Bézier Games - “Xylotar”

Photo above is property of Bézier Games

Company: Bézier Games

Game: Xylotar

Country: Canada 🇨🇦

Language: English

Type of Game: Tabletop Game (Board Game) 📬

Genre: Musical, Trick Taking

Date Played: September 23, 2024

Difficulty (based on 3 players): 4/10

Size of Team: 2 to 5 ppl

Time: 30 Mins.

Price: $14.95 USD

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After attending a rock concert in Calgary, Alberta during the 80s, Bobby McColdsnap fell in love with the keytar. Unable to learn the keytar since he was a polar bear and had too big of paws, he commissioned a local craftsman to create a Xylotar, a device that combines the synthesizer and xylophone.

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The cover of the small box has a picture of a polar bear rocking out on the Xylotar. Inside, the cards contain different colored musical notes on one side and numbers on the other. The cards also are narrower than most playing cards.

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Photos above are property of ESCAPETHEROOMers

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The game plays like a standard trick taking game but with a few twists that add some excitement to the game. First, you deal out all the cards to everyone. Picking up your hand, you sort the cards with the lowest values on the right and the highest values on the left, regardless of what note/color the card is. Once complete, you give the hand to your neighbour on the left. You then get your new hand and without looking at the face of the cards, you lay them out face down on the table with the highest card on the left and the lowest card on the right. You now have your Xylotar, where you know what note/colour each card is but not the specific value.

From there, you play the game as you would a normal trick taking game, playing cards that match the leading suit or if you do not have any more of that suit, any other suit, including the trump suit. At some point during the game though, you will have to make a bid on how many tricks you think you will take. After playing a card but before the next person plays their card, you say you will make a bid. You pick 2 adjacent cards and choose one and place it face up and place the other back. The face up card is now your bid.

Some of the standout things from this game is first, how narrow the cards are. This is great since you must lay all your cards in front of you and if they were standard size, could get quite long. We also appreciated using different musical notes as the suits that go along with the color as well as a count of how many cards are in each suit on the back of each card. We had a blast playing this game as it was a fun twist on the standard trick taking game and the look of excitement or disappointment as you learn the range of your cards.

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Photos above are property of ESCAPETHEROOMers

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A couple of strategies that we learned after a few games is that we knew what cards our neighbour had as we organized them. We could use this to our advantage to help keep track of what cards are out there. When flipping over cards, not only keep track of where you pulled the card but also how many cards are in that suit, which you could use the “high note” card to keep track of or the card itself would tell you how many cards are in that suit. Also, when you make a bid, remember that the card goes out of play. Sometimes you could use that to your advantage.

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Photos above are property of ESCAPETHEROOMers

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Simply put, "Xylotar" is a trick taking game where you know the "note" (suit) of the cards but not their specific values, just the range. For me, this game "hits all the high notes". A hilarious but tragic backstory about a polar bear wanting to play a musical instrument, simple but effective card design to build your own Xylotar, easy to learn rules with some strategy built in as well as a short game that can be played as a "one hit wonder" or "on repeat" throughout the night.

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(If you do decide to try this game, give us a shoutout or tag us on social media so we know you heard it from "ESCAPETHEROOMers"!)

#MatthewLui #AtHomeGames #TabletopGames #PuzzleByMail #Musical #BezierGames #Canada