Odin
- Board's Eye View
- 16 minutes ago
- 2 min read
Designed by Gary Kim, Hope S Hwang and Yohan Goh, Odin is a short, easy-to-play card shedding, ladder-climbing game from Helvetiq for 2-6 players. It has a very notionally Viking theme, in that the cards all feature Crocotame's cute stylised cartoon rendition of Nordic characters, but it is essentially an abstract card game where the only relevant information is the number on each card and the suit colour. The card deck is made up of 54 cards: 1-9 in each of six colours, tho' the rules recommend filleting out two of the suits if there are just two players.
Players each have a starting hand of nine cards and, on your turn, you must play a card greater in value than the preceding card. You must match the number of cards played by the previous player but you can increase that number of cards by one; so if the preceding player played a pair of 4s, you must play two cards but you could choose to play three. Multiples you play must either be all the same number or the same colour. Once you play, you must pick up a card from the table and add it to your hand. If you cannot follow the previously played cards, you can pass, and if all but one players pass the round ends. Players score the number of cards left in their hand. The rules suggest ending the game when a player racks up a score of 15, and the player then with the lowest score wins.
Odin has obvious similarities with the popular card game Scout (Oink Games), which was a Spiel des Jahres nominee in 2022, and not just because it's another small-box game with long thin cards. Unlike Scout, however, the cards in Odin each bear a single number. Also, this game substitutes sets of cards with matching colours for numerical runs. In a unique twist, the value of multiples played is calculated by combining but not adding the digits of the cards played to generate the largest possible number - so, for example, if you play a 3, 6 and 7 in blue, the value to beat will be 762.
This makes for an entertaining filler-length game that you can expect to play through in 10-15 minutes. For us, it's not going to replace Scout but it's less fiddly, so a card game that's easier to introduce to new players and those who struggle with Scout's card orientation and prohibition on sorting your hand.
