Players: 3-6
Time: 45-60 minutes
Difficulty: 2 (of 10)
Hoity Toity was originally published in 1990 in Germany as Adel Verpflichtet. It was later published under the same name by Alea as #5 in their big-box strategy series. In the United States, Hoity Toity has previously been published as By Hook or Crook and as Fair Means or Foul. Hoity Toity is the first version of the game to support 3-6 players rather than 2-5. (Honestly, the game never really supported 2.)
The Components
Hoity Toity comes with:
- 1 game board
- 6 figures
- 60 action & place cards
- 51 collectible cards
- 1 rulebook
Game Board: A four-panel board printed full-color on thick, linen-textured cardboard. It purports to be "the interior of the Antique Club", but is really a relatively abstract scoring track. Nonetheless, it's a fairly clever design that looks nice despite the inclusion of lots of disparate elements.
Online the outside of the board you have the scoring track, with pictures of castles and houses running alongside to show where the current collectible exhibits are being shown; corresponding scoring values show how much fame you gain from exhibiting at each house. Toward the center of the board you have "the auction house": two spaces for collectible cards and a cash register to hold money. Above that you have a set of jail cells to hold thieves.
Overall, the board is easy to use and aesthetically pleasing.
Figures: These are large triangular wooden blocks in the six player colors: purple, white, black, blue, red, and green. Each one has a gold foil stamp at the top showing a pipe. They're large and sturdy, and the pipe adds quite a bit to the visual appeal of each figure.
Action & Place Cards: These are small, medium-weight cards printed full color, with rounded corners. They have no coating or texture. There are ten cards each in the six player colors. Two show the two potential places a player can visit on a turn (auction hall and castle) and the other eight showed potential actions at those locations (4 cash cards, 2 thieves, a detective, and an exhibit). There's also a bit of artwork on each card depicting the place or action; it runs the gamut from average to good.
Each card is well laid out, with the places clearly listing what actions can take place there and the actions clearly listing what places they can be used at. However the two types of cards (action & place) are insufficiently differentiated on the front, which can make it easy to accidently grab the wrong one during selection; a slightly different layout on the two cards could have helped quite a bit here.
Collectible Cards: There are tarot-sized heavy-weight cards printed full color with rounded corners. Unfortunately, they too have no coating or texture. These fifty-one cards each fit into a category, labeled A-F, and also featuring a distinct color. For example, the gray "B"s are collectible advertisements and the purple "E"s are celebrity items. There's also a date on the card, which shows how old the collectible is.
The rest of each card is taken up by description: a name for the collectible (e.g., "Golden Mask"), a location of origin (e.g., "China"), and a picture of the item. None of these are required for gameplay, but are overall attractive and evocative.
Rulebook: A small, six-page rulebook printed full color on glossy paper.It's amply illustrated and has a few nice examples. Overall, it's pretty easy to follow, except for the fact that it describes one phase ("Phase II: 'what'") which actually doesn't occur in the game. (The'phase' is really just a description of different possible actions.)
Box & Tray: The box is a medium-sized bookshelf size. It's also way too large for the components. There is a nice tray within, with a big space for the figures and slots to fit the large and small cards into. Unfortunately the card slots aren't cut deep enough, and so the top couple of cards freely wander around the box.
If I were rating Hoity Toity solely by the manufacturing quality of the components I'd give it an average rating; it's about what I'd expect, and I'd prefer better quality of cards through coating and texturing. However, the overall aesthetic of the game is well above average. It forms an attractive and cohesive whole, with the collectible cards being a particular standout. Thus, I've given it a low "4" out of "5" rating for Style.
The Gameplay
In Hoity Toity the goal is to gain prestige and reknown through the exhibiting of top-rate collections of collectibles and the capture of thieves trying to make off with the same. Of course, at the same time, you're ready to use any means, fair or foul, to ensure that your own collection is the best in the land.
