Gamer's Alliance
Steve Kurzban
April 2003
USA

WHEEDLE (Out of the Box Games, 4-6 players, about 30 minutes; $9.99)

What would happen if Germany's most prolific game author were around in the early 1900's when Parker Brother's classic commodity trading game, Pit, was about to be published? No need to wonder, as through some sort of cosmic time warp, it's already happened, in the form of Wheedle. 

Anyone who has ever experienced the real-time chaos that envelops a game of Pit will usually describe the experience as frenzied. Imagine 6 or 8 normally sane people sitting around a table shouting requests like "three, I need three" or "for the love of God I need two" and clumsily exchanging packets of unknown cards with their opponents in a rapid quest to be the first player to corner the market in one particular commodity. Everyone winds up drained and usually exhilarated, especially the lucky fool who gets to ring the bell! I admit that Pit is a superb icebreaker but there's almost no control and 2nd place gets a hardy handclasp (and zero points) for his/her efforts. 

Enter Reiner Knizia and Wheedle. First thing we notice is a 61-card deck, very strange for a European card game where 60 is the norm, because it divides evenly for 2,3,4,5 or 6 players. We find stock cards in 9 colors. Three companies issue 5 shares each, four companies issue 7 shares and two companies issue 9 shares. The number of shares appears in the upper left hand corner of each share in the color of the issuing company (with silly names like "Perpetual Plastics" and "Hard Cell Phones"). My only gripe with the card production is that the numbers don't appear on both the top and bottom of each card, essential in a game where cards need be sorted quickly. 

The entire deck is dealt out evenly with the remaining card left in the center of the table. When the dealer is ready he turns over the 61st card and semi-frenzied trading commences. Players can exchange any one card in their hand for the center card or call out the color and number of shares they wish to give or receive. The amounts offered, unlike Pit, need not be equal. Trading and exchanging continues until a player can go out by yelling "stop". To go out, all cards in a player's hand must at the very least be part of a majority (3 shares in a 5-card industry, 4 shares in a 7-card or 5 cards in a 9-card industry). Going out earns that player a 5-point bonus if correct or a 5-point penalty if wrong. 2 points per card are awarded if a player has all the shares of a given company, 1 point per share if merely a majority. Cards that are not part of a majority don't score at all. The cruel twist is that when a player goes out, the company whose share remains in the center of the table goes bust, earning negative points for its owners. Play continues for as many rounds as players at the table with scores accumulating from round to round. 

Wheedle gives the frenzied flavor of Pit, but seems more civilized. It works best when players both trade with each other and exchange for the 61st card. Ironically, the center card and it's penalty points for one company was added by the play-testing crew at Out of the Box as an experiment. To Herr Knizia's credit, he knew a good thing when he saw it, as the table pounding and laughter, when all realize which company's shares are less than worthless, is what makes Wheedle the better frenzied trading game. Thumbs up for Wheedle!

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