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by Wolfgang Kramer
Rating: 8/10 after 30+ plays
aka Category 5, Take 5!, Take 6!
by Wolfgang Kramer
art Franz Vohlwinkel
publish Amigo / Pando Games
players: 2-10
duration: 20 mins.
type: Light card game
other names: Category 5, Take 5, Take 6
PACE: QUICK. Simultaneous action selection with imperfect information means no one will analyze too much in this game.
COMPLEXITY: LOW. The only tricky part is explaining how the numbers slide into rows, but after two rounds, everyone gets it.
LUCK: MEDIUM. There is player chaos, but you can definitely read a lot of the play and you know when you are taking as risk to play a card. Truth of it is, good players win this game often.
TENSION: HIGH. For a game of such light weight it has a surprising amount of tension as players agonize over which card is safe to play and how to get rid of low numbers without taking points (points are bad).
VICIOUS: LOW. You can't pick on players, it's all in how the cards fall into place on the board.
SOCIAL: MEDIUM. Light, fun, groans, cheers.
VISUALS: GOOD. Just enough art to distinguish it and 'jazz it up' but not so much that it becomes too 'busy' and distracting. Bull heads and funky font numbers is about all you can expect from a numbers card game.
THEME: NONE. Numbers card game. NOTE: The new Category 5 version in English actually contains hurricanes with different ratings based on historical hurricanes. Though not really a theme per se, it is a good setting, with the severity of historical hurricanes related to the number of negative points the player gets.
GAMER APPEAL: YES. Well, it ought to. This game has probably been played over 100 times at my game group as it is the game that almost every single evening closes with.
NON-GAMER APPEAL: YES. Simple and addictive, and can be played from 2 to 10 players.
2 PLAYERS: GOOD.
REPLAY: EXCELLENT.
RATING: 8/10 after 30+ plays.
Good with 2-10 players.
Best with 3-8 players.
Four rows of cards, and whoever plays the 6th card to a row has to take the previous 5 cards -- and that is very, very bad! The problem is that you select a card from you hand and hope it will fit where you think you will, and you can rarely be sure of where that will be! When all players reveal their cards, the lowest card gets placed first and must go beside the card that is closest to it and lower than it. Of course, by the time it is time for you to play your card, it may end up being the sixth one! Very simple and highly, HIGHLY replayable, this is one of the best card games ever designed. Recently released in a very nice English version by Pando Games called Category 5.