Phone Wallet Keys

• Designer: Icerain Lin
• Publisher: Icerain Games
• Players: 2-5
• Age: 6+
• Time: 15 minutes
• Played with copy provided by Taiwan Boardgame Design

Phone Wallet Keys is a set-collecting casual game where players take on the roles of a family preparing to leave the house. Players have to gather all the necessary items before heading out and remind everyone of the time. Players continuously draw item cards from the deck, being mindful not to collect identical items. At the end of the game, score all the item cards, and the player with the highest score wins!

To set up the game, deal each player a Quest card at random. Then, flip up N cards from the deck, and in reverse turn order, each player chooses one to start the game with.  This card is placed face up on the table in front of the player. Now, reform the deck and splay it in a spiral so that you can see the edges of the cards.

The first player now draws two cards from the interior of the deck (essentially, not the top card), examines them, chooses one to keep – placing it face up on the table – and returning the unchosen card to the top of the deck.  The next player then goes, having the same choices.

Once a player has give cards, they can choose to not draw any cards and instead take the Time to Go chip – triggering the game end. All other players get one more turn before the end the game.

Once all players have finished their last turn, if a player has the Shoulder Bag card, they take the bottom card of the deck and add it to their cards.  Now, all players check their cards in front of them, if they have two or more identically named cards, they choose one to keep and then pass all the other cards to their left hand neighbor, who keeps it if they do not have a card of that name and otherwise keep passing the card on.  If a card goes all the way around the table, it is discarded.

Now, each player scores their individual cards (rules for each card are printed right on the card).  The player who has the Time to Go chip scores two points.  Finally, each player evaluates their Quest card and takes points accordingly.  The player with the most cards wins.

My thoughts on the game

Phone Wallet Keys is a super simple set collection game (well actually it’s an anti-set collection game as you don’t want sets of anything!).  It’s quite light and super easy to teach.  There aren’t really any complicated scoring rules on the cards, so honestly the game can almost be taught as you play.

I like the way that you get to choose from two different cards each turn as this will allow you to possibly change your strategy on the fly.  Also, as you get to see what each player discards, if you have good memory, you can draw a card near the top and be assured of its identity. (We do allow people to call a specific card-  i.e. I want the fifth card down…)

There isn’t much to each turn, and the game honestly will likely not take more than ten minutes total.  Honestly, the game could go as few as five rounds – as anyone is eligible to take the Time to Go tile after their fourth turn (as you get a card in setup).

Scoring is pretty straightforward, and we have used mini poker chips to mark the score of certain cards so that players don’t have to re-calculate things all the time.  I suppose someone could also just make hashmarks on a scoresheet, but there are a couple of cards that want to know specific score values of cards, and putting a visible amount on them helps to speed this up.

If you ditched the box, you could keep the whole game wrapped up with a rubber band in your pocket, and this would be the perfect sort of restaurant or electric-car-charging-stop game.  You don’t need much room nor time to play, and it’s easy and enjoyable.

Ratings from the Opinionated Gamers

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