Tricks and the Phantom

When the Ghost Deals the Winning Hand

Every round, someone at the table is secretly dead — and they're still playing. The tension of not knowing who the Phantom is sits just beneath every card played, every bid made, every suspicious pause before someone follows suit. It's a trick-taking game that doubles as a quiet investigation, and the moment you realise you've been outmanoeuvred by a ghost, you'll want to deal again immediately.

What It Is

From Oink Games — the Japanese publisher celebrated for packing remarkable depth into beautifully minimal small-box packages — Tricks and the Phantom layers hidden identity and deduction directly into the structure of a classic trick-taking game. Players compete to win tricks and hit their bid targets, but one among them has already lost their life and is working toward an entirely different secret goal. The living players must identify the Phantom before the ghost quietly dismantles their plans from within. It's tightly designed, plays faster than it feels, and earns every moment of table talk it generates.

Who It's For

This one earns its place on game nights where players have some passing familiarity with trick-taking card games — Hearts, Spades, Euchre — and are ready for something that adds a genuine social deduction edge to that foundation. It sits at a light-to-medium weight: easy to explain, hard to master, and comfortably done in under an hour. It's a strong bridge between casual card players and hobby gamers, and a smart pick for groups of three to six who want something with real bite without a two-hour time commitment. Four or five players is where it really sings.

Features & Highlights

True to Oink Games' reputation, the production is compact and considered — small box, high quality, nothing wasted. The Phantom mechanic is elegantly integrated rather than bolted on, which means the hidden identity layer never feels like a gimmick grafted onto a card game. It feels like it was always meant to be there. Because the Phantom role rotates and the table dynamic shifts entirely depending on who's sitting where and how well players read each other, the replayability runs deep. Each hand carries its own tension — and each reveal lands differently every time.

Specifications