Review: Gachapon Trick

Introducción

Your pockets are full of coins and your instincts are sharper than ever. Outsmart your rivals in a fierce trick-taking game and show off your fortune to collect the coolest figures.

This is the premise of Gachapon Trick, designed by Daniel Newman (Mori, Watch). First published in 2024 by New Mill Industries in an English version. In 2025, it was published by Playte. Illustrations are handled by Sai Beppu (Mountain Goats, Sluff Off!) and Wanjin Gill (Cerdeña, Orapa Mine).

At the moment, it has not been published in Spanish, so you will have to resort to importing it (although the game is completely language-independent). It allows for games of 2 to 4 players, with a suggested minimum age of 10 years and an approximate duration of between 20 and 40 minutes. The suggested retail price is €18. For this review, we used a copy of Playte’s English/Japanese/Korean version, which the publisher kindly provided.

Importante: si ya conoces el juego y/o sólo te interesa mi opinión sobre el mismo, puedes pasar directamente al apartado de Opinión. Los apartados Contenido y Mecánica están destinados especialmente a aquellos que no conocen el juego y prefieren hacerse una idea general de cómo funciona.

Ir a la Opinión Personal

Contenido

Inside a two-piece cardboard box (lid and bottom), measuring 10×14×6 cm (a small rectangular box similar to Cerdeña), we find the following components:

• 50 Cards (57×89 mm.):
  • 49 Toy Cards
  • Refund Card
• 73 Money Tokens (plastic):
  • 40 Value 1 Tokens
  • 32 Value 5 Tokens
• Rulebook

Mecánica

Gachapon Trick is a trick-taking game where players compete to collect toy figures over three rounds. At the start of each round, players receive a hand of cards and an initial amount of yen, which they will use as money to make their purchases. On each turn, the lead player plays a card of their choice and the others must follow suit if possible; the winner of the trick will be the one who plays the highest-value card within the most frequent suit. The game’s twist lies in the fact that the trick winner is required to buy at least one of the cards played in it, with the option to buy more or even push their luck by buying a card blind from the central deck. Throughout the round, players must carefully manage their finances, since running out of funds or having too little money leads to immediate elimination from the current round. After a set number of tricks, points are calculated based on the sets of identical toys collected, adding extra points for leftover money or for not having spent anything at all. The player with the highest score after completing the three rounds will be the winner.

Conceptos Básicos

Let’s start with the Toy Cards, the core component that players will try to collect. These cards show different types of figures or toys with their respective values and classifications. There are seven types of toys, seven colors, and seven values. In each color, there will be one toy of each type with a different value ranging from 200 to 800 yen. Throughout the tricks, players will play these cards from their hand to compete according to the game rules, and then the trick winner will have the chance to buy them using their money. Once acquired, the cards are placed face-up in front of the player to form sets of the same toy type, which will grant victory points exponentially at the end of the round based on the number of identical cards accumulated.

The Refund Card is a unique item introduced into the draw deck along with the leftover cards during round setup. Physically identical on its back to the rest of the deck, it acts as a surprise event when a player decides to take a risk and buy a card blind from the central draw pile. When obtained, the player keeps it in their play area until the end of the current round, at which point it can be used to discard one of the previously collected toys and fully recover its money value, having no effect or value whatsoever if it is not used for this purpose.

Lastly, we have the Money Tokens, which represent the financial capital and currency of the game. These tokens are distributed to players at the start of each round with a fixed amount to manage their purchases. They serve as a mandatory resource for the trick winner to buy at least one of the cards played in it, or to optionally acquire additional cards from the draw deck. Furthermore, leftover money at the end of the round converts directly into additional victory points.

That is enough to get started.

Preparación de la Partida

• Shuffle the 49 toy cards and deal 10 to each player in a 4-player game, or 12 cards each in a 3-player game.
• Shuffle the remaining toy cards together with the refund card and place them face-down in the center of the table to form the draw deck.
• Each player receives an initial amount of 5000 yen in coins.
• Determine the starting player randomly.

We are ready to begin!

Desarrollo de la Partida

A game of Gachapon Trick is played over 3 rounds. Each round consists of a series of tricks (10 in 4-player games, or 12 in 3-player games).

At the start of each trick, the active player (the leader) must lead the trick, continuing clockwise. Proceed as follows:

• Lead the Trick. The trick leader must play one of their cards, establishing the suit to follow.
• Follow Suit. Clockwise, the rest of the players must play a card from their hand. It is mandatory to follow the same suit as the lead card. If a player does not have cards of that suit, they may play any other card from their hand. From the third player onwards, each player is required to play a card belonging to at least one of the suits already played (with no priority order).
• Determine the Winner. Once everyone has contributed a card, evaluate who wins the trick. The winner is the player who played the highest numerical value card within the most frequent suit in the trick. In case of a tie in suit frequency, the victory goes to the highest card among those tied suits. If the tie persists with the same value, the player who played their card later wins.
• The trick winner is required to buy at least one of the cards that make up the played trick, paying its corresponding cost. If they wish and have the funds, they can buy more cards from that same trick. The acquired cards are placed face-up in front of the player, forming their visible collection.
• Optional Purchase from the Pile. Once per trick, the leader may choose to buy the top card of the central draw pile for a cost of ¥500, revealing it and adding it to their collection.

