- Designer: Pandasaurus
- Players: 1-5 Players
- Playtime: 20 minutes
- Ages: 8+
The Game from Pandasaurus is a small box game that had our game table locked in! It is the most focused I think I have ever seen our gaming friend while on vacation. The premise is simple: You work together to get rid of all of your cards numbered 2 through 99. But if you think that sounds easy, you’d be mistaken!
What’s In the Box?
- 4 Row Cards (Two 1 cards and two 100 cards)
- Cards 2-99
- Instructions
Setup
Players place all 4 Row Cards in the center of the play area. This includes two cards marked 1, and two cards marked 100. Deal the appropriate amount of cards to each player (for a 3-5 person game, each player gets 6 cards, for a 2 player game, each player gets 7 cards and 8 cards are used for a 1 player game). That’s all, you’re now ready to play The Game!
Objective
In The Game, you and the other players are working together to organize the cards from highest to lowest on the 100 card rows, and from lowest to highest card on the 1 card rows. For example, on a 1 card row, you could play at 3, and then a 13, next you could play 38, and so on. On the 100 row card you could instead being by playing a 98, followed by 72, and then 68.
To start play, each player looks at their hand and talks through who is going to take their turn first. From this first player, turn order will move in a clockwise direction. On a player’s turn they must place at least two cards from their hand next to one of the row cards, or on a pile next to the row card if cards have been placed there previously. The player may place more than 2 cards if they desire and the numbers fit the rule. Players may choose to place all of their cards in different rows or multiple cards within the same row. Once a player has finished their turn they draw as many cards as they played, up to the full hand size. Note that while you work together, at no point can you state what number or numbers are in your hand!
Play continues as such until the draw pile is empty. At this point, players may only play 1 card from their hand at a time. Once a player is out of cards, play will continue normally, skipping over their turn. The game ends as soon as there are no possible cards to play, either because all of them have been placed or there are no longer any valid placements. Then, you can discuss how far you reached as a team and decide if you will start again for a better result!
There is an additional rule to the game that can help when the piles are large, which states: “On your turn you can place a card on the ascending pile when the numbers are is exactly 10 less than the number showing on the pile.” For example, you could put a 37 on top of a 47. Likewise, “on your turn, you can place a card on a descending pile when the card number is exactly 10 greater than the number showing on the pile.” For example you could put a 75 on a 65. This rule allows a “reset” of the respective pile in an effort to add more cards to the piles.
While the rules for The Game seem straightforward (because they are), the real challenge lies within the inability to let others know what numbers you have. You can make statements such as “I will put my next card on x pile” or “Don’t make a big jump on y pile”, or other similar phrases. The key is simply to never reveal what your actual numbers are.
Final Thoughts
The Game fits in a small box, but packs a lot of fun. For our first play through we all said “Of course we will finish this!” How wrong we were! We played 5 hands before finally completing our objective on the last play through. Overall, The game was an excellent way to spend an afternoon during our vacation!
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