Two unusual trick-takers: Tricky Landing and Roller Disco

You know by now that I’m deep into trick-taking, and I’m guessing by the fact that you’re still around that you’re at least not 100 percent opposed to that fact. And this week it’s no different, but I’m honing in on trick-takers that do things a little differently — games with oddball themes, unusual play, that sort of thing.

Let’s dive in.

First up we’ve got Tricky Landing (Petchey, 2025), a trick-taking game where you’re playing cards to a trick by flinging your cards at a target on the table. It’s exactly as odd as it sounds, but you know what? I need more dexterity games in my life, and this fits the bill nicely. In this one, you might actually initiate a second (or third! or fourth!) trick within the same, er, round? If you toss your card just right and hit the target without overlapping another player, you’ll actually win the trick. With apologies to Marge Simpson, I just think it’s neat.

We could talk about scoring, but honestly, it’s not important. The thing you need to know about Tricky Landing is that you’re tossing your cards. Really. That’s it. Everything else fades into the background. So few games have that capacity to let the rest fade into the background. It’s not that it does nothing interesting with trick-taking, of course. It’s a may-follow trick-taker, and you can freely choose what you toss. And there are stakes! That’s the thing. Yes, this game where you toss your cards at a target does have stakes. If you don’t touch the target, either with your card or by being connected to a card that does, you’ll lose points. But when it all comes down to it, this is the trick-taker where you throw the cards. That’s a great thing.

Now, it’s interesting because there are a few paths folks tend to follow in trick-taking. We have the very serious folks who play games where counting cards matters, where hidden information is reduced, that sort of thing. We have the less serious folks who just want a good time, whatever that looks like — as long as it’s mechanically solid. And then we have the obsessives, the sickos, the people who want something weird. That’s me. That might be you. Tricky Landing is for that last set — but as a result, it’s also for people who you might play something silly with. It’s a game to play with the people in your life who love to laugh.

Tricky Landing is designed by Mike Petchey, illustrated by Edie Petchey, and published by Huff No More. I was given a review copy of Tricky Landing by the publisher.

Following up on Tricky Landing is Roller Disco (Petchey, 2026), a climbing game where you’re not throwing things, and you’re also not strapping on rollerskates for the night. And that’s probably just as well, because while I don’t mind being bad at tossing a card on the table, I do think I’d mind being bad at rollerskating, if simply because it sounds a fair bit more painful and dangerous.

Anyway. Yeah. Roller Disco is a climbing game where you’re playing cards around a disco ball, choosing each turn whether you’re playing in ascending order or descending order. As you move around the disco ball, you’ll play atop cards already there, and in essence you’re not climbing necessarily on the cards last played by an opponent. You’re instead climbing on cards that just happen to be part of the roller disco, whether they were played last turn or by you.

The design here is tidy: It still feels like a climbing game, but the mechanism through which you’re climbing is pretty different. It forces a different mode of thinking about climbing, as you’re having to weigh playing in ascending (movin’ on up, in the game’s lingo) or descending (gettin’ on down) order. The game forces you to think about your cards differently than in any climbing game I’ve played, because you may be presented with opportunities to climb on your own cards. With jam cards, you might even end up changing the direction you’re playing cards, which, in a game where card play is circular, might mean you’re shedding out very quickly.

From the theme to the spin on climbing, Roller Disco does a lot of things really well. It may lack the pure joy of merging dexterity games and trick-taking games, but do you really need two of those games? I don’t think so.

Tricky Landing is also designed by Mike Petchey, illustrated by Joss Petchey, and published by Huff No More. I was also given a review copy of this one.

Both Roller Disco and Tricky Landing launch on Kickstarter in short order. As usual, I link to Kickstarters run by independent designers and publishers, and I received no compensation for doing so. (In fact, I’m planning to back the games, so it’s a little bit the opposite, I guess!)

Thanks for reading this short edition of Don’t Eat the Meeples. I’m actually on vacation this week, so I wrote this before leaving (and before packing the car — hence its shortness!). If I remember, I’ll drop a photo in here of me playing a game on the beach.