Base price: $23.
3 – 5 players.
Play time: ~30 minutes.
BGG Link
Buy on Amazon (via What’s Eric Playing?)
Logged plays: 2
Alright, we’re back in the saddle and we’re writing. It’s rapidly becoming a Sunday tradition, just me, my notes on various games, and usually some kind of music or TV show. It’s a simple pleasure, though I actually have enough notes on games for a couple weeks, so we’ll see how the spirit moves us. Usually I get two or so games played in a week; I haven’t had time since I moved up to the Pacific Northwest to actually set up a robust game night schedule, which as you can imagine for a reviewer, is pretty challenging. I haven’t even been able to set up a way for me to donate games that are cycling out of my collection. Working on it. But every so often I can get four or so games played in a week, which really boosts my ability to write. One such game was TRND, which I played earlier today. Let’s dig in and I’ll tell you all about it.
In TRND, players have found themselves caught up in the fast-paced world of … vintage chair sales. It could happen! Some people are really into chairs. Though, I’m surprised this wasn’t published by Sit Down. Your goal is to track the trends and try to corner the market on something desirable so that you can make the most of your sales. The problem is, if you wait too long, the trends might shift away from you and leave you with nothing! So think carefully but act faster! Will you be able to figure out the trends and score the most points? Or will you just end up chaise-ing the leader?
Contents
Setup
Easy enough. Set the point tokens aside:
To set up a round, shuffle the cards and deal some to each player:
- 3 players: 10 cards each
- 4 players: 9 cards each
- 5 players: 8 cards each
Make a 3×3 square of cards with the deck in the center. Each card should be face-up, and that’ll form the Market. Discard a card below the market to form the discard pile. Pick a player to go first and you should be ready to start!
Gameplay
TRND is a game of paying attention! What’s popular? What’s not? And most importantly, what can you corner the market on?
Each turn you have a choice: draw a card from the deck, or draw a card from the Market and then discard cards. In the second case, you take one of the eight cards in the Market and then choose a card to discard from your hand. The card you pick must either match the color or the shape of the top card of the discard pile. Once you discard a card, you may discard as many of that exact color and shape combination card as you’d like from your hand. If you cannot discard a card, you cannot take from the Market; you must draw from the deck instead.
That’s pretty much it. Once you finish a turn with only one color and shape combination in your hand, you can go out! You immediately score the square of the number of cards you have (three cards, 9 points; seven cards, 49 points; et cetera). When there’s only one player left, they cannot go out! The round ends and they score 0 points.
Play until one player has crossed the point threshold for your player count:
- 3 players: 100 points
- 4 players: 81 points
- 5 players: 64 points
The player with the most points wins!
Player Count Differences
There are a finite number of colors and shapes, so with more players there will inherently be more competition for certain combinations. That will likely not work in your favor, hence why there are fewer cards and a lower endgame point threshold for higher player counts. What can work in your favor, though, is increased market churn. The card market doesn’t move as much with three players, so you may end up taking cards you don’t want because, well, that’s what’s available. So as with all things, there’s some balance between various player counts. I will say one advantage of more players is that it doesn’t necessarily feel as cutthroat; with three, once one player goes out it’s do-or-die time for the other two. Whoever goes out first gets to score points that round, and the other player gets nothing. With more players, there’s a few more people who can go out before it gets to that point. I think I lean slightly more in favor of higher player count games, as a result, but I think TRND is still pretty exciting with three.
Strategy
- Try to draw cards that give you an exit strategy. Don’t just take cards at random; you’ll ultimately need to draw either a card from your set or a card you already have to go out. Try and cover your bases so you’ll always have something to discard; you don’t want to have to pull from your big set.
- Have some backup plans in your hand that will let you pivot. I usually try to work on two sets if I can, and then discard the smaller set to go out. That works okay!
- Watch what’s being discarded. If you see a lot of players discarding cards from the set you were working on, it might be time to pivot (because you can’t pull from the discard and now fewer of those cards are available).
- If you can figure out what someone else is collecting, sometimes you can mess with their hand. You can either discard cards they need or you can set the discard pile so that it’s inconvenient for them to pull more of the card they need (because they’d otherwise have to discard it). That’s tricky, but very useful if you can pull it off.
