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Players: 2-8 (ages 8+)
Playing Time: approx. 30-60 minutes, depending on number of players
This wild trick-winning, trump-playing, bid-making card game may look terribly complicated at first glance, but it’s mostly just a compilation of a number of games that you most likely know how to play already.
To begin, players are each dealt ten cards. The dealer then places one card face-up on top of the deck of remaining cards—and that card’s color is designated as trump. The cards in the players’ hands may be numbered cards—numbers 1-15, in six different colors—or they could be wild cards. There are five different wild cards: Bonus Rage, which adds five points to the score of the trick’s winner, Mad Rage, which subtracts five points from the score of the trick’s winner, Change Rage, which allows the player to change the color of trump, Out Rage, which removes trump altogether, and Wild Rage, which is counted as the highest number in the color of the player’s choosing. Once players have organized their cards, they each take a guess at how many tricks of the ten they’ll be able to win. That number is the player’s bid.
Play then continues as in a normal trick-taking game. When all ten tricks have been played, players count up the number of tricks they won. For each one, they get a point. And if they correctly guessed the number of tricks they’d win, they get an additional ten points.
At the beginning of the next round, players are each dealt nine cards—then eight, and so on. After ten rounds, the player with the most points wins the game.
Since Rage is a combination of trick games, trump games, and bidding games, it takes just minutes to learn (as long as you already know how to play trick games, trump games, and bidding games, of course). It’s an interesting combination—one that’s a lot easier to play than you might expect.
With only two players, Rage isn’t exactly an intense and highly competitive game (though it’s still an entertaining diversion), but with every player you add, it’ll become more of a challenge—especially when it comes to bidding. So the more players, the better.
The changing number of cards in each round adds an interesting twist—especially since there are six different colors of cards. When you have a higher number of cards in your hand, there’s more strategy involved. But when you have fewer cards in your hand, there’s more luck involved, so you’ll need a good mix of luck and skill to win. If you enjoy trick-taking games, you’ll enjoy the new twists in Rage. It doesn’t require tons of time, strategy, or skill, making it a game that almost the entire family can enjoy.
