Scream! – Andrew Lynch
I’ve played a lot of Rat-a-Tat Cat in my time. I really enjoy Rat-a-Tat Cat. It’s stupid, it’s silly, it’s quick. Every time I play, I visualize the four cards in my head as digits on a tube clock. That’s my secret. But I digress.
Scream! is Rat-a-Tat Cat on steroids. The goal is the same, to end up with the lowest score at the end of the round, but the mechanisms are more involved. You still draw cards, either from the draw pile or the discard, and have the opportunity to swap them with cards in front of you, but there are a couple of differences. Firstly, the cards valued 5-13 have special abilities that can be triggered by discarding the card when drawing it rather than swapping it. Also, rather than swaps being one-for-one, you have the option to discard multiple cards. Their values have to match, though. If I discard multiple cards and you don’t think they all match, you can challenge me.
The whole thing is kind of slow, kind of boring, and just not great. Add to that a rulebook that’s vague on some important details, and I will continue to bust out Rat-a-Tat Cat just about every chance that this might come up.
Ease of entry?
★★★☆☆ – There were a few questions
Would I play it again?
☆☆☆☆☆ – No chance
Read more articles from Andrew Lynch.
Tearable Quest – Andy Matthews
I had the opportunity to pick up a copy of Tearable Quest at the most recent Gen Con. I’d seen some buzz about it on social media and figured I’d give it a shot. It’s a consumable game in which players each get a thin piece of paper covered in dungeons & dragon style icons (swords, monsters, coins, etc.). Over the course of three rounds players attempt to rip the paper into smaller pieces, each containing only a specific set of icons—as seen on the monster card which has been revealed for that round. The goal being to complete as many individual quests as possible over the course of a 2 minute round.
But there’s a catch. You can’t just rip out each icon and group them together; no. Each quest can only be completed by a single piece of paper which contains ALL icons, and ONLY those icons. If you’re going for a quest which needs a pink sword and two bats, your paper can’t include a skull, or even part of a skull.
Full marks for cleverness…everything you need is right in the box. The downside is there’s only 5 or 6 monster cards and another 3 or so “boss cards”. So there’s not a ton of replay value. Also, this game definitely benefits people with smaller fingers as evidenced by the fact that my 12yo son trounced me. So pick up Tearable Quest if you’re looking for a game you can literally play anywhere, or if you have anger issues and just want to rip some stuff up.
Ease of entry?
★★★★★ – No sweat
Would I play it again?
★★☆☆☆ – Would play again but would rather play something else
Read more articles from Andy Matthews.
Tag Team – Justin Bell
As I noted in our Gen Con 2025 preview article, there was only one game I had to have from the show: Tag Team, published by one of the most reliable companies in our space, Scorpion Masqué. I picked up a copy on the last day of the show, and after doing a play with my Meeple Mountain colleague Abram Towle at the convention, I got the game in front of my eight-year-old for a recent play. (The child was an easy sell, since he is a huge fan of another Scorpion Masqué title: “Wait, this is from the same publisher as Dead Cells? I wanna play Tag Team!”)
Tag Team is a deckbuilding “auto battler.” It is clearly inspired by tag team fighting video games of my youth, like Tekken Tag Team or Marvel vs. Capcom. For tabletop game comparisons, the classic card game War comes to mind. If you have played recent additions to the canon like the Challengers! games, you are on track. In Tag Team, players draft a team of two fighters, each with their own 10-card decks. Starting with just one card per fighter, players slowly build up their decks while punching each other in the face for 10-15 minutes before someone wins by knocking out at least one of their opponent’s fighters.
That’s the whole game…and yet, there is so much game here. My son used a combo of Shango and Wong Fei-Hung to take down my team of Mephisto and The Wild Bunch, in a back-and-forth affair that ended with Mephisto getting killed by Shango’s Incinerate power. With the teach, the entire affair took 15 minutes, and our game had a lot of moments. The card art is gorgeous. The packaging is tidy. My only regret? I didn’t buy playmats, and now I’m wishing that I did. As a simple fighting game, I’m struggling to think of something I had more fun playing, and running it back is such an easy thing to do. Ready? FIGHT!
