[Design Review] No Thanks!

This is a “design review”. These are basically reviews of games, but with a focus on what can be gleaned from the game in terms of game design.

What is No Thanks!?

No Thanks! is a simple card game with a bidding mechanic as its central element. The game consists of 33 cards with numbers from 3 to 35, and 55 playing chips. One card lies in the center of the table, face-up. On his turn, each player must decide: Either he takes the card and puts it in front of himself, giving him points equal to the value printed on the card, or he declines the card by putting one of his chips next to it. The turn to play passes clockwise, and the next player faces the same decision, except subsequent players gain all chips next to a card if they accept it. Once a card has been taken, the next card is revealed from the deck, and the next round begins. The game goes on this way until all cards have found someone willing to accept them.

The player with the fewest points wins.

Sounds Easy, so what’s the Challenge?

There are a few other rules that make the game a bit more complex. First, is that each player only begins play with 11 chips, so you can’t hold off on getting cards forever. Eventually, you’ll be stuck with a card in the center and no chips to play to pass on taking it. That’s when you’re forced to take a card.

Another complication is that you can reduce your points by creating runs. If you get a run of 2 or more cards that have sequential values on them, you only score points from the lowest card in the run. This means, if you all ready have the 10, you can actually reduce your points by 1 by taking the 9. If you have 4, 5, 6, and 8, you can reduce your points by 8 by taking the 7. This is a key strategy, but you can’t always count on it for two reasons. First, other players will sometimes take the card you need to complete a critical run just to mess you up. Second, before the game starts 9 cards are removed from the game at random and aren’t revealed to the players until the end of the game. So, the card you need might not even be in the deck this game.

A final rule to note is that each chip you hold at the end of the game reduces your score by 1. So as chips pile up on a card that nobody wants, the number of chips on the card might actually outweigh the value of the card itself. Then you know you can take the card without any real loss.

How Fun is it?

This game can be very fun with the right group of people. It is easy enough to learn and teach the rules, and the basic strategies are fairly easy to pick up on, so this is a great game for people who aren’t heavily into gaming. There is just enough depth to the game to allow for a variety of strategies. You might find that you need to alter your strategy depending on who you’re playing with. One potential drawback to this game, is that one poor player can really spoil the fun for the rest of the group. If someone gets bored, or silly, or for whatever reason decides to just take every card they can then the game falls apart. The nature of the game requires everyone to play to win for it to work at all.

What Can We Take Away from This?

Simple games that can be taught in, like two minutes, are a great way to introduce other people to the hobby and broaden their exposure to gaming in general. Also, there aren’t a lot of games with a bidding mechanic. I’ve really only played two that I can think of, and this one is different in that you’re bidding to not take a card. Bidding games are interesting, in that they have their own sort of economy going on within the game. Players can track supply and demand of the various cards (in No Thanks! there is only one of every card, and some players might want to have or avoid a card more badly than others) and try to manipulate the market. This involves a different kind of strategy than most games offer.

These are my general thoughts on No Thanks! I’d love to read any observations you may have about the game and its design, or any thoughts you might have on my own observations.