Combo Up

• Designer:  Katja Stremmel
• Publisher: Amigo
• Players: 3-5
• Age: 10+
• Time: 30 minutes
• Played with review copy provided by publisher

Who has the best combo? Outbid each other with your card combos and improve your hand round by round. Save yourself from having to quit with your reserve cards and foil the other players’ plans with special cards. If things don’t go entirely smoothly, you’ll have to spend a life token. Try to avoid this, because the first player to run out of life tokens loses the game while all the others win! 

This game was first released as Krass Kariert (Checkered Combos) then later as Combo Up, you don’t necessarily win by going out first, but at least you don’t lose the game.

To start, each player receives three life tokens and two reserve cards at random, which they place face up in front of themselves. They then receive a hand of cards, the order of which they cannot change. The deck is made up of numbered cards from 1-12, four of each.  This version of the game also includes 5 special cards.

The start player for a round leads by playing a combination of up to three cards, and these cards must be next to one another in that player’s hand. A player can lay down a single card, a pair, a triple, or a run of two or three consecutive cards. Each player in turn must beat the combination, with a 2 card combo being beaten by a higher 2 card combo (higher in number rank, but also pairs/trips are higher than runs of the same number of cards) or a three card combo. If you cannot or will not play, you instead pick up one of your reserve cards, placing it where you choose within your hand. If you have no more reserve cards, then you must discard a life token.

Once each player has played or passed, whoever played the highest combination wins that round and begins the next round.  If you “won” the trick but are now out of cards, the player who played then next highest combination leads. If a player must discard a life token but has none, this player loses the game and everyone else wins.

Combo Up includes two new types of special action cards, but is otherwise identical in gameplay to the original release.  The special cards are:

• Wild Card – stands in for any card, usually making the highest possible combo
• Stop – the trick ends immediately and you start the next trick
• *Pick Up – All other players must pick up 1 of their reserve cards and add it to their hand
• *Pass Along – Each player chooses one card from their hand and passes it clockwise; the card you receive can be placed in any position in your hand
• Draw 3 – the player who wins this trick ust draw 3 cards, one at a time, and each can be placed anywhere in your hand.

If you wish to play the classic game of Krass Karriert, simply leave the Pick Up and Pass Along cards out of the deck.

My thoughts on the game

Krass Karriert was a game that immediately captured my attention when I first played it.  Having a hand of cards that you couldn’t reorder wasn’t particularly novel; most of us were accustomed to that from Bohnanza – but at the time, KK gave you a game that was unlike anything else at the time.

Admittedly, since then, Scout! maybe is my favorite amongst the don’t-reorder-your-hand-while-you-play-a-shedding-game genre, but the new action cards here in Combo Up definitely put this in the running.  It’s a bit more unpredictable as there are more special action cards that can throw a spanner in the works – but it should be noted that not all of the special actions are bad.  

There are actually plenty of times when you want to pass a card to your neighbor because it gives you a chance to remove an odd card from the middle of a combo without having to wait for an opportunity to play a single card (which doesn’t necessarily come along as often as you’d want).  I’ve also come to realize that the reserve cards provide you some interesting strategic choices as they are both “in your hand” but not really.  These two cards give you some flexibility as you can put them where you want in your hand when you pick them up.

As I said, I have always liked shedding games, and this version has brought an old favorite back to the table, and I have found that the new cards add a few new nuances to the game, and it has been fun to explore this version of the game.

Ratings from the Opinionated Gamers

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