Tricky Badger 2023

Deep in the European forests you can still find the endangered wild European hamster. You have been hired to conserve these hamsters and keep them safe from their natural predator: the badger.

Tricky Badger is a set-collection, trick-taking card game. The game lasts five rounds, and each player starts the round with a hand of nine cards, with pink always being trump. Ten collection cards are placed face up from the deck.

At the start of each trick, the active player (a position that rotates) chooses a collection card that the winner of the trick will add to their collection; each collection card has an arrow to indicate whether the highest or lowest card in the trick will win. The active player leads a card, and players must follow this color, if possible. Some cards trample others, and a trampled card is removed from consideration in the trick. If a trump is played in the trick, then the highest or lowest non-trampled trump wins the trick; otherwise the highest or lowest non-trampled card of the suit led wins the trick.

After nine tricks, the round ends. Discard the remaining collection card, deal out nine cards to each player, and lay out ten new collection cards.

After five rounds, players score points for their collection cards, which can be independent or connected to other cards. Every female hamster and every male hamster is worth 1 point, for example, but a female and male hamster that are connected are worth 3 points. Get a second male hamster, however, and they fight, eliminating all of your hamsters. Similarly, a 3-point badger in your collection will eat all hamsters present unless you connect it with a bone to slake its hunger. You can feed wheat and weevils to hamsters to earn bonus points, but weevils on their own will eat your wheat. Magpies can steal cards from opponents, but cages and buckets can protect your animals from theft.

Whoever ends up with the most points wins.