- Drawing from the deck is usually a bad move. You don’t get to discard, so that’s usually reserved for the Market being terrible for your hand or you not being able to discard. I wouldn’t recommend doing it casually unless you truly don’t want or can’t use any Market cards; then it’s risky.
- Try not to overcentralize your hand around one color or shape. You run the risk of not being able to discard any cards and either having to pull from your best set or draw from the deck. Both are bad options.
- When it’s down to three players, you better get ready to go out fast. If it’s two players, whichever one of you goes out first gets to score; the other player gets 0. That’s terrible, so try and wrap it up in a hurry, if you can.
Pros, Mehs, and Cons
Pros
- I like the theme! I know I’ve been lightly poking fun at how unbelievably specific it is, but honestly, that’s a very fun thing. More games should be wholly obsessed with one wildly overspecific thing. I think it would let designers just be as weird as possible.
- The game itself is really interesting, since there’s a lot you can potentially pay attention to. You can spend time counting what cards are available, you can try and guess what your opponents need so you can block them, or you can think about how to optimize your pursuit of your own strategy. It encourages you to pay attention when it’s not your turn, as what your opponents take or discard can matter a great deal. That’s good!
- The scoring system is dead simple, which is very nice. You just square how many cards you have! It’s not hard at all. Basically everything is just squares.
- I like that the point tokens have 10x their value on the back. It makes it easy to know what to grab. They have 1 / 2 / 5, and 10 / 20 / 50. That lets you make most denominations of points pretty quickly.
- Being able to beat out another player to actually scoring is great. You feel incredible, like you just won a Mario Kart race by a split second or something.
- The art style is very pleasant. The chairs are soothing to look at and the blue was a great choice; it’s reminiscent of the color scheme for Kobayakawa, which I always liked.
- Portability always is a priority for Oink, and I appreciate that. The games are really a perfect size; I took five or six on my weekend trip and they fit inside this extremely goofy hot dog bag I have. It’s whimsical and great for taking small games on a trip somewhere.
Mehs
- It’s kind of weird that it’s only chairs. I was kind of hoping for like, colors and types of some kind? Maybe some silly lamp shapes? But hey, if you’re into the thrilling secondhand market for a good chair (why are chairs so expensive), then you’ll be fine here.
- Luck of the draw can be a heavy influence on certain rounds. If you start with four or five of the same card and someone else has maximum two, you’re definitely looking at a nontrivial initial advantage. The card flips will influence that somewhat, but it’s hard to get away from that much of a head start. The game amortizes this out somewhat by having you play multiple rounds to hit a score target, which does help, to a degree.
Cons
- You’re going to lose some scoring tokens. These are the tiniest yet. I think having smaller cards might actually have been a better move, and y’all know how much I hate tiny cards.
Overall: 8 / 10
Overall, I like TRND! It’s annoying to type, but that’s mostly because I’m not used to it. But I have a soft spot for card-shedding, ladder-climbing, and trick-taking-adjacent games, so TRND is right up my alley. I like the active Market and how players are incentivized to actually watch what other players are doing; it keeps players off their phones and actively engaged, which is great. It’s even better when it leads up to a big finish where one player just barely outpaces the other to score and the loser is left with nothing. Pretty sure that’s what that ABBA song was about. Vintage chairs and Pierce Brosnan; perfect combination. Anyways, you come here for vague board game insights not vague whatever that was, so let’s continue. Oink has, as I’ve mentioned before, really built their brand on portability and simplicity. Sometimes that gets missed due to the complexity of rulebook translations (we did get briefly confused about the discard rules) but Oink always manages to put out something elegant, elevated, and interesting. TRND is no exception. Another great addition to the shelf of Oink Games that I actually need to re-expand, since it’s overfull. In the meantime, I’ll leave you with this: I think trick-taking is a gateway to a whole exciting genre of games like shedding and ladder-climbing and more, and you’re going to see some cool ones coming across my desk now and in the near future. I think TRND is a great example of that, well, trend, and I’m excited to see what everyone does next. Jun Sasaki is a wild person, granted, but I love his design acumen. Such a smart designer. If that all sounds thrilling to you, you value portability and playability, or you just feel neglected because nobody’s made a game yet catering to your love of vintage chairs, well, TRND is going to be just what you’re looking for! I’d recommend it.
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