I’ve added three new games to Trickster’s Table since I last wrote: 3 Tricky Pigs, Slot Machine Millionaire, and Stepping Stones. I also added the new official Stick ‘Em art by Weberson Santiago, which is a big upgrade for one of my favorite games in the app.
Most of the games are now also playable in a web browser at tricksterstable.playagame.app, so you can try them without installing the mobile app.
Trickster’s Table has now been my main hobby project for just over three years. I’m planning to write a longer retrospective series soon about what I’ve learned building it: implementing a lot of interesting card games, making competent bots with Rust and Monte Carlo Tree Search, designing card art for small screens, and porting the games to several different languages including Dart, Rust, and TypeScript.
3 Tricky Pigs by Andrew Stiles and Steven Ungaro is a thematic trick-taking game where players take on the roles of the wolf and the three little pigs. The laziest pig wins a trick when no wolf is around, but if a wolf shows up, the highest card wins. Players score by correctly bidding how many tricks they will win each round in this precision bidding game.
Slot Machine Millionaire by Jon Barron is a shedding/climbing game where players try to empty their hands by playing matching symbols as melds. The power of each symbol changes as jackpots are paid out, and each player gets one lucky coin that can flip the whole hierarchy at just the right moment.
Stepping Stones by Ryan Campbell is a compendium game where each player tries to complete four different objectives while everyone else tries to block them. Even though it was designed as an introduction to compendium games, it still has a lot of depth because timing your bids and choosing when to push your luck both matter a lot.
Stick ‘Em by Klaus Palesch was added last year with placeholder art. The new amazing art by Weberson Santiago was added recently. This art will appear in the upcoming Capstone Games printing of the game.
Trickster’s Table is free, ad-free, and microtransaction-free on iOS, Android, and the web. Development is funded by supporters, and 50% of contributions are shared with designers and rights holders of games that appear in the app.
