How To Play The Game

The Game is a fantastic game from 2015 that continues to impress to this day in 2022. Now, here’s how to play The Game.

Firstly, to play The Game, all players work together. They have a hand of cards with numbers on them, which they have to play to four rows of cards. Two of the rows start with a one, and two start with a 100. Cards played to the rows with a one have to go up in number while cards played to the rows with a 100 have to go down in number. Play as many cards as you can, and if you play all of them, you’ve beaten The Game!

Back-Of-The-Box Facts About The Game

• Player Count: 1-5
• Time To Play: 20 minutes
• Age Range: 8 and up
• Difficulty: Beginner/Easy
• Price Range: $10-$15
• Release Year: 2015
• Publisher(s): Pandasaurus Games
• Designer(s): Steffen Benndorf
• Artist(s): Kwanchai Moriya and Jason D. Kingsley
• Where To Buy: Amazon, Pandasaurus Games

How To Play The Game

So, i did a review of The Game, and I did cover how to play The Game in that review, but I’d like to be a little more comprehensive and clear with how to play it. Plus, this article is for folks who aren’t interested in the review and just want to know how to play it.

So, here you go!

Setup

The Game comes with 102 cards. There are two cards with a one on them, two cards with a 100 on them, and the rest are numbered between two and 98.

To start, you take the two cards with a one on them (heretofore called the one cards) and the two cards with a 100 on them (heretofore called the 100 cards) and lay them out so they’re in a vertical line. Each of the four cards is the beginning of a row of cards that will form as the game goes on.

Afterward, shuffle the cards numbered two through 98 and deal cards to players based on how many are playing. Here’s a breakdown:

• If just one player, get eight cards
• For two players, each gets seven cards
• Three to five players each gets six cards

For the remainder of the cards, put them in a face-down pile so that all players can easily reach them.

And with that, you’re ready to play The Game!

What To Do On Your Turn

All players are working together in The Game. They’re trying to beat The Game.

On your turn, you have to play at least two cards from your hand, but you can play more if you want.

Here are the rules you have to follow when doing so:

• Cards in the rows starting with the 100 cards (heretofore called the 100 rows) must go in descending order (meaning the cards you play must be smaller than the last card in the row)
• Cards in the rows starting with the one cards (heretofore called the one rows) must go in ascending order (meaning the cards you play must be larger than the last card in the row)
• You play cards one at a time
• You can play cards to any row
• You can play as many cards as you have in your hand, but you must play at least two

The Backwards Trick

The rules above set the foundation for The Game. They’re enjoyable enough on their own, but there’s one additional rule that adds an even more enjoyable layer of strategy to The Game. The rules call this The Backwards Trick.

The Backwards Trick breaks The Game in a way because it allows you to sort of reset rows. Say you have a 75 and the last card in a 100 row is a 65. In that case, even though normally you have to play a card smaller than a 65, you can play the 75 because it’s exactly 10 higher than the 65. What this means is that the last card in that 100 row is now a 75 and you can play cards smaller than a 75 instead of 65.

Pretty cool, right?

You can do the same thing with the one rows too. If the last card in one of those rows was again a 65, you can play a 55.

You might think this is hard to set up without having all the right cards in your hand, but there’s one other element to The Game that helps here: communication.

Communication In The Game

So, The Game doesn’t allow you to directly say what you have in your hand, but you can communicate in any other way you want. If you want to say, “Don’t put anything on this pile here,” you can say that because it doesn’t reveal what you have in your hand.

Communication goes a long way in The Game, so do as much of it as you can!

How To Beat The Game

So, to beat The Game, you must successfully play all 98 cards. If you do, you win! However, The Game, knowing this is a pretty difficult task, throws you a bone by saying in the rules that ending up with 10 or fewer cards you’re unable to play at the end of the Game is still pretty good.

Basically, if you get to a point where you can’t play any more cards, and you have 10 or fewer left total, you’ve done a good job.

And now you know how to play The Game.

Did You Know?

(Each time you refresh the page you will get a new “Did You Know” fact!)

Did you know there’s a fun dice-rolling, push-your-luck racing game? If that sounds like an interesting combination to you, then check out my review of Cubitos! Enjoy!

Conclusion: How To Play The Game

The Game is a great game, so I’m glad you’re checking out how to play it. I hope you have a lot of fun (if you haven’t already)!

So, if you’ve played The Game? Let me know your thoughts and why in the comments below!

And, as always, keep on gaming, fellow board gamers.