For Northwood! (a solo trick-taking game) by Wil Su

I mean, there are tens of thousands of games listed on BGG, and this weirdness makes the Top 500? I have a whole article in me about how BGG ratings and rankings are Weird ™ but that’s for future me.

It tickled me for a while, and I moved on. Curious yes, but For Northwood! was destined to remain the punchline to an as yet unwritten joke.

At least until my friend decided that we really did need to know how such a concept worked, and bought us each a copy mid-November. I’ve since logged 5 wins out of 8 attempts, with another playthrough in the course of writing this very article, making this my one of my most played solo games ever. And whilst it’s in my hands it’s be rude not to have just one more run

There is so much I could write about how and why solo games in general can hit the spot or be relatively lacklustre. I know that I love playing For Northwood, so I’ll concentrate here on the reasons why I think this particular game works, but please, if you have strong opinions about solo gaming, please make your feelings known at [email protected].

Where I’ve been put off previously with solo games is when the design is pure optimisation. Win as many tricks as you can. (I said that in my head in the voice of John Virgo’s deadpan delivery of “Pot as many balls as you can” from a UK Snooker based gameshow called Big Break. Is anybody going to get that reference?)

The optimisation trap some solo implementations have fallen into brings one huge problem with it. What do you do as a player once you’ve had the God Hand and set what you are sure will stand as your Lifetime Best? Why play again knowing I have achieved such greatness and all future attempts will pale in comparison? Why struggle when the game deals me an awkward setup when I know I’m just never going to be able to beat the clean start I had last time?

By removing the emphasis on score maximisation, giving varied levels of “win”, and making the gold ranked win feel oh-so-achievable but far from guaranteed, For Northwood unlocks the “Just One More Run” feeling that I get from the computer games Balatro and Hades. I sit down to a game of For Northwood wondering what delights this setup will give me, and wonder - will I succeed this time?

In most trick-taking games, hands are essentially identical with the variation coming from how your opponents play this particular deal, and how risky you might need to play given the scoreline. This is because the only carry over from one round to the next is that scoreline, providing a sense of urgency to the proceedings as any player nears a winning threshold and must be stopped At All Costs.

Not so here. What Wil Su has done beautifully is made the game operate on two different levels, and give each of those levels their own sense of speed. One kingdom is made of 8 fiefs, and each fief is made of about 8 ‘dialogue’ turns. A kingdoms provide the setting for the entire run, which won’t change until I start a new game. Fiefs provide my target for this hand only, and quickly pivot between high and low targets.

Many trick-taking games include bidding, whether it’s the simple call of Tichu! being equivalent to bid of “I will win this hand,” to a more fine grained “This is exactly how many tricks I will win with this hand” seen in the likes of Mu. As far as I can tell, the classic game of Bridge is the bidding phase, correct me if I’m wrong! In For Northwood the cunning piece of design that makes this work so beautifully is the way the bidding is hidden in the ever diminishing fief selection.

My game isn’t just 8 repeated hands of the same form looking to score points. No. After dealing my hand I can decide how many tricks I will win and bid that number, by choosing to visit the fief displaying that number, but I can only visit each Fief once. Win or lose, that bid number is gone forever as the fief is closed for further visits. By implication, to win a full game I must at some point win on both the 7-fief and the 0-fief. Timing when to go for it and bid 0 or 7 is where the real fun is.

You get your very first hand. It’s good. Is it 7-trick good though? Maybe not. Better play it safe and go for the 5.

Second hand. The numbers in your hand aren’t great, but you have a pesky high trump that’s stopping you from bidding zero. Maybe just one trick is possible? OK, we bid 1 and take that fief off the table.

Third hand. It’s another good but not stellar hand. You want to bid 5, but you already bid 5 the first time. Is now the time to substitute in the ruler from the 5 fief that you previously won over? Will that get you to 7? Or is the 7-trick hand waiting further in your future?

