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Okay, my friends and I are card game junkies. Getting them to play board games is like pulling teeth (and thus I am almost perpetually without someone to play Risk with), but a game of cards? Anywhere anytime.
We used to play Phase 10 a lot, but I actually started to get a little sick of it after awhile, so we switched to Spades for a long time, and then played a lot of Up and Down the River. Recently I broke out Milles Borne, which has been sitting in a drawer in my house since I think the late 60s, and we've been hooked on that, and Monopoly Deal. Yesterday I swiped Sorry Revenge! from my brother's house, but found it somewhat lacking. We like that it's a fast game, but it gets old pretty fast.
We even tried branching out into buying Spanish and Italian playing card decks (not really necessary, but felt more authentic) and spent some time playing Scopa, which is fun for the variety, but we don't love it.
So I've been perusing card games on Amazon to find something new. I'm liking a lot of the card games based on board games, though Sorry ended up being a lackluster experience. I had no idea there was such a massive variety of card games that had their own sets of cards to make them go. I know a standard deck of cards can be used to play an endless number of games, but I didn't know there were so many proprietary games that use their own cards.
Anyway, in our insatiable hunger for new games, we're looking for more. at the moment, I have Clue the Card Game, Scattergories the Card Game, and Dutch Blitz, sitting in my Amazon shopping cart. Dutch Blitz was something I saw on the best selling card list and the reviews were universally positive, so I thought I might try it, but I'm wondering what card games I haven't tried that Hatrackers like.
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Ticket to Ride and San Juan look like a lot of fun! I'll have to keep those in mind, though I'm not sure if I can get my friends to play San Juan or not, it looks too...involved, I guess, for them. My brother would like it though. Thanks.
rivka - Nanofictionary is out of print. But Chrononauts looks like fun. I'll have to give that a try.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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My friends and I used to play a few card games constantly when we had some free time.
The first was a variation on Spit. But that's a two player game which probably wouldn't work as well for you if you've multiple friends. The version I'd play isn't really talked about on the wikipedia page, but the basic gameplay is fundamentally the same.
The other games we'd play allowed for more of our friends to join in. The first is Idiot. (Idiot is actually a slightly less offensive, more publicly acceptable, name. Like BS in that regard. The wikipedia page I linked calls it by its real name. Being as this is a family forum, I'll call it by the more polite name.)
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Haha Vadon, we call it Egyptian Rat Slide here to make it "apropriate"
Spit can be a really fun 4 person game with a double deck.
I play a lot of phase 10 with my family, and we play a similar but much less boring game with regular cards that we call chinese rummy. A quick google search shows the game as we play it does not exhist, so I'll try to post a link to the rules later.
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Vadon, we call it Speed instead of Spit, and play a little differently. And ratscrew is a time honored favorite around here as well. I'll take a look at the others though, thanks.
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Some of my favorite card games are Apples to Apples, Munchkin and Chez Geek. Munchkin is described as a role-playing game related cardgame, but only one of my friends is into role-playing, and he's the only one who doesn't love playing Munchkin.
Posts: 54 | Registered: Nov 1999
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quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: rivka - Nanofictionary is out of print. But Chrononauts looks like fun. I'll have to give that a try.
Yeah, they're supposed to be re-releasing it sometimes soonish, though. And both versions of Chrononauts are great fun. So is Fluxx.
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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The Great Dalumuti. It is the absolute ultimate card game, or at least it was when I was 16. The dorm I lived in had it, and I swear we wore those cards to rags! The thing is, while you can play with 4 people, it really takes 5 or 6 to make it fun - but it can still be great with even 10 players!
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Pizza Mia: you make pizzas- my dad is not a gamer and he loves it. I think rules seem confusing but once you play it is really simple.
Once Upon a Time: we were surprised how much fun this one is. You tell stories and when the things in your card comes up, you can play the card- so if you have a card that says, the Prince as soon as a prince character enters the story, you get to play that.
Bohnanza: you plant and harvest very cute little bean fields
Citadels: kind of board game like- if Puerto Rico won't work, it might not either, but it is fun
Gloom: you get a family and you play cards on them to make them as miserable as possible and then you kill them off
Illuminati: We all knew that the telemarketers were part of a worldwide conspiracy to take over the earth for aliens.
