Like Sands Through the Hourglass – Sandbag Review

Trick-taking card games are no longer “dime a dozen” examples of games just quickly designed and then thrown out the door to the teeming masses (though really, up until a little while ago, were there teeming masses for trick-taking games?).

Now they all involve some kind of hook, a unique mechanism (or a unique twist on a standard mechanism) that tries to make them stand out among all of the other trick-taking games that are coming out during the Great Trick-Taking Renaissance (TM Mike Dilisio).

Some make a massive impact on the consciousness (or at least my consciousness), and some have a decent impact but get in their own way just a little bit.

Sandbag is one of those latter games.

Sandbag was designed by Ted Alspach, with artwork by Greg Bartlett, and was published by Bezier Games in 2024.

It plays 3-6 players.

Trick-taking games always have a choice to make: is winning tricks good? Or is it bad?

Are points good? Or are they bad?

Sandbag falls into the “bad” category, as you are trying to take as few tricks as possible.

The number of twists in the game, though, makes this stand out in the genre.

The conceit (I hesitate to say theme in this case, because really…there is no relevant theme) is that players are manning hot air balloons and…I don’t know. The more cards you win, the less high your balloon can go?

It does provide a neat name to the game, though.

And beautiful card artwork!

Cards are dealt out, one card is passed to each neighbour, then each player will choose two face-up cards to play (called “baskets”) as well as which card to be the “sandbag.”

The two basket cards are not usable by the player. Only by other players.

Here’s where one of the major twists comes in.

There is no standard trump suit in Sandbag.

Instead, trump is determined by how many cards of a colour are face-up in front of everybody.

Whichever colour has the most baskets is trump. If there’s a tie, then the highest combined value of the cards in each colour becomes the trump suit.

It’s even possible to have two trump suits if everything is the same!

This does add some intrigue and meat to the game, but also can become very fiddly.

The reason for that is because trump can change during a trick.

How?

That brings us to the baskets that your opponents can use.

This is a must-follow game where you have to follow the colour that was led, if you can.

However, if you are out of that colour, you can play anything.

You may have a bunch of crap in your hand that’s going to win you the trick, which of course you don’t want.

But say a Yellow 5 is currently winning the trick, and you only have a Yellow 6 and a Yellow 8.

You can take the above Yellow 3, placing one of your cards face-down in front of that player. You play the 3 and voila!

You are no longer winning the trick.

There are some other rules for swapping with somebody else’s basket card, but suffice to say you’re only going to do it when you don’t want to play any of the cards in your hand and you meet the conditions for doing it.

This is where the whole trump situation can become hairy.

The card you end up taking may affect the balance of colours in the baskets, if it’s an off-suit card.

Say you switch out for the Orange 0 in the picture above.

There were three Yellow basket cards and only two Orange.

Now there are two Orange and two Yellow, and maybe Orange has the highest total value!

Suddenly Orange is trump, and you just played the Orange 0.

As in most of these card games, the highest trump card wins the trick.

Now you have won a trick, and multiple points.

Not good!

This kind of chaos makes Sandbag really juicy, but also makes the game very fiddly.

You have to be on your toes with what you are taking, and somebody has to remember to check the trump suit to make sure it hasn’t changed.

Whether that level of fiddly is what you’re interested in for a light card game will determine how much you like this game.

Another option you have, even if you do have a card of the led suit, is to play your one sandbag, face-down.

Nobody will ever know what this card is, so card counters will have trouble with that.

But it’s a “get out of jail free” card for at least one trick. Sandbags will never win a trick.

Another “get out of jail free” card is to play a rocket, but that will be helping your opponent.

If you win a rocket in a trick, then you will get -5 (or -7 in a 6-player game) points that round!

Remember, points are bad.

Rockets can also never win a trick, so if you play a rocket, you won’t be winning it (unless everybody plays a rocket, in which case the lead player will get them all).

Scoring at the end of the round is one point per card taken in a trick, plus the sum of your baskets. If both of your baskets were used, then it’s just 2 points (2 face-down cards) but if they weren’t used, it’s face-value!

Remember, points are bad.

All of this is good and everything, but it’s a lot to take in for some people. This isn’t your introductory trick-taking game.

There is also a catch-up mechanism, which can be good!

The game goes three rounds.

In the 2nd and 3rd round, for each 10 points you have, you get an additional sandbag card, which means more opportunities to avoid taking tricks.

The game does take some skillful play in trick-avoidance, and does have mechanisms to avoid tricks, but for me, the fiddly nature of the trump and the changes taking place mid-trick can bring the game down some.

It’s even more chaotic than many other trick-taking games.

I’m not sure how many times in our games somebody has taken another player’s basket and we’ve had to point out to them that this will change the trump suit and actually make it worse for them. Or just “no, you don’t want that one, it’s trump.”

It is a lovely trick-taking game, though. It’s pretty fast (around 45 minutes with 4 players) and does have more decisions than some other trick-taking games where you are basically just deciding which card you want to slough off if you can’t follow suit.

You could get burned by sloughing the wrong card in Sandbag.

The artwork is very nice as well.

It’s bright and colourful, and also colorblind friendly with each colour also having its own pattern.

The rulebook isn’t the greatest. If I hadn’t learned this game from the Heavy Cardboard playthrough, it would have been more difficult.

Even with that, referring to the rules I had to look things over a couple of times.

All in all, I’m glad I have this game and it will come out occasionally at our office lunches.

How often compared to some others?

Not sure about that one.

Depends on my need to play a unique game for this year.

Or if somebody else really wants to play, because I’ll never turn it down.

It’s decent, but fiddly.

You can decide which one of those is more important to you.

(This review was written after 3 plays)

(Bonus points for anybody who gets the review title reference!)