Cooperative trick-taking is having a real moment, with The Crew and its many imitators turning a centuries-old card format into the genre everyone wants a piece of. Counterpoint takes that energy somewhere unexpected: a chamber recital, played by a trio to quintet of animal musicians.
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Find events near youIn this co-op for three to five players, each of you is a creature in the ensemble, an iguana on violin, say, or an armadillo at the piano, working through scenarios named after pieces from the classical canon. As with any campaign-style game, each performance layers in its own special rules, so the challenge keeps shifting as you turn the pages.
The clever, divisive heart of it is the bidding. Every player adds their own suit to the deck, and at the start of a round you claim wooden musical notes from a shared pool, betting on how many cards of your suit you will take rather than how many tricks you will win. It is a genuinely fresh twist, though early reactions are split. Reviewers at Meeple Mountain admired the ambition but found the card-counting bid hard to plan around. Plenty of backers clearly feel otherwise.
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See how it worksThat is rather the point. Counterpoint is the debut from Square Cactus Games, designed by Ted Mann Schaller with art by Brandon Campbell, and it cleared its 6,000 dollar goal in under 15 hours, pulling in more than 200 backers on day one alone. It has since passed 8,700 dollars from over 300 supporters and is trending well beyond its target.
The campaign runs until 25 June. If a gentle, brain-bending recital sounds like your group's idea of a good night, round up the ensemble and give it a look.
Sources: Kickstarter | Meeple Mountain | Kicktraq
