In recent years, Dragon Dawn Productions have developed something of a specialty in publishing tricksy trick-taking games. Among those we've previously featured on Board's Eye View are White Hat, Verdun, Tolerance and Justice. Golem Run is the latest in the series. It's a 3-5 player game designed by Ren Multamäki, who designed or co-designed all of DDP's previous trick-taking games, and it's set in the same dwarven universe as Justice and DDP's Soviet-style board game Factory 42. Golem Run shows us there's more to dwarven society than a corrupt legal system and a command economy: the dwarves, it seems, enjoy a day at the races. They like a flutter and they're not averse to dabbling in race-fixing...
Having set up the hex-grid tiles that form the game's race track, Golem Run is played with a deck of 64 cards divided into four suits of 16 cards each. The suits are asymmetric in that they each have a different distribution of cards but all are in the range 2-9 (plus some labelled as '+1' that can be used to increase the value of another card) and all sum to the same total. Three of the suits correspond in colour to the three Golems (white, orange and blue) that are racing; the fourth suit (black) is deemed wild. In addition to their colour and numerical value, cards also show a number of 'speed dots'. You can play with either randomly dealt hands of 12 cards or, for more tactical gamers, card drafted hands (keep four cards from your hand and pass the hand to your neighbour for them to take four more...).
The trick-taking is relatively straightforward, except that a player can choose to lead with two cards of the same value, in which case the trick can only be won with another matching pair: so, for example, a single card even of value 9 won't beat a pair of value 2 cards. The player who wins a trick gets to use the cards with which they won to move the corresponding colour of Golem the number of hexes corresponding to the number of 'speed dots' on the card(s).
The twist in Golem Run, however, is that this is primarily a game of gambling and deduction. Out of each hand, you'll place out three cards face-down as your bet for the hand. The central card will be your bet on which golem will be in the lead and by how much (ie: how many hexes). The left and right cards will be your bet on which Golems your neighbours have bet on and/or the number of speed dots on their cards. It's only these bets and guesses that score you points, and players have the option on a trick of choosing to 'Wait & Wager': not playing any card to a trick but instead taking their three wager cards back into their hand and replacing them...
This all makes for a game that's great fun, and one that's more immediately accessible than some of DDP's heavier trick-taking card games. Golem Run can feel chaotic, especially with five players, but you will usually develop some inkling of the colour of Golem on which your neighbours have bet. The big points tho' are for guessing the number of speed dots on their card, and of course it's not just you who can 'Wait & Wager' and amend your prediction; they might very well do likewise... In our plays at Board's Eye View, we've especially enjoyed the tension that builds midway through each hand as players are all assessing their prospects of making a more profitable 'Wait & Wager'.
Dragon Dawn Productions are bringing Golem Run to Kickstarter on 7 January. Click here for more details.