Players: 1-5
Age: 8+
Duration: +- 20 minutes
Distributor: White Goblin Games
The Game – Card Game Review
Playing card games with friends is often quite fun, until someone ruins the party because he is a sore loser (Admit it. We all know one.). It seems it’s time for something different then. How about joining forces and beating ‘The Game’ instead of each other? Team up with four other players or go solo, but when working together there is only one catch: You can’t really tell your teammates what cards you have, yet you have to make sure you can get rid of all of them. Intrigued? We were.
Contents
- Rules
- 98 cards (ranging from 2 to 99)
- 4 cards (serving as indicators for the four different piles. Two indicate the rising piles, two indicate the descending piles)
The cards feel and look a bit like your average deck of cards, except for the ominous skull depicted on all of them. The transition from red to black on all of the cards makes The Game feel a bit darker and truth be told, even though the game is easy to pick up, the style and theme were well chosen.
Mechanics
In a way The Game feels like Patience, whilst being totally different as well. Whether playing solo or with friends, your goal is to get rid of all the cards by placing them next to the two piles with rising numbers or the two piles with the descending numbers. Whilst this might sound simple, keep in mind you’ll have to get rid of 98 cards, without being able to tell your friends which ones you have. This eliminates the strategy to truly plan ahead and when you reach certain numbers on the piles, it’s hard to go back to an earlier state. (We’ll explain in a moment). An extra difficulty is the fact that each player will start out with a specific number of cards in their hands (8 cards when playing solo, 7 when playing with 2 players and 6 when playing with 3-5 players) and you’ll be forced to place two cards each turn, until the draw pile is gone. After that you can limit yourself to one card each turn. Every time you place two cards (or more) you’ll have to draw new cards until your hand is the same size again.
As mentioned earlier, each of the cards (except those used for the 4 piles) will have a number ranging from 2 to 99. This means every number between those limits will be present in the game and you must get rid of them on the different piles. This involves speculating on the moves of your friends, but you are allowed to give each other hints, yet you can’t tell them what the cards in your hands are. Give subtle clues, tell them to stay away from a certain pile, etc. Nonetheless, other players will not always get your (not-so-)subtle hints and may place a card that ruins your strategy. If so, there is one move that might help, if you have the right card(s) in your hand. You can ‘revert’ a pile back to a higher or lower state, if you can place a card that is exactly 10 higher or lower in value than the one currently on top. For example, if the ascending pile has a value of 52, you can drop the value to 42, if you have that card of course. This creates more room to get rid of some cards with values in-between that range.
Luck or Strategy?
The Game is a healthy mix of luck, strategy and hoping that your friends will understand all of your subtle (we weren’t subtle at all) hints. As you’ll always have to place two cards, luck is in order, as you’ll have to hope to have the right cards, which will not screw over your allies. After that, you’ll have to hope that your friends will either join in closely and thus not create any big gaps in all of the different piles.
Strategy comes into play when you are starting to read hints of your fellow players or when you’re aiming for a specific combo, to create a nice sequence or to revert a pile to a better state. Either way, some thought is required before your following moves, giving the game a bit more content.
What makes the game even more fun is trying to give hints that are borderline saying which cards you actually have. You will constantly have to find ways for your partners to understand you and you’ll quickly notice that other players will require other tactics. Truth be told, we had a reasonable amount of slipups when trying to hide which cards we had and this made the game even funnier and catchy.
Conclusion
The Game might be one of ‘the games’ of the moment. With its simplicity on top, you’ll be playing in a matter of minutes, whilst every game will still feel different. Playing solo or with friends are both entertaining, even though with allies, the game proves to be the most fun. Simply put, a great card game for all ages.
The Game - Card Game Review,
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