Jekyll & Hyde Vs. Scotland Yard: Rapid Review
Information:
Mechanics: Cooperative, Trick Taking, Track Movement, Hand Management Player Age: 10+ Player Count: 2 PlayersTime to Play: 20 Minutes
Game Designer: Gaëtan Beaujannot, Olivier Cipière
Game Designer: Gaëtan Beaujannot, Olivier Cipière
Rundown:
Jekyll & Hyde vs. Scotland Yard is a cooperative trick-taking game played over two rounds where players are trying to get their token to reach the end of the track. If they fail, they lose. Each movement is gained by the amount of tricks the lower-scoring player has won, and any highest value eight cards in any of the players won tricks. If Scotland Yard catches Jekyll & Hyde then the players lose. Scotland Yard will move if Jekyll & Hyde moves any further than the last step on the track, along with moving an additional step for each 1, 2 or 3 that appear in the player's won tricks at the end of the round.
In the game there are three players in each trick; the two players and the city. At the start of each round players will give four cards each to the city, where every number 8 cards must be given. There are three colours, each with the number 1-8 appearing only once.
The order of played cards will determine the rank of these colours, starting from the first colour played being determined as the lowest rank.
There is a fourth card type in the game called potions. Whenever a potion is played before or after a coloured card, the second card in that pair will activate the ability that matches that colour. Orange allows one player to take the city's last won trick. A blue reaction allows you to change the colour order of the trick priority. Lastly, the black reaction will allow one player to exchange the top card of the city deck with a card from their hand.
Alteration:
At least for my brain, trick taking games can be quite confusing to understand, no matter how many I play. Something I enjoyed with this game is the gradual introduction to the main game over the course of four chapters. Each chapter slowly introduces rules until the full game is played on chapter four. The other six chapters after this one have variations on the rules, creating challenges for the players.
Pacing:
Since the movement for both tokens occurs at the end of the round, this trick-taking game can have very interesting pacing. Both rounds are very important in getting the Jekyll & Hyde token to the end without getting caught. The second round however is much more important. Players know the exact amount of spaces needed to accomplish this task so they need to try much harder to get on the same wavelength as each other. It can be a big challenge, but not impossible.
Interaction:
This is an extremely cooperative game as you’re not simply trying to win the most tricks, you are trying to coordinate balance between the two players. This is because you move based on the player who won the least tricks. Not only that, but players do not want to overachieve, for every movement past the end of the track, Scotland Yard will move closer to the player's defeat.
It is also vital to decide what kind of cards you want to give to the city. Are they high-valued cards making the city win more? Or maybe all cards matching one colour?
Determination:
- Chapter approach to learning the game before adding challenges.
- Different strategies than normal trick-taking games need to be used to keep Scotland Yard far enough away.
Jekyll & Hyde vs. Scotland Yard is a smart and tense trick-taking game that forces players to pull off great teamwork. It could be due to my lack of skill in this game mechanism, but this is not an easy game to achieve victory. It takes a lot of deduction and understanding of how your teammate will play. I appreciated the gradual approach to the challenges as it gave players a chance to understand the ebb and flow before being forced into to a full game. If you have someone that enjoys trick taking games like you do then this game may be for you. I guarantee you will feel like you have earned the victory through playing the right cards as a completely cohesive team.
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