Diamonds is Trick-taking with actions…

and Diamonds of course.

Diamonds is a trick-taking card game in which players collect Diamonds — not cards bearing that suit, mind you, but rather actual “Diamond Crystals” (acrylic crystals) included in the game.

Each player has a vault (which is a screen) and starts with 2 plastic Diamonds in front of it, in what is called the Showroom.

The deck of cards are playing card suits numbered 1-14, each payer gets 10. The start player selects 1 2 or 3 cards then each player passes that many cards to their right. (This alternates left and right each round)

Then a player starts the trick and each player follows suit if possible. The winner takes the trick, all the cards and then performs the action of the suit played… more on that shortly.

If you can’t follow suit you play any card and take the action of the suit played immediately.

The actions are…

Diamonds – Put a Diamond from the stock into your vault

Hearts – Put a Diamond from the stock into your Showroom

Spades – Put a Diamond from your Showroom into your vault

Clubs – Take a Diamond from someone else’s Showroom into your Showroom

At the end of the round (after everyone has played 10 cards) you get some more special actions.

Firstly, if you didn’t take a trick, you get to take the Diamond action twice giving you 2 diamonds in your vault.

Then each player gets to take the action of a suit if they have the most of them.

After each player has had a turn going first you count up your score. You get 2 points for each Diamond in your Vault and 1 point for each in your Showroom. Most points win.

Diamonds Summary

This is a very nice game, easy to understand and play. To be honest, if I didn’t already have Chronicle which is also a trick-taking game, I would probably pick this one up.

Jesta ThaRogue