Setup: The game starts with each player randomly selecting a color. He then takes the 2 place cards and 8 action cards appropriate for his color. Each set of cards is a little different, but includes: place cards labeled "Auction House" and "Castle"; 4 cash cards totalling $50,000; 2 thieves with a total of 13 years of experience; 1 detective; and 1 exhibit card.
Each player also is dealt 4 collectible cards; as already noted this can be a variety of categories, from A-F. The remaining collecible cards are divided into two face-up piles and placed in the middle of the board.
Finally, each player puts his figure in the "club room", a "2/1" space that starts the scoring track.
Order of Play: Play is simultaneous, with all players together selecting place and action cards, as follows:
- Choose Place
- Take Auction House Actions
- Take Castle Actions
Choose Place: First, each player secretly selects his current place--the Auction House or the Castle--by placing the appropriate place card face-down. Generally, the Auction House lets players gather resources while the Castle lets players earn victory points.
All players simultaneously flip up their place cards. Those in the Auction House will go first, then those in the Castle.
Take Auction House Actions: All players who selected the Auction House choose one of the Auction House actions by placing an appropriate action card face-down. They may either: bid for a collectible by playing a cash card or else play a thief to try and steal a cash card that's used.
After each player in the Auction House chooses his action, all the cards are flipped up simultaneously. Then players take actions in the following order: cash, then thieves.
Buy a Collectible with Cash. At any time there are two face-up collectible cards for sale. Players may choose to bid one of their action cards to buy one of the collectibles. Each player will start off with four cash cards which together total $50,000. The distribution of money for each player is slightly different so that there's never a tie. For example, blue has $2k, $11k, $14k, and $23k cards; while black has $6k, $7k, $18k, and $19k.
Whichever player bids the most cash (using a single card) gets to take one of the two face-up collectibles (his choice). His money goes onto the cash register on the board. Everyone else gets their money back for use in future turns.
Thieve Cash. Players who played thieves may get to steal cash that was just paid. If no cash was paid the round that a thief is played in the Auction House, nothing happens. Likewise, if two or more players play thieves, they just get in each others' way, and nothing happens. However, if exactly one player played a thief, and money was just spent on a collectible, then the player who played the thief takes the winning cash amount.
Everyone gets their thief back in any case.
Take Castle Actions: Now, all players who selected the Castle choose one of the Castle actions and place it face-down in front of them. They may either: play an exhibit card to show off their collection; play a thief to steal an item from an exhibit; or play a detective to catch a thief. Cards are revealed simultaneously, then resolved in this order:
Show off an Exhibit. Each player who decided to exhibit must now put together an exhibition. This is a set of three or more collectible cards with their types all connected alphabetically (e.g., an A-B-C set is legal or A-A-B or A-A-B-B-C or C-D-D-E, but not A-C-D-E, because it's missing a "B"). Exhibits are put together secretly, then all revealed simultaneously.
The two best exhibits are noted (if there are that many); this determination is made by size (number of cards) with ties being broken by which exhibit had the oldest item in it. Each of these two best exhibits then earns points for its owner.
Score is based on the location of the front player, as his location is where the exhibit is held. Every couple of spaces on the board together comprise a "Castle", and each of these castles has two scores on it, like this: "2/1" or this: "5/3". These numbers are arranged fairly arbitrarily around the board, rising and dropping to give different incentives to exhibit at different times. The best exhibit earns the first score and the second best exhibit the second score. Each player moves his pawn ahead the appropriate number of spaces on the board.
All players get their collectibles back following an exhibit, unless some cards are thieved (see below).
Thieve an Exhibit. Each player who played a thieve may now steal a card from one of the exhibits on display, if there are any. If there are multiple thieves, they select in order of seniority, from the oldest thief to the youngest.
All players get their thieves back, unless they're thrown in jail (see below).
