Mori – Allplay Series

We are back with another small box, big game title from Allplay. Today we are taking a look at Mori, one of the more interesting trick tacking games that was recently released. For fans of trick taking games, I think this small box package provides a major bang for your buck, but you might feel differently. Let’s check it out and see if it’s right for you!

In Mori, players will have a deck of cards in their hand and will begin playing from round to round. There is a central board with a number of markings on it that represent the games various suits, and one that will be placed a good number of dice, after being rolled of course.

Some standard trick taking rules apply. When someone plays a card, others must follow suit if they can, otherwise they can play any card including “X.” Determining trump each turn is decided by the middle board. There are arrows around the outside of the central board going clockwise, and trump is whatever is next in that central circle to what card was led. Whoever win the hand will get to take a die from the central board and place it in front of themselves, which can be used in the future when playing cards (dice).

Dice are always treated as the lowest value of that type, but the interesting rule here is that you can break the follow-what-was-led rule by using a die instead of a card. This might let you trump a led card even if you have a led card type in your hand. It’s really interesting, and I love it works! For the record, the “X” cards work the same way, although the “X” can never be trump.

When all the dice from the middle of the table are taken the round will end. Any cards still in hand, or dice in front of players, are added to their score pile along with any tricks they won!

Scoring again flips trick taking on its head. Whoever has the most “X” cards and dice will lose one point per. Whoever has the second most will get one point per. It’s an interesting balance of counting dice and counting cards to see who might have the most X’s, and whether you might have the second most. It’s such a great and unique feature of the game, and makes coming back to play again and again such a blast.

The other scores come from leaves (positive points) and skulls (negative points). It’s an easy game to understand and play, but there is so much depth here. I cannot wait to play this more and more, and if you have trick tacking fans in your gaming group, I would give this a go. It’s inexpensive and easily worth what you are going to pay!