Boardgame review: The Game (card game)

"The Game" is a co-op cardgame which plays similar to solitaire, but this is with numbers ranging from 2 to 99. The goal is to finish the game by playing every card in the right order by giving comments/instructions to your co-players without telling the exact numbers of your cards. It’s for 1 to 5 players, about 20 minutes of gameplay and from the age of 8+.

"The Game" starts with 4 cards:


The 2 rows on the left go up from 1 to 99 and the 2 rows on the left go down from 100 to 2. Every number is included once, ranging from 2 to 99.

Every player starts with 8 cards and has to play at least 2 cards at one of the four rows at their turn. You can play as many cards as you want at any row, but you must play 2 cards.

When it’s the current players turn, the other players can comment on what to play or what not to play. For example: “Don’t play a card on this row” or “Only a small step on this row”. What is not allowed: “I have nummer 53”.



When the current player is finished with his turn, he draws as many cards as he played until he has 8 cards in his hands again.

A special play in this game is to play a card that is exactly 10 higher or lower than the one that is on one of the rows. As you can see below the first row the cards go from 28 to 31 and back down to 21. And on the third row from 61 to 57 and back up to 67.



When the drawing pile is empty, you only have to play at least 1 card in stead of 2. The game is finished when all the cards are played or when someone cannot play the minimum amount of cards.

An “expansion” is added to the newest edition of “The Game”, called “The Game on Fire”.
The numbers 22, 33, 44, 55, 66 and 77 have a special touch.



When the current player plays one of these cards, he or the next player has to play another card on top of it, or else the game is immediately lost.



Personal opinion:
When I asked my gaming-friends for a game to play with my non-gaming friends, one of the games they advised was “The Game”. I read some reviews and was like: “Hmm…doesn’t look that great to play”. A few weeks later I went to Amsterdam and played this game at a gaming-event and I liked it. When I was on a holiday with my friend in Germany I bought it and he liked it too and we played it a lot during the week. My other non-gaming friends loved it too.

If you play with the basic rules, it’s pretty easy to beat the game. But you can make it more difficult by adjusting the cards in your hand or the minimum amount of cards to play during a turn.

In the rules it doesn’t exactly explain how many comments you can make, it just says you cannot say the numbers on your cards. For me the difficulty in this game is more about adjusting the cards in your hands in stead of discussing what you are allowed to make as a comment.

The game can be hilarious or frustrating for a moment when you make a comment (like: “only a small step on this row”) and the current player throws down a card that is beyond that range.
What's really fun to do is to throw down a card that is far beyond that range and then play a card that is 10 higher or lower. Frustration and laughter right after, guaranteed!

The “On Fire”-expansion doesn’t really add much in a basic-rule game because most of the time you can just play a card yourself on top of it. With less cards in your hand you sometimes have to hit-and-hope with the next player.

Overall, this is a great game for people who barely play games but I like it too as a hardcore gamer.