Recruit
Created by Chris Scaffidi
Easy trick-taker (unless you have too many strong cards)
2-4 players / Ages 10+ / 20-30 minutes
Competitive, played with a traditional card deck
The folk of the Middle Forest tire of humans’ incursions. Recruit a team to patrol the woods. But take care not to recruit redundant leaders!
If you enjoy Spades and Hearts, then you’ll probably enjoy the traditional trick-taking gameplay of Recruit.
Components
Play Recruit using a standard 54-card deck. The Kickstarter offered 3 decks: 2 versions of fantasy fairies, and enchanted animals.
The fantasy fairies came in 2 versions: 1 based on public domain art, and 1 created by overpainting AI-generated content. The animals are overpainted AI images. This way, people who want to vote with their dollars on human artists can do so, and those who are open to AI in the pipeline can have what they prefer instead.
All cards are packaged in faux leather card-carry bags.
Status: Published
The Kickstarter ran through July 2024. A half dozen or so extra copies still remain available for purchase, as of early 2025.