Sleuth: brain hurts at end- a card game version of those mind puzzles-figure out the color, type and setting of the jewels that was randomly put in the envelope- the rest of the cards have been distributed to the players evenly
Brawl- kind of like war
Unexploded Cows (from Cheap @ss games). There is a cow with the same name as my mom and my dad loved making it blow up.
I have a card game version of Mahjhong which is fun (just the tiles made into cards).
For two players Lost Cities and Blue Moon. We aren't into card games as much as we are board games, so I'm sure that there are a lot more out there. We also have munchkin, which can be fun but gets old.
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Blayne Bradley
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Burn your cards and play Mahjong instead. Plaaaaay it.
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My friend is always trying to get us to play Hand and Foot, which is a lot of fun, and can be expanded to many pairs of people, but requires a lot of cards (1 deck per person) and can take a while.
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Quiddler, kind of like Scrabble combined with Gin. Idiot, if you can find the rules anywhere. Lots of fun, really quick to play. Killer Bunnies, quite entertaining, lots of expansions.
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There are a lot of good suggestions here. I don't think I saw Race for the Galaxy mentioned yet. It's a lot of fun.
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That's pretty much the best award in gaming, at least for the style of games popular in Europe. It's what Carcassonne, Ticket to Ride and Settlers of Catan all won.
It's kind of expensive, because it comes with so many cards, but it's highly replayable, especially with all the expansions. Depending on the set-up, games are usually half an hour each.
Race for the Galaxy is also pretty good. It's also quick, you can finish in half an hour.
Posts: 575 | Registered: Feb 2007
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My family's card games of choice are rummy (our house version is called Dummy Rummy and is best with 5+ people), Hand & Foot, and Oh Hell. If you want the rules to Dummy Rummy, I can type them up, but it's a LONG game. Oh Hell is a pretty good game for a group of friends, since it's 3 to 5 people, can be quick or long, and requires you to judge how good you think everyone else is at reading & playing their hand.
Abhi's family's card game is one that is popular in South Asia, but not much elsewhere: Twenty-Nine. It's a four-player partner game, and sort of a cross between Euchre (but not as stupid) and Spades (but less straight-forward). If you like Spades you'll probably like this game as much or more. The version his family plays is similar to the one in the link, but I can give you our exact rules, if you'd like.
I need to hit up Milles Borne again - haven't played that since I was a kid. Also Pit - anyone else played it?
Posts: 2409 | Registered: Sep 2003
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quote:Originally posted by fugu13: Dominion is technically a card game.
Dominion is fantastic.
Agreed. It's probably my single favorite game at the moment.
Twinky, have you had a chance to play it more? I'm looking forward to playing it with you again the next time we hang out.
Fugu, I'm curious about your choice of words. Why do you say that it is "techncially" a card game? What would it be considered if not a card game? The second expansion muddies the waters slightly with the introduction of embargo and coin tokens, but except for that I don't see how it could be thought of as anything other than a card game.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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I think of Dominion (even just the basic) as a Board Game. Sure, you use cards for everything, and the layout of the cards in the center is essentially arbitrary -- but the same argument could be made for other games. Is Carcassonne a card game with square playing cards (I'm not suggesting you or anyone else thinks it is)?
In particular, Dominion, except for the playing pieces being in the shape of cards, is not mechanically very closely related with many card games, especially card games of the sort listed in the original post. It is much more similar in mechanics, flavor, and play to the "Board Game" genre, which long since ceased requiring the games be played on boards.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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I've played Dominion again with Pod and Jaids, and I intend to buy a copy of my own. On that note, you guys never replied to my last "when should we get together again?" email.
*
I look for Dominion in the board game aisle, but it's very much a card game. The strategic core of the game lies in striking the right balance between resources, action cards, and territories in a randomized deck. Building an effective deck in Dominion isn't that far removed from building one in Magic: The Gathering; the key difference is that the process is iterative in Dominion, which is a big part of what makes it so awesome.
I certainly agree that Dominion has very little in common with Uno, Hearts, Mille Bornes, Fluxx, Apples to Apples, etc, but it has a lot more in common with modern CCGs than it does with board games. The action mechanic (and the notion of trying to get the most out of your actions) actually reminds me of Netrunner, the CCG that Richard Garfield designed after Magic. The balance between wheat and chaff in the deck is closer to Magic, though; drawing cards is cheap in Netrunner, so it's a little different.
