Chronicle is a trick-taking game.

Title: Chronicle

Year Published: 2009

Designer: Seiji Kanai

Publisher: Z-Man Games

Players: 3-6

Game Time: ~30 Mins

Set-up Time: >1 Mins

Ages: 10+

Theme: Fantasy

Mechanic: Trick Taking

How to win: Collect 3 Fame points.

Game Description

An irregular trick taking game where various individual abilities of persons forming history are tangled together.

Who will use their powers to adequately handle the events of the lands? Who will leave their name behind in The Chronicle?

Chronicle Set-Up

Shuffle the History cards into a deck and turn over the top card, this is the theme card for the round.

Each player receives a certain number of cards from the main deck depending on the number of players in the game.

Whoever has the card matching the theme card reveals it and is the start player.

Game Play

Each round is played over various tricks called ‘meetings’. The lead player plays a card of their choice from their hand. (This is the lead card)

Then, in clockwise order, players play a card from their hand following the suit of the lead card or may play a Wildcard.

If a player can not follow the lead cards suit, they play any card from their hand face down.

Any cards played face up activate their special ability.

When everyone has played a card, the person who wins the trick (usually the player who played the card with the highest strength but special abilities can change this) takes all the cards and adds them to their ‘Allies’ by placing them face up in front of them.

The winner is now the lead player in the next Meeting. This continues until one player has 0 cards in hand, the round then ends.

When a round ends, any players with cards left in hand add them to their Allies, and any ‘End of Round’ effects on Allies are activated. The player with the most ‘Evil’ Allies is excluded from scoring in the round.

The player(s) who fit the Victory condition of the History card will gain 1 Fame point.

If a player has all 4 Evil cards in their Allies they gain 2 Fame points and all other scoring is ignored.

Then a new History card is revealed and the main deck shuffled and new hands dealt.

Game End

When a player reaches 3 Fame points the game ends. If multiple players reach 3 Fame on the same turn, either call it a tie or keep playing rounds until the tie is broken.

Round-Up

This is a trick-taking, take that game by one of my favourite designers.

It’s very tense as the scoring changes as will your collection of allies, then add in the mix of Evil characters which you DO NOT want under any circumstances. You can try and get them all but it’s fairly easy for a player to screw that up for you.

There are many trick-taking games out already and very popular ones are still coming out now the varied scoring each round and character abilities are something that separates this from similar games.

Let’s look at the Characters. Each colour has its own unique name and art but all do the same thing. Blue is Power, Green is Wisdom and Red is love.

1 – Assassin, Necromancer, Witch

Evil! If you have this as an Ally at the end of the round you can’t score (Unless you have all of them and the Demon)

2 – Prince, Queen, Princess

Counts as 3 Allies of that colour. Great if you need the fewest of a single colour and you can pass this off to someone else.

3 – Sergeant, Merchant, Maid

This card flips the trick and the lowest strength takes it.

4 – Barbarian, Fortune Teller, Mother

Steal an ally from another player… Can be awesome!

5 – Hunter, Thief, Fairy

Ends the trick immediately. Can be a strong card

6 – Gladiator, Doctor, Bard

Pull back an Ally you control to your hand. Great for removing an Evil character or just to get back a character with a powerful ability

7 – Mercenary, Hermit, Dancer

Bounce a card already in the trick, sweet 🙂

8 – Knight, Scholar, Cleric

Discard a card from a player’s hand. Annoying, especially if they’re saving a card for later on in the round.

9 – Captain, Patriarch, Noble

Put a card from your hand into your Allies. Can be very strong.

10 – General, Wizard, Bishop

Discard one of your allies… Very nice.

Wild – Dragon, Angel, Sage, King, Fool, Demon

Very powerful abilities and can be played off suit.

Chronicle Rating

My favourite trick-taking game.

I give it 6/10