Full disclosure: A review copy of Trio was provided by Happy Camper.

We finally made pepperoni rolls after a year+, and it’s been a blessing. Pepperoni rolls are, I think, one of the perfect meals for non-vegan folks (we did make vegan pepperoni for our vegetarian friends and it was well-received). Unfortunately the dough takes four hours to rise and such, so we needed to figure out something to do in the interim. Something like … board games. I think that’s the first time I’ve played a game with 5 people since Gen Con? We’re still working out the logistics for more board game nights. But we played three games, all of which you’ll get to read about soon! First up is Trio, from Happy Camper!

In Trio, well, your goal is simple. Trios. You love them. You can’t get enough of them. But you don’t have any right now. You just have a bunch of cards and a dream. Everyone else has the same dream. So you’ll rail against your opponents to gather that what you crave most: a set of three cards of the same number. Then two, then three. Potentially even the best trio of all: triple sevens. Will you be able to make your dreams come true?

Contents

• Setup
• Gameplay
• Player Count Differences
• Strategy
• Pros, Mehs, Cons
• Overall

Setup

Not much setup with this one. Deal each player some cards based on the player count and put some more in the center:

• 3 players: 9 cards per player; 9 cards in the middle
• 4 players: 7 cards per player; 8 cards in the middle
• 5 players: 6 cards per player; 6 cards in the middle
• 6 players: 5 cards per player; 6 cards in the middle

Once you’ve done that, have every player sort their cards from lowest to highest. It doesn’t matter which way they do it; they just need to be able to access their lowest and highest cards in their hand. With that, you’re ready to start!

Gameplay

Trio is all about getting … trios! Sometimes things are named easy. You’ll play on either Simple or Spicy Mode. To win Simple, you need any three trios. To win Spicy, you need two Trios where the number either adds to 7 or the difference is 7 (2 and 5 / 12 and 5, for instance).

On your turn, you can ask any player to reveal their highest or lowest card, including yourself. You can also reveal any card from the center. Once a card has been revealed, you can do that again. Note that this means you can reveal a player’s two highest cards, if you want. If both cards match, you have a chance to go one more time to try and get a trio! If the cards don’t match, your turn ends. If you reveal a trio, you collect them and place them in front of you.

Play continues like that until any player completes their set, either getting three trios in Simple or two connected trios in Spicy. In either play mode, you can get a trio of 7s to win instantly!

Player Count Differences

At lower player counts there will still be a lot of turns since so many cards will be effectively buried in players’ hands. You can only get at the current lowest or current highest available cards. With more players, there are fewer cards in hand, so there can be more variance to it all. You can legitimately have 7 as your lowest or highest card, which makes things fun and weird. One thing to note is that with fewer players there are a lot more cards in the middle, so you run the risk of a bunch of information becoming public (or cards that you can actually engage with that would normally be buried). Beyond that, since you only interact with someone’s highest or lowest card, there aren’t a ton of additional player differences. I like Trio a lot as a quick card game for any player count.

Strategy

• Try not to reveal things prematurely. For instance, I usually don’t play one of my cards first unless I already know where a trio is. If I find a card that I can’t use, I’ll either try for another trio or I’ll take a card that’s already been seen to burn my turn and end without adding more information to the general pool of public knowledge.
• You also need to keep track of when someone’s already been asked. If someone’s lowest card is 2, don’t ask them looking for a 1; they don’t have it!
• If you’ve got a 7 in your hand, pray that nobody finds out. It’s a great secret to keep if you know where 7s are.
• You can block other players by grabbing their Connected Trios in Spicy Mode, if you want. If your opponent has the 10s, you can try and get the 3s so that they can’t win. It’s harder to do effectively, but it’s not a bad move.
• Probability can sometimes work to your advantage. As trios start to emerge you can see what hasn’t been grabbed, and that can sometimes tell you whether to go high or low. If the 9s and 10s haven’t been claimed, for instance, go high! If the 3s and 4s haven’t been claimed, go low! That probability can be pretty helpful if you’re truly unsure of what to do, since 7 is almost always going to be in the middle.
• Sometimes I just say things. It’s fun to just tell people things that are untrue about the game state or your hand. It’s allowed! You just might really frustrate some other players.

Pros, Mehs, and Cons

Pros

• The art style is super fun! It’s very whimsical and bright and colorful, which, again, card games should shoot for that if they’re going for approachable and new-player-friendly, which seems to be the case across the board for Happy Camper. So, it’s good.
• It’s a very easy game to pick up and play. You just deal out cards and then basically grab the high or the low one. Not too complicated.
• I appreciate the Simple and Spicy modes. Giving experienced players a way to up the complexity of the game a bit to grow it with their group improves the game’s longevity, which is always nice. Simple is very straightforward since you only need three trios; you have to plan and change your approach a bit to win Spicy mode.
• Very portable. It’s a small box or you can pretty easily just put it in a Quiver or some sort of card-storage device, which is nice.
• The way I learned it was silly. When someone flips the first card, you say “woah.” Second card gets “woah!”. Third card, if it matches, gets a big “WOAH!!!”. If it’s three sevens, you go nuts. It’s a very silly way to play the game.

Mehs

• The game can sometimes have an anticlimactic end. Any game with a short-circuit victory condition can sometimes just end abruptly. I generally think that it’s not an issue, but that’s how variance in card games can work. Sometimes you get dealt three 10s or you have two 7s in your hand and you find the next one. Them’s the breaks.

Cons

• Look, if you don’t like memory games, this is going to be a rougher one. You need to remember essentially every time you get to see someone’s cards, which can be a lot for folks who don’t do the memory game thing. You could leave them visible but honestly I think part of the vibe is just occasionally making a goofer if you forget.

Overall: 8.5 / 10

Trio is and remains a great entry card game. It just lands well with everyone, it’s quick to play, it’s colorful, and it just hits when you’re looking for something that you can play with just about anyone. I like it mostly for the low overhead of it all, but it’s also just a good idea as a semi-professional Board Game Person to have a bunch of quick and simple games in your repertoire so that you can play them with different people in different places. Trio is a game that I would definitely take with me if I were doing more board game travel or work travel for that. It’s got a good player count spread and an engaging core concept. I’ve liked it ever since I first played it as nana, and I’m glad to see it got a wider stateside release. There are a lot of great Japanese card games that never see the light of day in the US, and it would have been a bummer if that happened to nana. Now, if you’re opposed to memory games, a lot of this is specifically a memory game so you’re going to run into some challenges on that front. But that’s just how it goes, I suppose. It’s good to know what your preferences are going into it, though, and if it’s a quick card game, some light memory game elements, or just getting excited for someone else to get a trio of cards, Trio is going to be right up your alley! Big fan.

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