Seers Catalog Review

boardgamequest.com:

Last year at a wonderful sort-of local trick taking game weekend, I had the pleasure of learning and playing Of What’s Left. Featuring the cutest little owl art you can imagine, it’s was a unique take on a hand shedding game like Tichu or Scout. Unfortunately for everyone, it was pretty tough to get a copy of having only been published in Japan.

What does that have to do with Seer’s Catalog? Well, it’s basically the same game. But now published state-side by Bezier games along with some added special abilities and, of course, a werewolf-adjacent theme. No owls here, they’ve all been eaten by the werewolves I guess.

If you’ve played a shedding game, you probably will get the just of Seers Catalog right away. You start with a hand of cards and your goal is to get rid of them almost. Most games have you trying to the first one out. Generally speaking, in Seers Catalog you want to be almost out of cards when another player goes out.

The player who leads can play a single card, any number of cards of the same value, or a run of sequential cards of the same suit. Clockwise from there, the other players must play a higher value of the same type of meld. So if the leader plays three 7’s, the next player must play 3-of-a-kind of 8 or higher.

Once a player is out of cards the round ends. The player who went out scores 0 points. Any player with 5 or fewer cards in their hand gets bonus points equal the the lowest value left. And then all players lose one point for every card in their hand. So at the end of the hand, if you have just an 8 and 10 left, you get 8 bonus points and then lose 2, netting 6. However if you have 6 or more cards you are just getting negative points, no bonus for you!

All of that scoring explanation to get to the tricky part. For most of the hand, you can voluntarily pass even if you have a way to beat the current meld. Once you have 5 or fewer cards and are able to get bonus points you lose that option and you must play if able. So getting down on cards