The Glory of Misfortune – Schadenfreude Review

You would think with how much I talk up some games on this blog that sometimes I might want to actually submit a formal review of them, right?

I mean, I don’t want them to feel bad and left out.

It’s like singing the praises of one of your children to anybody that you can talk to, but only when they’re not around to actually hear it.

For that reason, I present to you another trick-taking card game review, this time of my favourite game of the genre (at least right now), Schadenfreude.

Schadenfreude has a pedigree that I’m not really familiar with, as Boardgame Geek gives the designer as “ctr”, doesn’t have an artist, and says the publisher is Studio Turbine, a publisher out of Japan (which doesn’t have a web site, so I’ll link to their BGG page).

Which is a shame, because I would like to give a ton of credit to the designer(s) and artist(s) on this game.

It was published in 2020 and sadly hasn’t made it over to North America yet so I can’t get my hand on a copy.

It plays 3-5 players.

For a primer on trick-taking games, check out this post.

Schadenfreude, for those of you who don’t know, is a German word meaning “the emotional experience of pleasure in response to another’s misfortune”.

And that’s what this game is.

Schadenfreude is a must-follow trick-taking card game, which means that if somebody leads with a certain suit, everybody else must play a card of that suit if they have one.

If not, they can play a card of any suit.

There are a couple of wrinkles in all of that, though.

First, the highest number in the lead suit (there is no trump) doesn’t win the trick.

It’s the second highest.

So if the 7 Shield is led in the trick above, the 1 Shield would actually win the trick (the -3 Shield wouldn’t, and the 1 Sword can’t win).

See?

You’re already glorying in the misery of others by stealing the trick from them.

This brings us to the rather unique scoring in this game.

Winning the trick will get you the card you won with (the 1 Shield in this case) and also any non-followed cards that were played.

So you wouldn’t take the 7 Shield or -3 Shield, but you would take the 1 Sword.

And hey, that brings us to another scoring bonus!

You keep all of your scored cards in front of you. They will score you points at the end of the round.

But if you ever take a card of the same number, then both cards go away.

So taking this trick above actually netted no points because the One cards cancel each other out.

The numbers range from -3 to 9 in each of the four suits, except there is no Zero.

Well, there is, but only one.

Not one per suit.

One.

There’s also a 10.

These cards are wild and are always considered the lead suit.

So the 0 will never get you any points, even if you win the trick (though you could get points from the non-suit cards that were also played).

The 10 will never win a trick and will also never score because the winner doesn’t take any other cards in the lead suit.

They give you options, in other words.

They don’t have to be played if you are otherwise out of a lead suit and want to slough off a card.

Now we get to what really makes this my favourite trick-taking game, though.

Scoring is done at the end of the round, but as soon as somebody breaks past 40, the game ends.

(This does mean that you can try to take duplicate number cards to eliminate some of the points you would be getting this round and bring yourself back under 40 before the round ends).

However, you don’t want to hit 41.

You want to have the highest score of anybody who doesn’t go over 40.

GLORY IN THAT PERSON’S PAIN!

You definitely want points…just not too many points.

Collecting points quickly can be a nightmare because you want somebody else to get ahead of you.

But, as I have discovered to my chagrin when playing this game, collecting points too slowly means you’re not in the running when somebody does bust 40.

It’s a delicious dance that truly makes this game amazing.

Even more juicy is the tie-breaker.

None of this “whoever has the hottest sibling” BS.

(ok, that should be a tie-breaker in some game somewhere)

No, if you tie somebody, then you both lose, and the person behind you wins.

That’s right. You could come in last place and if everybody else above you either busts 40 or is tied, you win anyway.

GLORY IN THE PAIN OF ALL THE OTHERS!

As I mentioned in my Seven Prophecies review, one of the best things about some modern trick-taking games is that they give you something to consider when you are sloughing off-suit cards.

In Schadenfreude, that consideration is how many points you’re giving to an opponent, and whether you can cancel some of their other scoring cards.

Are you currently in second place and the player who’s going to win this trick is at 38 points?

Why not give them an 8 for their score pile?

Or maybe they have a -3 in their score pile, which is keeping them below 40.

Just play another -3 and cancel that out.

It’s nice to be considering something other than “what suit can I short myself of by doing this?”

That gets boring after a while.

Schadenfreude can sometimes take a round to ramp up, but as the journey continues, there has been much laughter in my games as somebody gets royally screwed winning a trick they didn’t want.

Think you’re safe playing that 9?

Nope, not when I play the 10.

That’s 9 points to you, which you may want!

Or you may bust.

Who knew that others’ pain could be so beautiful?

It does.

Ultimately, Schadenfreude will always have a place on my gaming table.

Now if I could just get a copy for my shelves.