Wouter & Ymke 
In Pinched! you play a bunch of burglars who try to slip into fancy manors, grab whatever valuables they can, and sell them off before the others catch on. It’s all about guessing where the active player is going, trying to outthink them, and occasionally pretending you’re much smarter than you actually are.
The game plays out over several weeks, and each day a different player becomes the mastermind who secretly picks the next target. Everyone else tries to predict that choice, and for me that part is really where the game breathes. If you enjoy light bluffing and a bit of playful misdirection around the table, this is one of those games that gets people talking straight away.
👥 2-5 players, ages 10+
⌛ Playing time: 60 minutes
📝 Designers: Jonathan Gilmour-Long & David Gordon
🎨 Artwork: Max Kosek & Kate “vesner” Redesiuk
🏢 Publisher: Mighty Boards (review copy provided)
Gameplay Overview
A game of Pinched! runs over repeating weeks, and during each week everyone gets one turn as the mastermind. At the start of the day, the mastermind quietly picks the location they want to hit while the others choose a card at the same time, hoping they can read what the mastermind is up to. The talking usually starts here already, and honestly, that’s encouraged. People throw hints around, act suspiciously honest, or try to mislead each other a bit. Once all cards are revealed, you see who managed to predict the location correctly.
When night falls, the heist takes place at the chosen location. If the mastermind arrives alone, they simply take everything that’s lying there and sometimes trigger a small effect depending on the manor. If other players guessed correctly and show up as well, the loot gets shared: the mastermind takes one card, then each correct guesser takes one in turn, and then the mastermind takes a final card. If nothing is left for that final card, they draw from the deck instead. The manors each have their own little twists, like a safe that fills up over time, a loyal dog that brings you something later, or a secret passage that lets you reach another manor if you want to.
After the heist, everyone has to stash the valuables they got. Matching types go in the same slot, empty slots must be filled with new types first, and wild cards can go wherever they fit. Anything that doesn’t fit stays in your hand until you’re mastermind again. Only the mastermind can sell during this moment. They pick a set, compare it with the threshold on the cards, flip the number of cards they earn into their wealth pile, and discard whatever remains in that set. When a slot becomes empty, they can place a new type from their hand and continue selling if they want. Meanwhile the other players each take a face-up card from the river and stash it, with the row refilling after each pick.
When the day ends, all manors refill their empty slots, the mastermind token moves to the next player, and if the heart manor is in play, its passage resets. Once the token makes a full loop, the pocket watch drops by one. When the watch reaches one, you’ve entered the final week. At the end of that week, everyone sells what they have left, counts their wealth, adds bonuses like diamonds or the Lisa Mona, subtracts curses, and the richest burglar wins.
Artwork, Components, and Visual Design
Pinched! has a bright, cartoon-like look that fits the tone of the game pretty well. Everything has a bit of a mischievous glow, since most things happen at night. The manor boards are full of small details, and each one has its own style and personality without being too busy.
There are a lot of valuables cards, and they’re all clearly illustrated. The icons and thresholds are easy to read, which is something I always appreciate, because in some games you have to stare at cards like you’re about to take an exam.
The location cards match the manor owners, and the colours make it clear which card goes where. The mastermind standee is a small masked burglar, and there are several tokens for things like dogs, diamonds, letters, and clues. The stash boards have three slots for collecting sets and an area where you place your sold cards.
Overall the game looks good on the table without being overwhelming. The blue-purple night theme ties everything together nicely.
Our Experience
For us, Pinched! quickly turned into a game where the talking mattered as much as the actual cards. The moment everyone picks a location secretly, the whole table usually starts joking, bluffing, or trying to read each other. I guess it depends on the group, but for us that part carried a lot of the fun.
It’s surprisingly tricky to arrive at a location alone. Even when you think you’ve tricked everyone, someone often ends up reading you correctly. When that reveal moment happens, the reactions are usually pretty loud, which is something I like in these lighter games.
What I found interesting is how much information is lying around in plain sight. You can look at what types of items people have in their stash and make some educated guesses about where they might go next. But then someone might use that against you and suddenly pick something that makes absolutely no sense. Those moments kept it from feeling too predictable.
Selling is the moment where your stash actually turns into points, so it naturally feels like an important step. You see other players building towards a big sell, or you notice that someone might try something risky just so they can turn in their sets on their next turn.
The bank location becomes its own little mind game. Sometimes a few players go there together and everyone gets rewarded. Sometimes everyone goes and nobody gets anything. In our group, that one usually caused the biggest laughs and groans.
For us, the game worked best at four or five players. At two players it turns into this back-and-forth mind game where you both try to outguess the other, but it loses the chaos and surprise that make the locations fun. At three it’s still good, but it shifts more toward pure deduction, and you don’t get the same group energy.
The rules are light, the icons are clear, and you can play this with people who don’t usually play board games. The social part carries it, and that’s something not every group enjoys equally, so keep that in mind.
Our Thoughts
We actually enjoyed our plays of Pinched!, even though it’s lighter than what we usually go for. Even with the heavier-game crowd at our table, it worked surprisingly well. The guessing and bluffing kept the atmosphere relaxed and genuinely funny, which was a nice change of pace for us.
It’s worth saying that underneath the talking, the game is pretty straightforward. The set collection isn’t complex, and sometimes your choice is practically obvious because you need a certain type of card and only one manor has it. In those moments, the guessing part becomes a bit thinner. Still, being predictable at the right moment can work in your favour, so it’s not a deal-breaker.
The manors themselves make a big difference. The dog tokens, the advancing safe, the secret passage… they all nudge you into different decisions. It gives each game a different flavour without adding extra rules to remember.
On the more critical side, if someone isn’t comfortable with bluffing or trying to read the group, they might feel punished quite often. And if your group is quiet or doesn’t enjoy social games, I’m not sure this one will shine. Also, at lower player counts, some of the fun locations lose their punch.
But overall, Pinched! delivers a simple, fun bit of bluffing with enough little twists to keep things moving. It definitely worked better for us when the whole table leaned into the social side of it and didn’t overthink every choice. It’s the kind of game we’d pull out when we want something social without needing to concentrate too much.
📝 We received a copy of the game from Mighty Boards.