Ease of entry?
★★★★★ – No sweat
Would I play it again?
★★★★★ – Will definitely play it again
Read more articles from Justin Bell.
Cartographers: A Roll Player Tale – K. David Ladage
Some time ago, I purchased a copy of Cartographers (and Cartographers: Heroes) for my wife. She loves this sort of game (one of her favorites is Welcome To…). I played the original in solo mode a couple of times to familiarize myself with the rules and prepare for the teach. Unfortunately, our lives got a bit complex for a while and we never had a chance to dive into this roll-and-write. We recently completed an inventory of our games and she remembered getting those and wanted to look at them. And so we did. First, she liked it, as did I. It would be impossible for me to play this game and not have thoughts on how this game compares to Fantasy Map Maker. In the end, I came to the conclusion that the mechanics, intent, and the game within these two products is different enough to warrant avoiding such comparisons.
The game plays over four seasons of varying time lengths (each exploration card drawn takes up 0-2 time). The players draw exploration cards which indicate shape(s) and terrain type(s) that can be drawn on your map, polyomino style. Sometimes an ambush takes place which allows an opponent to draw places where monsters exist on your map. At the end of each season, the players score based on four random edicts, with each season using two of them (i.e., Spring uses edicts A-B; Summer uses edicts B-C; Fall uses edicts C-D, and Winter uses edicts D-A). Each edict instructs the players as to certain configurations to look for in order to score points (e.g., each Forest space along the edge of the map). Looking ahead at what the scoring will be like in later rounds is imperative. Cartographers is a fun game that has some wonderful surprises, not the least of which is the way ambushes work.
After a couple of games of Cartographers, my wife and I looked over the follow-up. There is not much that has changed: new starting maps, new cards, new card type (heroes). Otherwise, this is the same overall game. The odd thing is that the section at the end where it explains how you can combine these two games indicates that everything can be combined, shuffled together and such except the exploration cards. It states to select one set and not to shuffle them together. Not sure what that is all about… but I hope to find out soon.
Ease of entry?
★★★★☆ – The odd bump or two
Would I play it again?
★★★★☆ – Would like to play it again
Read more articles from K. David Ladage.
SUMO – Kevin Brantley
I’m always happy to see games make their way from Japan to the States. For one, they often bring interesting or unique ideas not usually found in American or Euro-style gaming. For another, they tend to feature attractive, minimalist art. SUMO, a quick card game from Bright Eyes, checks both of those boxes.
The game plays in under five minutes. Seriously. SUMO casts you as a famous sumo wrestler in a two-card, trick-taking duel to claim the title of king of the ring. Though “trick-taking” might be a stretch, there are only four suits numbered one through five.
Simulating a sumo match, each time a player wins a trick, they push their opponent one step closer to the edge of the ring. The wrestler who gets shoved out is eliminated. With only three spaces in this tug-of-war, losing two tricks in a row usually spells defeat. However, there are also special sumo moves—like the abise-taoshi or wucchari—that can trigger instant victories when certain numbers are played against each other. For example, the hikitoshi move wins outright if a player plays one of the same color against a five.
I was surprised at how quickly a match ended. You’ll often play only four or five tricks before it’s over. Much like real sumo, the idea is that matches are short, so the game encourages back-to-back “tournaments” with players tracking their win/loss records on the included score pads.
SUMO is solid because it’s fast, but its small card pool limits agency. Ones, twos, and fives can swing games instantly, while threes and fours mostly serve to control the pace. It’s a neat little small-box game, though it feels like it could use just a bit more depth.
Ease of entry?:
★★★★☆ – The odd bump or two
Would I play it again?:
★★☆☆☆ – Would play again but would rather play something else
Read more articles from Kevin Brantley.
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