After this, a new trick begins, with the winner of the previous one becoming the new leader.

During the round, the following special economy and gameplay rules must be kept in mind:

• Bankruptcy and Elimination. If at the end of any trick a player’s total money is less than ¥200, they are immediately eliminated from the current round for being unable to keep playing the gachapon. They must discard all remaining cards in their hand and wait for the end of the round to score.
• If the eliminated player was supposed to be the leader of the next trick, leadership passes to the player on their left.
• If only one active player remains in the round, they can freely buy any card left in their hand and acquire a card from the draw pile.
• Non-payment of Tricks. If a player wins a trick but cannot afford to pay for any of the cards in play, the trick victory passes to the next eligible player sharing the majority suit with an immediately lower rank. This new winner assumes the obligation to buy.
• Refund Card. If a player buys a random card from the draw pile and gets the Refund Card, they keep it secret until the end of the round. At that moment, they can discard one of their collected Toy cards to recover its money value. If unused, this card provides no value.

After completing all tricks, the round ends and players simultaneously proceed to the scoring phase:

• Players calculate the points obtained from their toy collections based on the number of identical figures they possess, granting 1/4/9/16/25/36/49 points for having 1/2/3/4/5/6/7 identical toys respectively.
• Players get 1 additional point for every ¥200 left over in their supply.
• If a player ends the round without having spent any money, they receive a 5-point bonus for resisting the gachapon’s temptation.

Once the scores are recorded, all players’ money markers are reset to ¥5000, all cards are shuffled again, and the next round is set up just like at the start of the game. The player with the highest score in the previous round will be the initial leader (in case of a tie, it is decided by rock, paper, scissors).

Fin de la Partida

The game ends at the close of the third round. The winner will be the player with the most accumulated points.

Variantes

2-Player Mode. Each player receives 10 cards in their hand and has a personal draw pile of another 10 cards, starting the game with a larger budget of ¥8000. The flow of the round changes notably: to simulate the dynamics of more opponents, players alternate turns playing 2 cards each (one by one), resulting in a total of 4 cards per trick. At the end of each trick, both must draw 2 cards from their respective personal piles until they run out, at which point they continue playing only with the cards in their hand. Finally, to ensure balance, the starting player alternates with each new trick.

Opinión Personal

We find ourselves in a sweet spot for lovers of trick-taking games. What once seemed like a niche reserved for board game classics or traditional decks has today become an engine of constant innovation. Publishers never stop squeezing the concepts, twisting their rules with cooperative, thematic, or deduction twists, proving that this classic system still has plenty of life and relevance.

Within this trend, Asian designs, especially those coming from Japan and South Korea, have gained paramount importance. These authors have shown extreme finesse when it comes to distilling the essence of trick-taking into small boxes and minimalist components, but with a massive psychological weight. Their proposals do not just seek entertainment, but challenge the player through original constraints, millimetric hand management, and subtle layers of interaction that completely break away from traditional Western design frameworks.

One of the latest designs to reach us from the Far East is the game we are looking at today. Let’s see how this Gachapon Trick behaves on the table, where trick-taking shakes hands with the famous toy vending machines typical of Japan. But first, I must thank Playte for providing the copy that makes the spiel that just started possible.

Gachapon Trick is a trick-taking game that blends with a set collection mechanic. Players step into the shoes of toy collectors obtaining items from these famous vending machines which, after inserting the corresponding yen, eject large plastic balls containing a toy inside. Come on, like a Kinder Egg, but without the chocolate.

The game will take place over three hands. Each of those hands will develop over as many tricks as cards the players receive. Additionally, each player starts the hand with five thousand yen as capital to spend when acquiring toys. The goal? To try to accumulate as many points as possible, either by getting large collections of specific toys or by resisting temptation and spending very little, since every two hundred yen will turn into one point at the end of the round.

As a trick-taking game, we have the system’s classic concepts—that is, in the deck, we have a series of suits, each composed of the same number of cards with different values. In each trick, the leading player opens by revealing a card from their hand. The second player will be forced to play a card of that same suit, if they have one. If not, they could play any card from their hand.

The moment a player cannot follow suit and plays a card from another suit, the obligation for the following players changes, since the range of choices expands when following suit; now they can play any card belonging to any of the suits already played, and not just the one played by the leader, without any priority rules.

