Line-it

• Designer: Tim Juretzki
• Publisher: Gigamic
• Players: 2-5
• Age: 8+
• Time: 20 minutes
• Played with copy provided by publisher

In Line-it, you build an ascending or descending line of numbered cards to score points. Will you play safe and bank the points to start a new line, or will you keep trying to add to the line to claim a jackpot?

The deck consists of cards in four colors numbered 1-100 and six “Bet” cards numbered 3-5.  There are also 4 jackpot tokens, one for each color.   Shuffle the deck, then lay out cards in the market equal to two more than the number of players. 

Starting with the first player, each player must pick a card, then either start a line/add it to their line or place it in their hand. Your maximum hand size is two, and if you can’t add the card to your hand or to your line (because it would break the ascending/descending pattern), you must complete your line, then play your chosen card to start a new line. You can add one Bet card to your line without regard for its ascending/descending status or the value of your end card.

After drafting a card, you may choose to play one card from your hand into your line, then you may choose to score your line. When you score, if you have a Bet card in the line, see whether you’ve added a number of cards to your line after the bet that at least equals the value of the Bet; if so, take a positive number token equal to the Bet card, and if not, flip that token to its negative side instead. Next, discard three cards from the line, then flip all the remaining cards face down and place them in your scoring pile.

Once everyone has drafted (and optionally played and scored), discard unchosen Bet cards, then place unchosen number cards under the jackpot token that matches their color: yellow under the star, green under the leaf, etc. If during your turn, you add the third card of a color to your line, you immediately claim the cards under the matching jackpot token and place them in your scoring pile.

When you can’t lay out enough cards, each player in turn plays one card from their hand, then scores their line and tallies their points. You earn 1 point for each scored card, then gain/lose points from the Bet tokens you collected. Whoever has the highest score wins.

My thoughts on the game

There are a bunch of games that have you dealing with numbered cards in ascending or descending order – and Line-it feels a bit different from all those that I have played in the past.  The addition of the Bet cards adds a (sometimes) spicy bit of risk/reward to an otherwise straightforward game.

Monitoring where you are in turn order can be important as you’ll have a lot less choice in your card draw when you’re at the end of the line in a given round.  Figuring out how to manage your line at this point could be critical as you’ll generally not want to close off your line unless you have to.   Whether you have a bet card or not, you’ll need to have a line of at least 4 cards in order to score anything at all (as you have to discard three cards from your line each time you score).  

It’s also important to watch the jackpot piles.  It might be worth missing out on a good line score if you can grab a particularly large jackpot by getting your third card of a particular color.  Again, keeping turn order in mind can be particularly important here when trying to gauge your chances of hitting a jackpot.

The bet cards can be an interesting addition – but it depends on when they come up in the deck.  Once you’re past the two-thirds point, it feels like there is almost never enough time to actually win the bet, and more often than not, they head straight to the discard pile.  Additionally, I always like to keep an eye out when my left hand opponent has a bet card in play, as I might go out of my way to hate draft a card to take away the last possible card in the draft row from them.

The graphics are pretty bare-bones, but I like the fact that this makes the cards easy to read.  Additionally, the colors have symbols associated with them which makes the game very color-blind friendly. The box is a bit weirdly shaped as it is not fully rectangular; the top edge is slanted giving the entire box a trapezoidal shape.  It’ll still stack mostly nice on your shelves, but it will not be uniform with other boxes on that shelf.  It all depends on how OCD you really happen to be.

Line-it is a quick and fun card game that will likely get more play this summer at the lakehouse. It’s more for casual/lazy afternoons with family than with the regular game group, but it should provide plenty of entertainment for me this summer.

Until your next appointment,

The Gaming Doctor