Now!

• Designer: Silvano Sorrentino
• Publisher: Scorpion Masque
• Players: 3-8
• Age: 8+
• Time: 15 min
• Played with review copy provided by distributor, Hachette USA

NOW! is a real-time competitive card game where everyone plays at the same time.

Discard your cards as quickly as possible in search of the perfect number! Watch out, your deck is limited and you’ll go through it faster than you’d think!
Think you have the best card? Shout «NOW!» Get as close as possible to the target numbers(without going over!) to win them.
Get the most points, leaving your opponents with none.
And, most importantly, try to keep your cool, while everyone else loses theirs!

ON YOUR CARDS. GET SET. DISCARD!

To set up, the 32 card target deck is shuffled and placed on the table. The refresh card is slid into this deck approximately in the middle.  Each player takes a sixteen card player deck (color coded on the back) – shuffles it and places it facedown on the table. The player decks are all different but theoretically balanced according to the rules. 

The game will be played over 11 rounds.  To start each round, the top 3 Target cards are flipped over and revealed.  The next phase is played in real time.  Each player picks up their Player deck and holds it their hand so that they can only see the bottom most card. Players now decide if they want to keep that card OR if they want to discard it (place it on a discard pile on the table) and then look at the next card in their deck.  Whenever a player is happy with their visible card – they shout Now! and then place their hand/deck on the table – hiding their card from the other players.  When all players but one have chosen their card, the remaining player has only two options – keep their current card, or make one more discard and then accept the newly revealed card.

The round is then scored; players flip their hands over to show the card they kept.  Each Target card is resolved; it is given to the player who has the card which is closest it without going over.  It could be possible that a Target card is not awarded if all players have a card in their hand higher in value.  Half of the cards are red and half are blue – and this will come important in scoring.  Players do not discard their current hand card; this card will be their active card to start the next round.

To play another round, flip over the next 3 cards from the Target deck and repeat the process.  When the Refresh card is revealed, all players take their current discard pile and shuffle it back into their deck.  This is the only time in the game when you are able to retrieve cards from your Discard pile; if you run out of cards at any other time, you simply must continue to play your final card.

Once revealed, the Refresh card can be won by a player who scores a perfect match with a target card.  The rules state that each deck has exactly four cards that match one of the target cards.

At the end of the final round, players calculate their scores.  Line up all the cards collected by color – you will note scoring values on each card denoted by the notches on the edge of the card.  Take the higher color value and then subtract the lower color value from it.  The player with the greatest difference between their colors in the winner.  Ties broken in favor of the player with the most total points collected.

My thoughts on the game

Well, when I first opened the game, I thought it was going to be a cute little trifle of a game.  Then, I brought it to the Gathering of Friends, and had a number of chances to play games with 6+ players, and wow! Now! really was great for that number.

The game only takes a few minutes to teach, and it’s honestly easiest to just take one of the decks, hold it in your hand the appropriate way and then do a mock round to show everyone how to hold their deck in their hand and how to cycle through the deck!

When it comes time to score the round, I found it easiest to start from the highest visible card and ask people to shout out their number if they were closest, and then go through the cards. When I have played with 3 to 4 players, sometimes the lowest card remains untaken – but at 6 to 8 players, that pretty much never happens.

The scoring system is a bit opaque, and I do try to make sure that people understand it before we start because there will definitely be times where you have a hand that can win a card, BUT you don’t want to actually win that card!  Using the example of lining up the colored dashes on the red and blue cards to show the difference is a useful tool in this regard.

The game only takes a few minutes to teach and the whole game takes maybe 15 minutes which made it perfect for the convention, either as a filler or a palate cleanser between longer games.  The fact that it could include so many players is a big bonus too.

Ratings from the Opinionated Gamers

• I love it!
• I like it. Dale Y
• Neutral. John P
• Not for me…