Trial by Trolley, a new card game by Cyanide & Happiness, that is a similar idea to a lot of the other party debate games I’ve discussed in the past. However, this one has a few interesting ideas that add a little bit extra. First it’s played in teams, so everyone is engaged each round. There’s also a lot of cards being placed down to build your case so even if you play this game a lot, the combinations will always be slightly different arguements. The cards are hilarious and the drawings are a lot more interesting than just a word on a card. Also the teams change each round, which i think is an interesting idea on a team game.
Trial by trolley is for 3-13 players, 14 years and up and takes about 15 minutes per round.
The concept of the game is you are basically deciding who to save and who to kill in the path of a runaway trolley. Each team must convince the conductor to spare their lives on the track.
To play you must choose a conductor for the round and then break everyone up into two teams. The teams will change each round so don’t overthink it.
One player on each team will draw 3 innocent cards, one player will draw three guilty cards and one player will draw three modifier cards. If there’s more than 3 players per team the extra players can also all draw modifier cards.
Each track gets a random innocent card to start on their track. After that each team gets to pick a second innocent card for their track. The next card each team places is the guilty card, this card is placed on the opposing teams track and where you can really do some damage.
Finally to strengthen their case, each team plays a modifier card onto any character on either track to help their argument.
Once all the cards are placed the teams argue which track should survive and the conductor makes the final decision. Each player that loses receives a death token.
That ends the round, all cards are discarded.
For the next round the player left of the conductor becomes the new conductor. Teams also rotate by one seat. This way the teams are always slightly different. Once everyone has been the conductor the game ends.
The player with the least amount of death tokens wins.
This is one of those games where who wins isn’t really that important, you are more in it for the experience. I thought the game was really funny and the card combinations were great. I really liked that there were two teams so everyone was engaged in each round and working off of each other to make their case. The teams switch each round which is a really cool idea. So you are always mixing with other people and it makes each round completely different. Between the innocent, guilt, and modifiers you will never have the same round again, it’s a lot of combinations and new arguments to have and keeps a lot fresher than a game like Cards Against Humanity.
There is a lot to be excited about with this game and out of they style of game it’s probably my favourite. Next time you have a party and you are looking for something to play I recommended picking this one up.
If you like Trial by Trolley, try one of these games:
The Skillful Meeple 
5 Comments Add yours