Nuts! is a simple and fast paced card game from Wildfire Games. If polishing your nuts or chasing tail interests you, read on! The rules are simple. The first person to get 20 nut points wins. There are five types of cards that will help you get there.
Nuts: These cards have different values from 1-7 that will help you reach your total of 20 points.
Grab: These cards will give you different ways to grab a nut from the deck or to grab other players’ nuts.
Defense: These cards can be played at any time to keep other players from grabbing your nuts.
Mayhem: These cards cause bad things to have while nuts are being grabbed.
Yes, at one point we had to play rock, paper, scissors to see who got to grab the other player’s nuts.
Antics: These cards will cause random things to happen to your nuts.
Now that you know the cards, the way a turn works is simple. Grab a nut card, play a card out of your hand, follow through on the action and make sure you end up with 5 cards in your hand. Don’t forget to defend your nuts at any time and then get yourself to 20 points. That’s all it takes to play and win a game of Nuts!.
Cards will have slightly varied actions and rules on them. I would suggest played one or two slowed down games to get used to what each card does and to let the humor sink in. When everyone feels they have the hang of it, let the fast paced action begin. Remember, always count from one peanut to five peanut on a players turn and if they don’t play a card by then, they get skipped. Don’t let a slow squirrel in the group spoil your nuts.
While Nuts seems like a fast paced game, it never got to the point where it continuously kept moving. In the brief moments when it did, the room was filled with laughing, groaning, eventually yelling when one of us had thought we had won the game. Someone was always questioning what effect a card actually had, and by trying to do their move too quickly, there would happen to be an incorrect play on many occasions.
There is a foundation for an amazing game here, but it just didn’t get executed very well. With a few tweaks this could be a go to game every one of our game nights. The font on the cards being too small and the real material of the cards are the two easiest changes that we could think of. Card protectors with the game logo would also be a cheap and great way to keep the cards in great shape so that there will be no wear and tear because of how fast paced the game is.
Players: 2-6
Average Game Time: 5-15 Minutes
Ages: 13+ Due to innuendo and adult humor.
Score: 7/10
Pros:
- Gameplay is very fast paced.
- Very short games makes it good to pick up anytime.
- Humor keeps everyone wanting to play.
- Good balance of never being too far behind to win.
Cons:
- Certain cards make the game very hectic.
- Cards can be damaged because of fast pace.
- When humor begins to wear off, the game loses some replay value.