Anyway, when I play Dominion, I'm in a similar headspace to when I'm building a deck in Magic or Netrunner. That's why I think of Dominion as a card game.
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If you enjoy Euchre, you'd love Xactika. If you hate Euchre, you'll hate Xactika. Instead of 4 suits, there are 12, which are controlled by the players every hand. Pretty much Euchre on crack.
But I love it. It takes a while to learn, but once you do you reach the quick happy Euchre equilibrium that allows for conversations over the game.
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Well said, Raja; you put that better than I likely would have. I've got the Intrigue and Seaside expansions, and will be getting the Alchemy expansion when it comes out in a month or two. Can't wait to play some or all of those expansions with you.
That's right, you did send out a "when are we getting together" email, didn't you? Sorry; a lot of times I'll see an email come in on my phone, but then space it off once I'm in front of a computer and can easily reply at length. I'll dig up the email when I get home tonight and write back.
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Unless people go nuts with attack cards, or you are trying to play 5-6 player, Dominion games are usually over in half an hour. In that sense, it's very much in the vein of Mille Bornes, Hearts, Euchre, etc. When people think "board game" they tend to think games that last more than an hour, like Monopoly or Risk, and Dominion isn't that.
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Yeah; they can also last a bit longer with certain combinations of cards that hinder combo-building.
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Bohnanza is a good game, though in some ways it's more fun in German so the players can make up their own descriptive names for the cards rather than using the rather dull puns on the English version. Still, the game itself is a lot of fun, and has some interesting mechanics- each player's hand has a "front" and a "back", so they have to play their cards in order, which sometimes lends itself to making generous trades in order to get cards out of one's hand rather than having to "uproot" valuable beans before they're "fully ripe".
Citadels is also very enjoyable, though I think you need a large group to really feel you're playing it the way it's meant to be played.
Oh, and I'll third (or whatever we're up to) Dominion. I'm planning to get it for my gamer sister for her birthday.
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quote:Originally posted by fugu13: I think of Dominion (even just the basic) as a Board Game. Sure, you use cards for everything, and the layout of the cards in the center is essentially arbitrary -- but the same argument could be made for other games. Is Carcassonne a card game with square playing cards (I'm not suggesting you or anyone else thinks it is)?
In particular, Dominion, except for the playing pieces being in the shape of cards, is not mechanically very closely related with many card games, especially card games of the sort listed in the original post. It is much more similar in mechanics, flavor, and play to the "Board Game" genre, which long since ceased requiring the games be played on boards.
I disagree. Between the shuffling and the drawing, it has a cardy feel. The giant box and the $45 price tag are the big source of mental confusion.
I don't think Carc works as a card game. One person draws a tile and it gets played. There's no discarding or choice of cards and you put litle people on the tiles. Dominion, however, is nothing but cards.
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I'll second "Oh Hell" as a good game. I was trying to find a link to the rules on it, but I was having trouble because the name I heard it as was "London." Yeah. Nothin' there.
Posts: 1831 | Registered: Jan 2003
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Me and my friends used to play "Bang" a lot. It's more or less a Mafia with a Western flair in card game form.
As far as normal playing card games, I always enjoy Pounce. It's also been called Nutsy or Nertz, though each of those names includes slight rule variations. It does require everyone to have their own deck, and the optimum playing number is between 4 and 6, so if you have more than that it might not fly. But I love the game. Not to brag, but over the past 10 years I've only been beaten twice.
Posts: 2827 | Registered: Jul 2005
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Dominion is one of the best games made in the last five years, but I agree that it's only obliquely a "card game" -- in the sense that card games are usually easily portable and not tied to a playing surface. Dominion is not a game you can carry in your pocket and pop out to play on a stoop or park bench outside.
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Just got Dutch Blitz in the mail and started playing it. It's a lot of fun!
I'd call it a mixture of Speed and Solitaire. I'm renaming it Amish Speed, given the pictures on the cards, the origins of the game, and the fact that it makes me smile whenever I say it.
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I dunno, twinky. You could -- at least in theory -- carry your favorite Magic deck and some counters in your pocket.
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Bwuh? Well I guess I don't carry my magic cards in my "pocket" per se, but when I played regularly I carried a deck in my backpack.
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