• Designer: Hugame (符亀)
• Publisher: New Mill Industries
• Graphic Design: Daniel Newman
• Players: 3 – 5
• Ages: 13 and Up
• Time: 10 – 25 Minutes
• Times Played: > 8 (On Backhander & Review Copy from New Mill)

The Icarus Club, a reimplementation of Hugame’s Backhander, is one of my favorite in the new sub-genre of “lane” trick-taking games. The twist here is that a lane of cards in the middle of the table determines the suit to be led each trick. Since players can “overwrite” future cards, they can improve (or even weaken) their own hand. Players want to win tricks, but the player winning the most tricks is eliminated from contention (much like in Reiner Knizia’s High Society), so players don’t want to win too many tricks. The result is a novel, tense, and engaging game, one which every group I’ve taught it to has wanted to play again and again.

Releasing in August 2024 from New Mill (here’s the preorder link), the Icarus Club is a reimplementation of Backhander. I bought Backhander on my trip to Tokyo Game Market last year, and it has been a favorite of mine. With a few minor changes, New Mill has allowed the game to shine as The Icarus Club with an improved production value.

The Gameplay

Thematically, the Icarus Club is an underground casino, “the best keep secret in town.” The suits on the cards represent different casino games (roulette, craps, poker, blackjack, and slots).

The cards are shuffled (with adjustments for player count) and dealt out, but there will also be a row called the lane.

The leftmost card in the lane controls the suit led for the trick, and players must follow that suit if they can (playing any other card if not).

The highest card following suit in the trick (possibly including the lane card) will win the trick. When a player wins the trick, they take all of the cards, plus the card (or cards) from the lane, and then choose one of the cards played in the hand to put on top of a future lane card (thus “overwriting” that card). They then lead the next trick. If no player won the trick — which can happen if the lane wins — then the cards are discarded and the next trick begins, with the player that led the last trick.

Overwriting a future card in the lane can have two different effects. First, if it is of a different suit than the card it is overwriting, that suit will be the suit led. Second, because the cards themselves are points, the overwritten card makes its corresponding trick more valuable.

There are either 9 (5-player game) or 11 (3- and 4-player games) tricks. When the hand ends, the player(s) with the most cards get 0 points: they have been kicked out of the casino. Everybody else writes down the score, and hands are played equal to the number of players.

My Thoughts on the Game

I’m a little fascinated with the new sub-genre of “lane” trick taking games, which I think are one of the more innovative trick-taking mechanics of recent years. New Mill’s other upcoming release, Seven Prophecies, also uses a lane mechanic, and these two games together show off just how engaging the use of lanes in trick-taking can be.

By giving players foresight about the suit led, they can better plan their hand, giving them a feeling of less randomness. And an added bonus in Icarus Club is the ability to strengthen — or even weaken — one’s hand with the overwriting mechanic, which gives players even more of a feeling that they’re in the driver’s seat.

For example, if you think you are doing too well, you can try to change the suit to one you don’t have, or even put out a high enough card where you can slough under it. If you think you need to win more tricks, you can put out a card of a suit you want played at the right moment. Either way, the ability to change the strength of your hand is a novel — but extremely fun — trick-taking mechanic.

Combing this with the scoring — where you want to win as many tricks as you can without winning the most — is a brilliant choice. There’s a wonderful tension in wanting more cards, but not wanting too many cards. The most famous game to use the mechanic is (arguably) Reiner Knizia’s High Society, and this feels at times like a trick-taking implementation of that classic.

The result of these clever mechanics is a game that, to me, reduces randomness so well that it worked perfectly well as a one-hand game, which Backhander was. New Mill has opted for hands equal to the number of players — that makes sense, since in most of my players, players have been hungry for more of the game — but I find it remarkable that with just a couple of novel mechanics, designer Hugame was able to make a game with either 9 or 11 tricks feel so remarkably deep.

Everything about the use of the lane here — the overwriting mechanic, how it works with the scoring, etc. — is devilishly clever, and I fell in love with this game the first time I played it. I’m very open about the fact that it inspired one of my own games, Rewind. I was thus thrilled when New Mill announced the re-release as The Icarus Club.

Backhander had some graphic design issues (and has a weird cover in a tuck box), but the New Mill version improves on that, adds a nice box and well-produced cards, and cleans up the rules.

Icarus Club works well at all player counts, is easy to learn, and plays quickly. Toss in how different it is from other trick-taking games, and I think it is a natural fit in any trick-taking game collection.

I enthusiastically recommend The Icarus Club and look forward to getting my copy!

Ratings from the Opinionated Gamers

• I love it! Chris Wray
• I like it.  
• Neutral. 
• Not for me…

A Quick Note on Availability: The Icarus Club is forthcoming from New Mill Industries. That small publisher has recently focused on hard-to-find trick-taking titles, and they tend to print in relatively small batches which generally sell out quickly. Preorders are still available for this as of the the time of this article’s printing.