In a world of immersive digital multiverses and eighty-dollar boxed board games that take three days to play, there's something to be said for solid, middle-of the road card games. Sitting on the deck at the lake house, on a blanket at the beach, trapped at the airport? Whip out UNO, or a classic Hoyle deck, and while away the hours in ten-minute chunks. Skip-Bo lands squarely in this tradition,
Like all the best card games, Skip-Bo is predicated on winning, sure, but also in screwing over your opponent whenever possible. This is easily ascertained through any amount of game play as well as the fact that it is derived from the vintage card games called Malice and Spite. It also carries the DNA of Russian Bank, alternatively called Crapette or Tunj - card players have been around for a long time, coming up with endless variants on how to move 52 cards around a table and giving them weird names.
I like a good game of Skip-Bo. The biggest flaw? The box design. Who thought it was a good idea to have a box with the deck split in half and asked to live peaceably alongside each other? This thing always ends up bulged in the middle, tearing at the cheap paper of the package. Come on, Mattel. Do better.
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