ECK: A Solo Trick-Taking Game Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Components
• Setup
• Gameplay
  • In Each Trick
• Winning a Trick
• Circle Cards
• Winning the Game
• Example
• Difficulty Levels

Components

GAME CARDS (42):

• Shapes (ranks): Line, Triangle, Square, Pentagon, Hexagon, Octagon
• Colors (suits): Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Purple
• Circles (trumps): Black x3, White x3

TRICK CARDS (7): Numbered 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 13/0

COUNTER CARD: 0, 1 on the front; 2, X on the back

Setup

Place the TRICK CARDS in order color-side up and the COUNTER card with 0 at the top above the main play area.

Shuffle the GAME CARDS. Draw 13 game cards for yourself into your hand or face up on the table, organized by color is suggested.

Place the remaining 29 GAME CARDS face down in a deck. This is the ECK deck.

The table is laid out with the following areas around the main play area:

• ECK deck (29 cards) — the face-down deck ECK plays from.
• Hold area — where ECK cards turned over while searching for a playable card are held.
• ECK's play area and your play area — where the two cards of the current trick are played.
• Tied tricks area — where the cards of a tied trick are set aside until someone wins them.
• Your starting hand (13 cards), organized by color.

Leave space both near you and near the ECK deck to collect won tricks and trick cards during the round.

Gameplay

ECK uses mechanics familiar from traditional trick-taking games, such as leading a color, following suit, and winning a trick, explained below. You and ECK alternate playing single cards, one following the other. Who wins the trick depends on the cards played. Each ROUND consists of 13 tricks, one for each card in your hand. The CIRCLE cards act like trump cards, always winning or always losing. There is no bidding or declaring in advance how many tricks will be won in a round.

In Each Trick

The first card played in a trick:

• ECK always plays the first card of a round.
• The winner of a trick plays the first card of the next trick.
• If you play the first card of a trick, you may play any card from your hand.
• If ECK plays the first card of a trick, it is the top card of the ECK deck.

The second card played in a trick:

• If you are following, you must follow suit if possible, i.e., play a card of the same color. Otherwise, you may play any card from your hand.
• If ECK is following, turn over the top card of the ECK deck repeatedly until one of the following cards is revealed to play:
  • A card of the same color as the first card played
  • A card of the same shape as the first card played
  • A circle card
• ECK cards turned over while searching for a playable card are held in the hold area until a matching card is found.
  • After a matching card is revealed to play, place the previously revealed, unplayable cards face up under the ECK deck.
  • If you encounter these face-up cards later in the game, turn the whole deck over, shuffle it, and continue play as before.

If two cards of the same shape are played, the trick is tied:

• Both cards of the trick are set aside temporarily in the tied tricks area, to be won later.
• Play another trick, with whoever played the first card in the tied trick also playing the first card of the next trick.
• The winner of this trick takes both the won trick and the tied trick (this counts as 2 tricks won).
• If there is another tie, set those cards aside as well and repeat the process until there is a winner. That winner takes all the tricks set aside so far.

After all 13 tricks have been played, the number of tricks won determines the outcome of the round.

Example: The player played a purple hexagon. ECK's first two cards were neither purple nor a hexagon, so not playable. ECK's third revealed card was a green hexagon. This ended the trick in a tie. In the next trick, the player played a blue octagon. ECK's green pentagon is again not playable, but the following blue triangle is (same color). The octagon wins as the higher card, so the player takes it as well as the tied trick.

Winning a Trick

At the end of each trick, the winner of the trick collects the cards: depending on who won, place the card either with you or with ECK. It's important to lay out the cards so that the number of tricks won by you or by ECK is visible. These cards are collected face down and cannot be looked at again until the end of the round.

