Description

???? (Yuushi no Kusabi, "Bonds of the Brave") is about heroes deciding which army to join. You want to be the strongest member of the winning army, but you'll have to find out what the other players are planning while hiding your own intentions.

At the start players are dealt three cards, and four cards are dealt to the middle, two face up and two face down. Each turn you take cards from the middle, put some from your hand back, and then add more cards to the middle from the deck. Once someone has ten points in one color they can announce victory for that team; everyone else gets one chance to announce victory for another color if they also have ten points, and then you move on to scoring. Declaring victory in a color is advantageous but might not be enough to overcome a sneaky player; whoever has the most points total over all victorious colors wins the round. This means that besides winning on the strength of your own hand, you can win by investing in multiple suits other people are stronger in.

The most subtle part of the game is the different kinds of cards. While some cards give a simple color bonus, those are the rarest. The next most common type can count for either of two colors during scoring, but don't count towards the 10 for declaring victory. Most cards are worth few points on their own, but worth more in pairs with specific cards - in particular, the purple color has no invidually strong cards, but is worth the most with the right pair. Each color has its own distribution, and keeping that in mind is key to victory.

Can you read the other players to figure out which color you should throw your lot in with?

—user summary