
You know I’m a huge SET and Quiddler fan, right?
Maybe you read my post over at TueNight last September? I Would Probably Beat You at SET (And I Don’t Feel Bad)? If you didn’t, now’s your chance. Hehe. Shameless, I know.
You cannot imagine my joy when that blog post attracted the attention of the nice folks at SET. I really, truly squealed. They loved my post – and they shared it. Later, they reached out to see if I’d want to try another of their games: Karma.
Before I tell you more about that game, I want to talk about the adorable travel-sized games. They’re in round tins with cleverly designed lids. We took them on our trip to South America over the holidays and we enjoyed them very much – and found the containers themselves to be entertaining, too. Funny, right? We also brought our full-size games along also. For me, unless playing a solo game, I prefer the full-sized games. They’re still plenty compact enough to stick in my carry-on bag.
Our wifi on this trip was pretty iffy, so having real games along was a treat. Did I mention the trip was long? As in 16 hours to get there and 20 hours to get back. That’s long.
Back to Karma. It’s a more traditional card game, but with some fun twists. Players are dealt three face-down cards. No peeking. Then you get six more cards – you pick three for your hand and the other three go face-up on the table cards. Play starts with a player putting cards of the same value onto a discard pile and then players take turns discarding cards of equal or greater value. If you can’t discard, you have to pick up the discard pile. Hand cards go first, then face-up cards, then down cards. The last player with cards loses.
The key is the Karma cards:
- Give the pile to a friend (self-explanatory)
- Play a table card (early)
- Bottoms up (take from the bottom of the discard pile)
- Five or below (forces the next player to play 5 or lower)
What’s great about the game:
- It’s fast (I never said I was patient!)
- Great for a wide age range (so really good for family company!)
- Wild cards totally mix it up (surprise!)
- Luck and strategy both – so the same person doesn’t always win (LOL, that’d be me!)
I am a game player. Of course, you know that. When I first started reading the instructions, I thought it was a little complicated. (Do not even get me started on President. Andrew, Jason, Ellen… you know what I’m talking about!) But diving in, it wasn’t hard and it’s kind of like a mix between a lot of games I’ve played before and it’s easy to catch on.
Will we play Karma at Chez Scherer? Yup. We’ll totally play. It’s super fun to have another game in our arsenal. But so far, no game has pushed Quiddler and Set off the top of the list.
PS: The travel-sized games are in my overnight bag for always.
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Disclosure: I received a care-package of games, including a full-size Karma and travel sized Karma, SET and Quiddler. The content of this post was not influenced by company and the opinions are my own. As always.