Matthew BaileyThe last review I’m doing before we get underway with this year’s Halloween Spooktacular is for “Scratch and Scramble”, a trick-taking game where you play your tokens to win tricks, while doing your absolute best not to get stuck with both the cat and the mouse.
Generally speaking, I haven’t included many trick-taking games here (one of the more well-known ones is “Hearts”) because, oddly enough, it’s a mechanic that Jack and Toby have struggled with in the past. However, now that they’re both a bit older and starting to get the hang of how trick-taking games work, we’ve begun to venture into them a bit more.
In “Scratch and Scramble”, there are four types of tokens: lamps, TVs, plants, and sofas. You begin the game by placing all of these face-down in a large circle. One player randomly chooses a token, and then the next player must select one of the two tokens adjacent to the gap left behind. This continues until everyone has the correct number of tokens—in our case, with three players, that meant 10 tokens each. You then lay out your tokens in a line, and from this point onwards, you cannot change their order, which is a key mechanic of the game.
This initial drafting phase adds an interesting element. You have some choice, but not a complete one, and you’re generally trying to get hold of the lamps, as they’re the strongest tokens. Deciding when and how to go for them works well.
The game starts with the first player holding the cat token and the last player holding the mouse token. Each round consists of a series of tricks, where each player plays one token. The token establishes the suit for that trick, much like in a traditional card game, whether it be a sofa, lamp, TV, or plant. If a player cannot match the lead suit, they can play any token from their hand. The trick is won by the player with the highest number of the lead suit, unless lamps are played, which are always trump. If more than one lamp is played, the highest-value lamp wins the trick.
The winning player then adds the lowest-numbered token from the trick to the right side of their hand. This means that as the game goes on, your hand grows, and those low-numbered tokens can make it harder to win future tricks. More importantly, having a larger hand can put you at a disadvantage.
The key mechanic, though, revolves around the animal tokens. Each round starts with the animal tokens (the cat and mouse) on the far right of the assigned player’s hand. These tokens move after certain events. If a player wins a trick, they move any animal tokens they hold one spot to the left. If a player loses a trick, all other players move their animal tokens one spot to the left. In a larger group, there’s also a dog token, which moves on the number seven.
The round ends after a player runs out of tokens or, crucially, if a player holds both the cat and mouse tokens in their hand and loses a trick. At the end of the round, players add any scoring tokens they won to their score pile. However, if a player loses a trick while holding both the cat and mouse tokens, they flip their scoring tokens to the broken side before adding them to their pile. The game ends when a player either reaches seven points or accumulates seven broken lamps, with the player holding the most points declared the winner.
Now, while I’ve been playing with a production prototype, it feels very polished, and the quality of the components is high. The wooden meeples are lovely, and everything is pleasant to handle. One design decision I found unusual was the way the lamps are depicted. They’ve drawn the base and the bottom of the lamp, but not the shade, which gave us the impression that they were plants, upside down! The game also uses an unusual colour palette, but it works really well, and all of us appreciate the tactile nature of the components. I don’t think this game would have worked quite as well with cards, purely because of the way you need to keep your tokens in a specific order and move the cat and mouse along the line.
Overall, we really enjoyed “Scratch and Scramble”. It’s relatively short, comes in a good-sized box, and serves as an excellent introduction to trick-taking games. It might be one of the best I’ve played. As I mentioned earlier, it was one of the first trick-taking games I played with Jack and Toby, and they really grasped the concept, not just understanding the mechanics, but also the strategy behind avoiding the cat and mouse and occasionally even manipulating their hands to lose on purpose for tactical advantages.
“Scratch and Scramble” is currently in pre-production and due to hit Kickstarter soon, and I will definitely be backing a copy for myself. Sadly, I’ve got to return this prototype, but it’s a beautifully designed game that I wholeheartedly recommend.
Disclaimer: A pre-production copy of the game was kindly loaned to me by “Sleepy Basset Studio” for the purpose of review via the “UK BG Review Circle”. All of our thoughts and opinions are our own.
