) know exactly which cards your opponent has and can bid and play accordingly. Play another two rounds in the same manner, then tally your score.

▪️ I previously highlighted Oink Games' display cases at Gen Con 2025, so I thought I'd show off AMIGO's as well. I don't think they have the same impact as Oink's because they stick to marketing elements and a look at components rather than giving a sentence or two about gameplay, but they're still better than having only a tiny box on display.

The four white circles are reflected lights — sorry!
▪️ The U.S. branch of AMIGO Games has made a deal to distribute games from Austrian publisher Piatnik, with a half-dozen card games being the first titles on the North American market — which seems like a good choice given AMIGO's product line.


▪️ In late July 2024, I wrote about Rowdy Partners, suggesting that four players seems ideal for this 2-4 player game from Jason Hager and Darren Reckner, but at Gen Con 2025 Christopher High from publisher Capstone Games was happy to explain why I was wrong to make such a foolish assumption.

With four players in this team trick-taking game, you indeed play in teams, with each player controlling one special-powered character, but in games with two players, each player has a two-character team and they play two cards per trick. (With three players, you have two people against one, with the one playing two cards per trick.)


In short, four cards will be played in a trick, with one character on each team being in the ring as the "Headliner" and the other outside the ring. You can swap places mid-match, though, as you try to adapt to circumstances and keep knocking down the opponent's health, whether that's 20 on one character or 10 on two.

▪️ Speaking of playing two against one, at Gen Con 2025 I also ran into Corey Young, who was eager to show off the three-player-only card game 3 Witches that Allplay will release in 2025.

3 Witches is a trick-taking game in which two players face off against one each game. Players look at their hand of cards, then pass or bid whether they're going to take exactly three or exactly four tricks. If someone bids three, another player can overbid, at which point the player who says four faces off against the other two players.

The deck is wonky in that it features five suits, with cards valued 1-6, but with only eighteen cards, so the suits have only 3-4 cards, with the final card being an elixir with no suit or rank.

The lone player plays two cards into the trick, one of them being face down, while the other two players each play one card, following the lead, if possible, then the lone player reveals their second card. If the two cards on a side share either rank or suit, add the values of the two cards to determine the strength of the team's play; otherwise, only the highest played card counts. The lone player then retrieves one card from the table in order to have enough cards to keep playing. (If I recall correctly, the elixir doubles the value of its paired card.)

If the lone player wins by taking the exact number of tricks bid, they take two tokens; otherwise, each player on the other team takes one token. Play rounds until someone has taken five tokens, at which pont they win the game.

Corey Young (on left) teaches 3 Witches at Gen Con 2025