Detect a Thief. If any detectives were played, all the thieves played are now jailed. They are placed on the jail track, which has a number of cells equal to the number of players in the game. All current thieves are moved forward an appropriate number of spaces on the "jail track" to make room for the new arrivals, possibly returning thieves to players hands if they exceed the current jail limits. New thieves are then put at the start of the jail track, in reverse order of seniority if there are multiple arrivals.
Each player who played a detective is then rewarded: he goes forward a number of spaces on the scoring track equal to his current rank on the scoring track relative to other players (e.g., the first place player goes forward just 1 space, while someone tied for fifth place goes forward 5).
Afterward all players who played detectives get them back.
Winning the Game: Play continues until one player arrives at the dining hall, a long run of "8/4" spaces at the end of the scoring track. At this point one final exhibit is held, with all players laying out their best exhibit. They're scored as usual, with the first and second place exhibits getting 8 and 4 points.
Then, the player who has advanced the furthest on the board is named High Hoity Toity and wins the game.
Relationships to Other Games
Hoity Toity is a fairly classic bluffing game. I must admit it's a genre that I'm not too terribly fond of because it often devolves to second-, third-, and fourth-guessing that makes such games more an exercise in luck than skill. I've previously reviewed King Me! which I thought was an overly simplistic bluffing game, and Age of Mythology, which centers on a bluffing combat system, which might as well be rock-scissors papers.
Hoity Toity does suffer some of the common issues of bluffing games, but it also manages to rise above them by having good balances between the various types of actions, giving players reasons to take each action other than just outguessing their opponents. This raises up the level of a bluffing game, because it allows real strategy to complement the bluffing.
Hoity Toity's main scoring mechanism is centered on set collection. You build somewhat freeform "series", and then score based on the size of your series. Rummy is, of course, the classic set-collection game. Oh Pharaoh! is a good example of another game centered on non-standard set collection.
The Game Design
Overall, Hoity Toity is a bluffing game that works quite well. Here's some of the best aspects:
Strategic Decisions: Many bluffing games center around fairly random choices that are only important as they interact with the choices made by other players. Hoity Toity instead gives its bluffs a second dimension, by allowing for important outcomes, such as money, collectibles, and victory points, which aren't entirely based upon the success of the bluff. In addition, different choices are often more valuable to certain players at certain points in the game.
Fun Results: The outcome of an individual turn of Hoity Toity offers immediate rewards that can be a lot of fun. If you discover that you've earned a lot of money, or a nice collectible, or lots of victory points due to "outwitting" your opponents, that feels great. There were a lot of exclamations of surprise and enjoyment during our game.
Nice Balance: There's some nice balances in the game: with behind players having to catch up thanks to the use of detective and/or by stealing collectibles from leaders who are exhibiting. (Some players thought the balance might be too much, with it too easy for players to catch up, but I still felt like the leaders did have an advantage which they retained.)
Good Theming: The mechanics of the game match the theme very well. It feels like you're a bunch of scheming collectors.
Here's some of my problems with the game:
Classic Bluffing Flaws: I think any pure bluffing game faces the danger of descending into randomness. If two or more decisions are equally viable, making a random choice is often more likely to outwit an opponent than making a carefully decided one. As already discussed, many of the decisions in Hoity Toity are strategic enough that this issue is minimized, but some percentage of the time you're still making fairly arbitrary choices.
Somewhat Simplistic: The set of 5 different choices is inevitably somewhat simplistic. This really doesn't matter within the game, because the game plays very quickly--the hour promised on the box is entirely accurates--but it will inevitably affect the game's same-session replayability.
Overall, I thought Hoity Toity did a very good job as a simple, but pure, bluffing game. It was fun to play, and will get played again. I've given it a "4" out of "5" Substance rating as a result.
Conclusion
Hoity Toity is the best pure bluffing game I've played, with its careful attention to strategy, and its ability for players to make meaningful and enjoyable decisions. It's especially good as a family offering.
