Poison
Keep every pile at thirteen or less, or you drink the poison.
Who it's for
You like a small card game with a mean streak and some arithmetic. Good for a table of four or five at a casual dinner.
Not for you if…
You want a long, rich game. It is a compact card puzzle with a lot of luck in the draw.
Vibe's take
Snappy and cheeky, with small moments of dread as piles creep toward the limit. The tension comes from counting, not from complicated rules.
About this game
Poison, also published as Friday the 13th and Baker's Dozen, is a card game about not being the one who makes the cauldron overflow. Cards come in three colors with values from 1 to 7, plus a fourth joker color where every card counts four. On your turn you play a card from your hand onto the pile of its color, then say the total of that pile. If the total goes above 13, you must first scoop up the whole pile, leaving only your card behind, and the cards you take count against you. The twist: if you hold the most of one color among your taken cards, you can throw those away. Quick and nasty, with simple rules and lots of counting to avoid a bad pile.
Get it
Mechanics
Categories
By the numbers
Players
Duration
30 min
Ages 8+
Complexity
1.2 / 5 — Very LightBGG Rating
6.1/10
Rank #2,707
4.5k ratings
Published
2005
Designed by
Reiner Knizia
Published by
IELLO, Swan Panasia Co., Ltd., Heidelberger Spieleverlag, Popcorn Games, AMIGO and 13 more
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