Gudetama: The Tricky Egg Card Game Review

In case you didn’t know, Gudetama, a lazy egg yolk with a butt crack is a bit of a phenomenon.  Part of the universe of the Japanese company Sanrio (probably best known for Hello Kitty) it was hatched in 2013 and quickly grew to become a symbol of kimo-kawaii (creepy-cute) culture and one of the company’s best-selling characters. What it has to do with a family-friendly trick-taking game is a bit of mystery. Except, at a guess, it is cute, makes for a humorous artwork and sells.

If you separate the yolk from the game, it becomes really quite simple: take as many cards as you want, but don’t take the last trick. Whoever gets unlucky enough to earn the last trick scores points equal to the value of the card they played that round, except in Gudetama: The Tricky Egg Card Game this is not a good thing. The first player to accumulate 21 points loses the game. There are a couple of other rules that make the game slightly brain-scratchy. For example, players must put down a card equal to or higher than the one on the table, but if they don’t have any, then they must play the lowest card in their hand. Lower numbers immediately become a commodity and the main strategy of the game is to make your opponent discard their best cards before the last trick. However, in most rounds luck plays a bigger part than strategy, especially in a lower count game.

It is really hard to go wrong with trick-taking – the core mechanism is fun even in the simplest of its variations, and Gudetama: The Tricky Egg Card Game certainly ticks all the correct boxes for a casual, quick game. However, there is nothing about it that makes it stand out among other trick-taking games of the same calibre, except, of course, for that weirdly adorable egg yolk. 

ALEXANDRA SONECHKINA

PLAY IT? Maybe

Designers: Ben Eisner & Steve Ellis

Publisher: Renegade Game Studios 

Time: 20 minutes

Players: 2-7

Age: 7+

Price: £15

This review originally appeared in Issue 50 of Tabletop Gaming. Pick up the latest issue of the UK's fastest-growing gaming magazine in print or digital here or subscribe to make sure you never miss another issue.

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