Roller Disco Preview – Legwarmers at the ready!

A pre-production copy of Roller Disco was kindly provided by Huff No More. Thoughts & opinions are my own.

Huff No More are relatively new on the scene, but I like what they’re doing. Last year’s Sakana Stack (read my preview here) felt like it could have been a game straight out of Tokyo Game Market, and one of the good ones at that. They’re back with a new card game with a very different feel, but another cracking aesthetic choice. Roller Disco is a ladder-climbing shedding game with a strong sense of style, unlike pretty much every other game with similar DNA. You ought to be paying attention to this one. Let me explain what’s going on.

Roller Disco is actually quite tricky to explain, and it’s one of the rare card games where it can help to explain the setting before you play. If you’ve ever seen a roller disco, or been to one if you’re of a certain age, you know what’s going on. Skaters in bright colours going round and round the rink on roller skates to disco beats. Keep that vision in mind.

You spin me right round…

In the middle of the table, there are eight starting cards laid down in a circle around a cardboard mirror ball, and a cardboard standee of a roller skate. Each player has a hand of cards, made up from six different suits of values 1-10. The aim of the game is to get rid of all of the cards in your hand. But how?

You begin at the card where the roller skate is, and look at the direction of the arrow on it, which points either clockwise or anti-clockwise. You decide and declare whether you’re “Movin’ on up” or “Gettin’ on down”, but only after looking at the cards in your hand and the cards currently on top of each of the eight piles.

Your goal is to lay down card after card on top of the piles as you move around, with two main rules to adhere to. You must match the suit of the card you’re playing on top of (e.g. a yellow card has to go on a yellow card), and the value of the card you’re playing has to match the up or down you chose before. So if you chose “Movin’ on up”, then each card you place has to have a higher value than the card you’re placing it on top of. Vice-versa for “Gettin’ on down”

It sounds easy in theory, but let me tell you, Roller Disco will hurt your brain. Matching the suit and making sure the values run continuously higher or lower is really tricky. Luckily, there are Jam cards to collect and use. You can play a Jam card on any card, regardless of its suit or value, and when you do you also get to choose which direction the rest of your turn continues in. You can go back the way you just came. Picture someone on a roller rink performing an elaborate spin and then skating back in the direction they just came from – that’s what’s going on.

If you can’t, or don’t want to play on your turn, you can just pass and take another Jam card into your hand, making your future turns potentially more powerful. Remember, though, the aim of the game is to get rid of your cards, and the first player to empty their hand is the winner, so if you pass, you’d better have a good plan.

Final thoughts

Roller Disco is great. I’ve taught and played it with several different groups of people now, and they’ve all enjoyed it. The style and presentation, especially considering that this is a pre-production copy, is great. The colours are bright and pop, and I love the foil printing on the Jam cards. It’s a card game, a shedding card game at that, so the theme is never going to make it really feel like a Roller Disco. That said, I really like the feel of gliding round and round the rink, busting out moves as I go.

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I think the biggest problem some people might have with the game is not being able to plan. You can arrange the cards in your hand in what looks like it’ll be a storming turn for you, but there’s no way of knowing which cards will be in which position until the end of the turn before yours. One card of the wrong suit or number right next to where you start is like catching a wheel on the rink floor and getting flipped onto your backside before you even get going.

If you don’t like that kind of reactive game, Roller Disco might not do it for you. On the other hand, however, if you enjoy reactive tactics as opposed to long-term strategy, I think you’ll get a real kick out of Roller Disco. It is so satisfying when you take one of those turns where you’re just slapping down card after card – bam, bam, bam – then drop a Jam card, pull a 180 degree turn, and go back the way you just came from. It’s a very cool feeling.

There are tons of small-box card games out there, but just as I said with Sakana Stack, Roller Disco is a game which deserves your attention and backing. We’re lucky to have a UK indie turning out games of this quality, and it deserves your backing when the crowdfunding campaign goes live in May 2026, and for under £20, it’s really good value.