Uffbasse!
- Board's Eye View
- 16 hours ago
- 2 min read
Uffbasse! is a trick-taking and set collection card game from Palatia Spiele designed by Manfred Keller, Werner Schmitt, Fabian Zimmerman and Klaus Geis. It takes 2-5 players tho' it's at its interactive best with at least three players.
The game is played using a deck of ingredient cards numbered 1-14 in five suits (colours), tho' some of the numbers are filleted out if you're playing with fewer than five players. In each of four rounds, players are dealt nine cards which they will be using to collect tricks. Tricks follow the usual format: suit must be followed where possible and highest card wins. However, each round an additional nine cards are dealt to a central display and sorted by suit/colour. If there are one or two suits with the most cards, those suits are trump. If there are more than two colours with the most tricks, there are no trumps. When you win a trick, your reward is to take a card from this display; as and when that alters which suit has the most cards, so it alters the trump suit for the next trick.
There's a display of recipe cards that award victory points in exchange for the designated ingredients. When you win a trick, you'll obviously have an eye to these when you select the card you take as a reward: obviously, you want to collect the ingredients needed to complete a recipe. What makes the game particularly interesting, however, is the fact that your choice can also determine the trump suit for the next trick...
The designers were clearly conscious that the trump manipulation could lead to a runaway leader so the game incorporates a generously powerful catch-up mechanic. The player who ends a round with the fewest points can call out 'Uffbasse!' (German for 'Watch out!') to take the Uffbasse! card. This then allows them to impose their choice of trump suit in the following round. The card can also be used as a wild card/joker, substituting for any colour of ingredient. This dual benefit can give a player quite a boost, to extent that in our plays at Board's Eye View we've felt compelled to experiment with house rules that limit the use of the Uffbasse! card so that its two functions (trump manipulation and wild card) are treated as an either/or choice. However you play, Uffbasse! is a brisk game. Rounds typically take less than 10 minutes even with a full complement of five players.
We picked up our copy of Uffbasse! at Spiel Essen. If you have difficulty finding it at your local game store, click here to order it direct from Palatia Spiele.
