Sandbag Review

boardgamequest.com:

We review Sandbag, a trick-taking card game published by Bezier Games. Sandbag is a great trick-taking card game with a steep learning curve. But well worth it!

I have no fancy backstory to introduce you to Sandbag. Yes, I once took my family ballooning in Napa, but it’s irrelevant to this review of a game with a balloon name and balloon art, but essentially zero link between the ostensible theme and the game itself. Nevertheless, theme or no theme, I just want to say that I love this game, but I also never want to teach it to new players again.

Sandbag is a trick-taking card game by veteran designer Ted Alspach, best known for games like Suburbia, Castles of Mad King Ludwig, Maglev Metro, and Ultimate Werewolf and is published by Alspach’s company, Bezier Games. To my knowledge, this is his first true card game, and it’s a real winner. Between 3 and 6 players compete to … do something balloonesque that correlates with scoring the fewest points. Theme-wise, it’s a real clunker but the game play, ooh it’s a hearty stew of brain-breaking twists on the usual trick-taking tropes.

If you like thinky card games and you can tolerate a steep first-game learning curve, this is a real gem of a game.

The goal of Sandbag is to finish three full-rounds of 12 tricks (so 36 in total) with the fewest points. Players play cards from their hand, but they can sometimes use a card from another player’s “basket” and once per round they will play their “sandbag,” a face-down card with no value and no suit. In general, you’re trying to avoid winning tricks, since a typical trick adds five points to your score, but there are five rocket cards scattered across the game that reduce your score (either by 5 or 7, depending on the player count. However, whether you score five points (bad) or negative points (good), whoever wins a trick must lead the next one and, in a game, where you want to lose most tricks, but with lots of ways to avoid following suit, playing the lead card can be brutal.