Ninjan
- Board's Eye View
- 5 hours ago
- 2 min read
Designed by 6jizo, with art by Crocotame, Ninjan is a small-box card game from Helvetiq where the 2-5 players win cards by winning a rock/scissors/paper contest, not directly against each other but against the cards in a central display.
You can essentially ignore the 'ninja' theme and illustrations - all that matters is just the rock/paper/scissors suit and the number on the card. The deck comprises 48 cards: one each numbered -6 to 10 in three suits distinguished by their colour and rock/paper/scissors symbol: rock cards are red, scissors are blue, and paper cards are green.
Three cards are placed out at random in the centre of the table; they may or may not be three different suits. Players each have a hand of nine cards, and you'll play one card in each of the game's nine rounds. Players choose a card to play and place it face down so that every player's cards can be simultaneously revealed. The numbers on the card determine turn order, so if you played the highest numbered card, you will go first, and so on to the player with the lowest numbered card. Where there are two cards of the same number, they are ordered according to their rock/scissors/paper priority.
When it is your turn, you simply compare your card with any one of the three in the central display. If you win, you take the card you beat and add it to your score pile, replacing it in the display with the card you played. If you cannot beat any of the three cards in the display, you just place your card on top of one of the three. Your card becomes one of the three cards for the player next in turn to beat, and anyone winning a card stacked over others will take all the cards to add to their score pile.
That's the entire game in a nutshell. You're, in effect, bidding for turn order with the numerical value of the card but winning a card has nothing whatsoever to do with its number - only its suit. The numbers tho' are what counts when reckoning up your score over the nine rounds. But of the 16 cards in each suit, six are negative, so you are better off not winning those cards...
Your choice of whether to play a high or low card will depend on whether or not you can and want to win one of the cards currently in the display. If you know you cannot win against any of three cards displayed, or if the card you'd win would be negative, you will want to bid low in the hope that there will be a better choice available to you lower in the turn order. With this in mind Ninjan is a more tactical game at low player counts - with two or three players. It's still very playable with four or five players but there's a higher luck factor as you increase the player count. In any event, this is a game that plays in just 10-15 minutes, so it makes for a fun filler.
