Players: 3-5
Playing Time: 30-60 minutes

Summary of the Components

Yin Yang comes in a tin containing a deck of 60 cards and a number of black and white yin and yang symbols.

Quality: The cards are all printed on heavy, linen-textured cardstock, and the symbols are printed on linen-textured cardboard. The tin that contains the game is also high quality. 5 out of 5.

Beauty: There's some nice texturing on the cards, but they're otherwise pretty plain and utilitarian. 3 out of 5.

Theming: This is primarily an abstract game where you try to play cards so as to avoid taking points. The yin/yang theme kinda' works because the two types of points cancel out, but it's not a deep theme. 3 out of 5.

Overall, I've given Yin Yang a "3" out of "5" for Style, with the additional comment that's is produced quite well.

Summary of the Gameplay

Setup: Each player is dealt a hand of nine cards from a deck of fifty cards that runs 1-50.

A Turn of Play: a turn begins with the revelation of a score card which shows a black "yin" value and a white "yang" value. For example "1/4", "4/7", or "6/3".

Starting with the first player, each player plays one of his number cards. After all players have played one card, the player with the highest card takes the appropriate number of black "yin" chips and the player with the lowest card takes the appropriate number of white "yang" chips.

A player can only hold one color of chip at a time, so if he takes the opposite color of chips, he first discards an appropriate number of his existing chips before taking the remainder (if any) in the new color.

For example if a player had 4 black chips and played a low card to earn 6 white chips, he'd discard his 4 black chips and then take 2 white chips to make up the difference.

The player who played the high card then begins the next round of play.

Ending a Round: At the end of a round, each player earns points equal to the number of chips he has. If at least one player earned zero on a round, all of his opponents that didn't must take +2 points as a penalty.

Ending the Game: The rules say to end the game after a number of rounds equal to the number of players. I find that tends to run too long, especially if you have 5 players, and thus tend to play 1-3 rounds.

At the end of the game, the player with the fewest points wins.

Relationships to Other Games

This game was previously released in the U.S. as Relationship Tightrope. That game varied somewhat from this one in that all score cards where balanced (e.g., the high player would get 7 blue points and the low player would get 7 pink points). It also had borderline offensive theming, so I'm pretty happy to see this solid trick-taking game in a new form.

The Game Design

I've enjoyed this game in its different forms as a relatively strategic card game.

The core round-by-round gameplay is a fun mixture of guessing, second-guessing, and managing your cards. Ideally, you want to try and get rid of your best and worst cards without ever taking yin/yang pieces, but of course that's not always possible.

The strategy becomes a bit more intricate when you realize you're going to get some yin/yang pieces and then try and figure out how to offset them with pieces of the opposite color. Thus, in a typical game you're not trying to avoid yin and yang entirely, but instead are trying to get them in the exact perfect ratios.

There is limited depth to the gameplay, which is why I suggest keeping it down to just a couple of rounds of play, but for that length of time, I think it's an excellent game.

I will offer one caveat, which is that randomness of card draws can really affect your play. If you get all low or all high cards, you're in trouble (which is why the game suggests playing a bunch of rounds, to average that out).

Overall, I find Yin Yang to be an enjoyable light card game, and thus I've given it a "4" out of "5" for Substance.

Conclusion

Yin Yang is a fun and handsome card game that's easy to stick in your pocket, to have it available when you need a somewhat strategic filler. It's a nice light Knizia design.

Help support RPGnet by purchasing this item through DriveThruRPG.