Roux Dat: Squirrel Away, Trio, & Spooktacular!

I’ve been on the road so much the last few months, it’s been tough to get the group together for a regular game after work. But Dave Dooooogas and I finally put one together with Carlos, and we each brought a game to teach the other two (plus Dave’s kiddos for the two quick games). 

We first played Squirrel Away, a brand new bluffing game for families designed by Clarence Simpson, who designed one of our favorite area control games of all time, The Wolves. Squirrel Away is about as far from The Wolves as you can get, though!

Players play a quick game of collecting jeweled acorns from a central supply. Each player has a hand of cards, that have pictures of colored acorns on them, but the cards are kept secret. Turn by turn, players place a card face down, grab some acorns from the pile, and then announce the collection of acorns that they took.

Then each other player can call them out — either for taking more or less acorns then they announced, or that the acorns they picked do not match the card. Players don’t have to call out other players, and they are limited in the amount of times they can do it. But if they ferret out a false move successfully, the calling out player gets an extra acorn and the bluffing player loses all but one of the acorns they took. If the calling out player is wrong, however, the collecting player gets an extra acorn.

Players are trying to collect sets of four different colored acorns, and it’s tough, because the cards you are dealt don’t give you access to more than one or two sets. You have to strategically bluff or do some sleight of hand to win. I think kids like games where they can bluff their parents, or better yet, call out their parents for not telling the truth. This game delivers that feeling pretty easily. Ultimately, I’d rather play other bluffing games, especially a good bluffing card game, but it was good for a play or two. 

Next up, we returned to Trio, a card game I had played a while back and enjoyed. This one is dirt simple — players get a hand of cards, and are trying to make “three of a kinds” by figuring out what other players have in their hands or in the face down market in the center of the table. Players can point to other players and ask for them to show their “highest or lowest card”, or point at face down market cards, but if they can get a match with two guesses, then they get to “guess” one more card. And if that’s a three way match, they keep the “trio” which is a point toward winning. 

It’s fun trying to whittle down what other players have, especially since you can only ask those two questions. But what really aces this game to me is that making a trio of 7s is an automatic win. Of course, it’s tougher than it looks, cause rarely is the 7 card the lowest or highest of a card set in a player’s hand. But when it happens, it’s golden. 

And finally, because it is October, we had to play a Halloween themed game. Carlos brought over Spooktacular, from Level 99 GamesLevel 99 Games, which has been delivering to Kickstarter backers just in time for the holiday. In this one, the conceit is that we are at a movie theater watching a haunted movie when all of sudden the movie monsters become alive and attack the visitors. 

Carlos said it best. Level 99 Games has a knack for making games with simple rule sets — in this one, just play a card, do the actions, move and try and collect points — but where the complexity comes in making tons of varied characters for the game. (In other words, it’s the opposite of the modern euro philosophy of everyone having the same player board but where the complexity comes from the rule set or interconnectivity of the systems created in the game.)

Spooktacular was a hoot. Each of us were wildly different. I was a rock-n-roll diva hell bent on running around as fast as I could playing high energy metal to capture my victims. Carlos was market fiend, trying to manipulate the other players into scoring situations that benefited him instead of us. And Dave was a classic set of goblins, making mischief all over the board and always taking two big turns. 

We kind of ran through a high level discussion of the rest of the monster cards in the game, and it sure seems like there is enough content in there to play for many Halloween parties to come. I would also wager that the game will feel drastically different depending on what characters are in the game. I don’t need to own this one, but I wouldn’t mind getting a copy for our family holiday parties in October. 

All in all, a solid night of gaming, with some interesting new games.

And that doesn’t even count convincing Carlos to play Shackleton Base, which continues to mark itself as my favorite game from 2024, and a quick game of Duck & Cover with the kiddos.

Until next time, laissez les bon temps rouler!
— BJ from Board Game Gumbo