The Game, a Cooperative Card Game

Everyone at the table is on the same team, and you are all trying to beat a deck of cards. The catch: nobody is allowed to say what numbers they're holding. You can hint. You can say "don't touch that pile." You can groan dramatically. But you can't say "I've got a 47."

Four piles sit in the middle, two climbing up from 1 and two counting down from 100. Every turn you have to play at least two cards, and the gaps you leave behind are the problem everyone else inherits. The one escape hatch is the backwards trick: drop a card exactly 10 off on any pile and you buy yourself some room. Finding those moments, and knowing when a friend is quietly saving one, is where The Game gets its grip on you.

It fits in a jacket pocket, teaches in two minutes, and plays in about twenty. Expect to lose a few times. Expect to immediately shuffle up again.

• Contents: 98 numbered cards (2 through 99), 4 row cards (two 1s and two 100s), rules
• Fully cooperative for 2 to 5 players, with a solo mode that's just as tense
• The backwards trick: play a card exactly 10 above or below the top card to reset a pile
• Nominated for the Spiel des Jahres, with over 1.3 million copies sold
• Designed by Steffen Benndorf
• 1-5 players, ages 8+, about 20 minutes