The winner of a trick is determined as follows:

• If the second card is the same color as the first card played, the card with the higher-ranking shape wins. The more sides a shape has, the higher its value.
  • From weakest to strongest: Line, Triangle, Square, Pentagon, Hexagon, Octagon
• If the second card is a different color but the same shape as the lead card, the trick is tied.
  • If the last trick of a round is tied, the winner is whoever played the first card of that trick.
• If the second card has a different color and shape than the card first played in the trick, whoever played that second card loses the trick.
  • This can only happen to you, not to ECK.
• CIRCLE CARDS are exceptions to the rules above, see below.

Circle Cards

The black and white circle cards are trump-like cards that, when played, either always win or always lose a trick. ECK may play a circle card as the first card of a trick, or follow with a circle card, without restriction. You may play a circle card as the first card of a trick without restriction, but you may only play a circle card as the second card of a trick if you cannot follow the color played by ECK. Whenever you play a circle card as the first card of a trick, ECK plays the top card of its deck as the second card of the trick. Tricks with circles are won/lost as follows:

• A black circle always wins against a card of any color/shape.
• A white circle always loses against a card of any color/shape.
• 2 black circles in the same trick, or 2 white circles in the same trick, is a tie.
• If a white and a black circle are played in the same trick, the white circle wins.

Winning the Game

You win the game by collecting four different TRICK CARDS. You always receive a TRICK CARD whenever you win exactly the number of tricks shown on one of the remaining trick cards. For example, if you win 6 tricks in a round, you receive the trick card with the number 6. If you win the same number of tricks again as in a previous round, you do not receive another trick card. If you fail to win a trick card in three consecutive rounds — either because you won the same number of tricks again, or because you collected an odd number of tricks that matches no available trick card — the game is over and ECK wins the game.

The COUNTER CARD is used to keep track of this. At the start of the game, the 0 is on top. As soon as you play a round without winning a trick card, flip the counter card so the 1 is on top. If you also fail to win a trick card in the next round, flip the card so the 2 is on top. If you fail a third time in a row, flip the card so the X is on top: you have lost the game! As soon as you succeed in winning a trick card at some point, flip the counter card back to 0.

Trick cards start the game showing their colored side up. If ECK wins the number of tricks shown on a trick card, that card is flipped to its gray side. If ECK wins the number of tricks on a trick card that is already showing its gray side (i.e., ECK has already won that number once before without you winning it in between), then ECK wins that card and you lose the entire game.

However, if you win the number of tricks on a trick card that is showing its gray side, collect that card, and ECK can no longer win that card, even if ECK wins that number of tricks again. Whenever you win all 13 tricks or lose all 13 tricks, you receive the 13/0 card. ECK cannot win the 13/0 card. If you have won four different trick cards in total, you win the game!

Example

Round 1: You win 6 tricks. Take trick card 6.

Round 2: You win 6 tricks again. You receive no trick card and flip the counter card from 0 to 1.

Round 3: ECK wins 8 tricks. Flip trick card 8 to its gray side. Flip the counter card from 1 to 2.

Round 4: You win 8 tricks. You receive trick card 8. Flip the counter card back to 0.

Round 5: ECK wins 4 tricks. Flip trick card 4 to its gray side. Flip the counter card from 0 to 1.

Round 6: You win 12 tricks. You receive trick card 12. Flip the counter card back to 0.

Round 7: ECK wins 4 tricks. Trick card 4 is already gray, so you lose and ECK wins the game.

Difficulty Levels

The standard number of trick cards needed to win is four. You can change this number to adjust the difficulty and length of the game. Beginners should reduce the number to 2 for a short, easy game.

To increase the challenge, try to win five, six, or even all seven trick cards.

Another way to change the game's challenge is to lay out only certain trick cards at the start of the game. For example: lay out only the cards 2, 4, 12 and 13/0 (and remove trick cards 6, 8, 10). Even if you now reduce the number of tricks needed to win to three, this is a much greater challenge, since the available trick cards are much harder to win.

If you come up with your own variants to make the game more interesting, the designer would love to hear about them.