Trick or Repeat (2016)

A time-travelling trick taking card game. Inspired on the cult film Donnie Darko. Released in the October 2016 Board Game of the Month Club $5+ package. SETUP Deal 5 cards to each player face down. Form the Rabbit by dealing 5 cards face up in the center of the table, stacked bottom to top with all cards visible. The face up cards in the Rabbit set the trump suit in the five tricks to be played, in order from top to bottom. RULES 1. Form timelines. Choose a card from your hand, place it face down in front of you. Then pass the remaining cards to the left, and repeat, placing later cards closer to the Rabbit to form a line extending from yourself, until all cards have been placed, in the order labeled Form Timeline. Do not look at the last card passed to you. 2. Predict the future. At the count of three, bid simultaneously on the number of tricks the player to your left will win. 3. Resolve tricks. In the order labeled Resolve Tricks, everyone reveals the next card in their timelines, and evaluate the trick. In the first trick, the player to the left of the dealer leads, and thereafter the player who won the previous trick leads. A trick is won by the highest card matching the lead player's suit, unless cards matching the suit of the current Rabbit card have been played, in which case the highest card in the Rabbit suit wins. 4. Score points. After all 5 tricks have been played, score points: 1 point for each won trick, and an additional 2 points for having correctly bid the number of tricks won by the player to your left. TIME TRAVEL After scoring once, the game "goes back in time". Pick up the last card in your timeline, labeled Time Travel. Then, moving towards the Rabbit, pick up 1 card at a time and place it on top of the others in your hand. Keep the cards face up when collecting and passing. Finally, starting with yourself, take the top card and pass the remaining cards to your right. Repeat until each player has 5 cards, the same cards they had at the beginning of the game. WINNING Add up scores from the two rounds to determine a winner.