And who wins the trick? Well, whoever played the highest value card of the majority suit—that is, the suit with the most cards played, which does not necessarily have to be the suit the leader opened the trick with. In case of a tie in the number of cards among several suits, the trick will be won by whoever played the highest card among all those in the tied suits. And if the values are equal, whoever played their card latest among those tied in value.

And what good is winning a trick? Well, unlike most trick-taking games, in Gachapon Trick winning the trick allows the winner to buy toy cards from among all those that make up the trick, being forced to acquire at least one and adding them to their collection. Additionally, they will have the option to push their luck by inserting five hundred yen into the machine to add the top card of the deck to their collection.

Thus, at the end of the hand—that is, when all tricks have been played—players will count points based on their collection, keeping in mind that if a player managed to resist temptation and won no tricks, they will not only convert all the yen they started the hand with into points (which is twenty-five points), but they will also receive a bonus of five additional points for resisting the temptation to drop coins into those pesky machines.

Getting more than thirty points in a single round is quite difficult. Consider that to exceed that amount we need to gather at least six cards of the same toy type (there are seven cards of each) or two collections of at least four cards. Both cases are very hard to achieve because, for starters, the rest of the players have to play those toys so that, if you win the round, you can buy them. And it is possible that several toys of that type stayed in the deck. So I would say the optimal strategy is to try not to win tricks.

If you like trick-taking games and follow this blog, you probably already know Seas of Strife (here is its tocho-review), for me, one of the best trick-taking games ever designed, and from which this Gachapon Trick takes its fundamental concepts—that is, the obligation to follow any played suit (not just the leader’s) and that the trick is won by the player with the highest card of the majority suit. And in Seas of Strife, winning tricks is bad because they are negative points.

So if Gachapon Trick “inherits” the same trick-taking system, it is logical to think that the goal is also the same—that is, not to win tricks. But of course, in both games, avoiding penalties by winning a trick is complicated, especially in Gachapon Trick where there is no way to cancel a suit like there is in the original game mode of Seas of Strife (which is the one that should be played).

In return, here we have a set collection mechanic that, once you have won at least one trick, changes the player’s focus radically, since they now have an incentive to win tricks, as the extra five-point bonus is no longer an option. Now what they must try to do is maximize victory points by trying to get the highest number of cards from a small number of toy types. If possible, just one type.

Managing to avoid winning tricks is truly difficult, but so is getting more points than you would get if you had no cards in your collection. Either way, I like the system because it is very hard to gauge whether a hand is good or bad for winning or avoiding tricks, so the randomness of the deal does not have as much impact as it might seem.

I also find the money management system interesting when deciding which cards to add to the collection. For example, if a player wins a trick and there is at least one two-hundred-yen card, it is mandatory to buy it, because a single card already provides one point, which is the same as we would get for those two hundred yen. Things get tricky when we talk about cards above four hundred yen, because if we do not combine them with others of their same type, we will be losing points.

Although I still prefer Seas of Strife (I love the dynamics generated by trying to “assign” tricks to opponents and how situations that seem under control turn chaotic), I have to admit that this Gachapon Trick performs more than decently. Plus, the element of risking five hundred yen and pushing your luck to see if you hit something valuable adds a fun touch, though purists might see this design element as more gimmicky than effective.

As is usually the case in trick-taking games, the ideal is to have a high number of players, and in this case, having a majority mechanic to determine the dominant suit makes it even more necessary. So it works best at four players. At three, the majority system loses quite a bit of charm, and the two-player variant does not entirely convince me.

In terms of replayability, it is typical for a trick-taking game, where luck is the only element that offers variability. Fortunately, it is one of those games where the level of interaction is more than enough to want to bring it to the table fairly regularly, since games are resolved within a quite restrained timeframe.

Let’s move on to production. Playte’s edition is quite correct, with plastic tokens for the yen of good density (though some kind of texture or relief on them would have been appreciated instead of being flat), cards of good thickness, linen finish, and very good snap (sleeving mandatory to avoid marks), and the neat detail of the box having a slot where you can slide tokens when a player decides to use the deck. The rulebook is well structured and leaves no room for doubt.

As for the artistic style, we find a pop aesthetic with strong Japanese inspiration, mimicking the iconography of collectible capsule machines. The design uses a minimalist and retro-modern approach, with illustrations featuring a thick, clean black outline with simplified, humorous, and quirky objects that perfectly capture the essence of the absurd collecting found in real gachapons. Likewise, the subtle geometric background pattern on the cards adds visual texture without cluttering the composition, maintaining a clean, readable, and highly functional interface.

And let’s wrap this up. Gachapon Trick is a charming design that combines a set collection system with a trick-taking game where the suit of the highest card is determined by majorities. The tension of evaluating the value of your hand, the need to control spending against the temptation to push your luck, and the constant psychological tug-of-war between players allow for very dynamic and tight games. Although purist players of the genre might see certain additions as gimmicky details, its accessibility, decision-making, and brisk pace make it a quite pleasant offering. For all these reasons, I give it a…