Ah yes, the rulers that you’ve previously convinced to join you add to your available pool of abilities. However, the loaned abilities from rules are different from your regular allies in one key way - the allies are available to you in every fief, but friendly rulers will only join you on a single diplomatic mission. That is to say, they’ll only join you for one fief, after which they’re gone. So maybe you recognise that there’s an ability on the Queen of Leaves ruling 4-fief that will help you get the 7-fief under your control. You go visit the 4-fief, win over the Queen’s heart, but you still must decide after drawing your next hand, is this the one? Do I pop my one-use ability and go for it now?

As the pressure increases to hit a smaller pool of available bids, your available abilities are increasing to counter it. I’ve lost count however of the number of times that I’ve hit the exact trick count I need with only 1 card left in hand, and only 1 card in the deck this could possibly beat… only for the top of the deck to reveal precisely what I didn’t want to see!

That’s why victory is far from assured in this game. You can skew the odds in your favour, but you can never completely control the deck. If you weren’t successful this time, just shuffle up and go again!

Not only has Wil Su made a game here that compels you to try out just one more run, just to see what setup you get dealt this time, he’s also written a storyline campaign to play. The Noisy Year is a 16 scenario campaign with each scenario having a normal and a challenge difficulty level making for 32 complete games to play, and that’s assuming you succeed at each first time!

Each campaign scenario bring with it additional variation in the setup or scoring rules, or gives allies new abilities, expanding the game beyond what the setup randomisation can give you.

I’ve barely scratched the surface of the campaign myself, having only played the first Speed D(eb)ating scenario, in which scoring is altered such that if you score or lose a trick, you also score or lose all cards in your hand with the same number! I promise to write a follow up article after I’ve tackled the campaign…

So with all that game in such a small box, I can highly recommend keeping a copy in your bag and bringing it out any time you’re on a train. Or have some time to kill over a lunch break when your friends aren’t available. The play space required is not huge - I like to lay out the cards 8 wide in about 4 rows - bid marker at the top, fiefs below that, allies below that, deck below that with score pile to the left and discard pile to the right. If you’re truly cramped you could come up with creative ways to stack the 8 fiefs to reduce space, but the size of a regular playmat is plenty.

That’s the end of the review - the game is brilliant and well worth your time if you’ve ever enjoyed a classic solitaire game like Patience or Freecell. The production quality is high with plastic cards showing no wear and tear yet, and the artwork hits a clean cute and cozy vibe with simple shading that’s very pleasant to peruse as you ponder.

However, if you want a play-by-play technical breakdown to nerd out on, covering how the hand shown at the top of the article actually played out, read on…

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You can only play one ability at a time, so the King leads a 5 of Leaves. I’m forced to follow with my inferior 2. His 6 of Leaves beats my 4, but my hand now being out of Leaves and Eyes gives me greater choice on when to use my remaining trumps.

An opportunity immediately presents itself as he leads the 5 of Eyes, which I trump with the 3 of Flowers. The rulebook calls this directing the ruler’s debate back to his preferred topic of conversation, a great rhetorical tactic! He plays the 1 of Claws which my 4 beats. Now I have only 3 cards remaining, the 2 top trumps and the 6 of Claws, and I need to win only 2 tricks.

A misplay here sees me beat the 7 of Leaves with my 7 of Flowers. I had an opportunity to ditch the 6 of Claws here and prevent myself from accidentally winning an unwanted trick, but I missed it, too wrapped up in the possibilities that my ally the Jack of Flowers gives me. That ability lets you keep trumps in hand without the danger of accidentally winning too many tricks, as he lets you just discard them, potentially emptying your entire hand which immediately ends the visit.

Thankfully I wasn’t punished and came to my senses on the next draw, when he played the 3 of Leaves and, unable to follow, I dump the dangerous 6 of Claws to lose the trick. My final card is the 8 of Flowers which literally cannot be beaten, giving me the crucial 5th trick, and the King of Flowers joins the cause. For Northwood!