It’s time to take a deep dive into trick-taking with Sea Change! Can you play your cards just right, perch-ance, to stick your opponents with negative points? Will you dominate the trump suit, or will you flounder under the pressure? Let’s take a Betta look!

What Is It?

A trick-taking game where players are trying to collect the best tricks in order to earn the victory point for the round. The trump suit is set at the beginning of each round, and the lead suit each trick must be followed if possible unless a player is able to, and wants to, perform a sea change. This occurs when a player matches the value of the last card played rather than following suit, and it immediately changes the trump suit. At the end of each round, the player with the most points on cards they collected from tricks gets 1 victory point, and the first player to 3 victory points wins the game!

Who Is It For?

  • Fans of trick-taking
  • Ages 8+
  • 4 – 8 players
  • Families / big groups

Variants

Solo: There is an AI player who has a small deck of cards and always leads the tricks – it plays 1 card, you follow, and then it plays another. You win the round if you have the most points and collected at least one “8” card (-4 points). It’s obviously got a bit of luck since the AI just plays a card from the top of the deck, not having to follow suit or anything, but it’s a fine experience if you’re just looking for a nice, light, quick solitaire card game.

Team: With 4+ players you can play in teams (you don’t have to), there are even team size suggestions in the rule book. You play for the number of points equal to team size +1, which I think is a neat way to do it. It’s a cool option if you want to try something a bit different for a trick-taking game, but I prefer it without the teams, personally.

PROS

  • Small / Portable
  • Aesthetics – Nice art / graphic design on all the cards
  • Quality – Nice cards, cute little fish meeple included for the trump tracker
  • Unique take on trick-taking
  • Quick to learn and play
  • Plays a wide range of player counts
  • Rules – Well-written and game is well-explained
  • Affordable

CONS

  • Box – Can be hard to get everything back in just right
  • Rules – I personally really dislike fold out pamphlets as opposed to an actual rules booklet, I find them so hard to read from
  • Sometimes for new players it can be hard to remember that you can play the same number instead of following suit

Final Thoughts

I’m not big on your average trick-taking games, but this one was pretty neat! I like the elevated level of strategy that came with the option to do a sea change, because it meant you couldn’t always count on someone being “out for the count” because you knew they didn’t have any more of a suit – they could make a sea change and win more tricks! It was definitely a “tricky” addition, but it felt unique, and I liked it. I will say, while it does play at 1, 2, and 3, I think it really shined at 4+, which I think is pretty typical of this kind of game, and that’s fine. I also just always appreciate an aesthetically pleasing game, which this is! So overall, not too shabby if you like trick-taking!

Additional Information:
My Final Rating – 6/10

Designer – Conor McGoey
Artist – Rhys ap Gwyn
Publisher – Inside Up Games
MSRP – $14.00
Website

*I was provided a copy of this game to do this review*

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