You will usually see my family playing around with electronics, a computer or a video game console. But we enjoy playing ‘traditional’ games too. Card games are something we enjoy playing when we have friends over in groups and have some fierce competition to win.
Ratuki is a new card game hitting the shelves this year from Hasbro Games. It’s an amusing way to spend some quality time with your family and friends. Best played with at least three people, it can accommodate five players, and has a quick game play.
The concept is easy for children to play along, although it might be a bit fast for them. The recommended age is 8+, so younger than that, you may want to have a child pair up with an older sibling or adult.
The main goal is to get rid of all the cards in your chosen color. To play the game, each player gets a deck of cards in a single color, with numbers 1 through 5. You take three cards from your deck, and have to use those cards to make and/or add to stacks in the middle. There will be one stack per player.
Now the thing that makes it a bit trickier is that the numbers are presented in multiple ways within your deck. As the written number, as the numeral, as a die, represented as fingers and then scratches.
The game starts by someone yelling out RATUKI. Then if you have a one or a Ratuki card you can start a stack in the middle. You proceed to then pick up a card from your deck and add it to the two in your hand. The game goes on with players all at the same time trying to build upon the stacks in the middle. Adding to it with the number preceding or coming after the number on the top of the stack. When you top the stack with a 5 or a Ratuki card, you can take that stack as yours.
If you can’t play a card, you can discard it and choose another from your deck. But later those discarded ones will count against you in scoring.
The game ends when one player has used all their cards. Each card from ‘Ratuki’ stacks that you completed gives you 1 point. Each card in your discard pile and/or what you have left in your deck is –1 point.
What We Thought:
Ratuki is a great choice for both adults and children. We played it with 3 people, but I think it would work best if you had 4 or 5 to play it with.
The game doesn’t work well if you have people that like to play games strategically, as we found out. When my husband had cards in his hand that he couldn’t play, he wouldn’t discard them, he would wait until either myself or my daughter did so we could play, and then he wouldn’t have to. That doesn’t make for very fun game play .
I like that it is a faster paced game and that it doesn’t take a long time to get to the ‘100’ point score. It took us about 4 rounds to get a winner, which was about 20 minutes.
Ratuki will be available at stores nationwide early 2011 as well as on Amazon.com.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I wrote this post on behalf of Hasbro Games and was given a media sample to aid in my review, but the review and opinions are my own.
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