Combo

• Designer: Ikhwan Kwon
• Publisher: Happy Camper
• Players: 2-6
• Age: 10+
• Time: 20 minutes
• Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/4hFzV4X
• Played with copy provided by publisher

The competition is ripe! Play apples, bananas, cherries, and more to make a shared fruit feast. Low numbers are worth more but you score only if your card is part of the winning combo! Can you lure others to follow your juicy offer, or will they be tempted by the fruit of another? Win the most points and victory is yours for the picking!

In slightly more detail, take the deck of 84 cards, shuffle them and then make up the deck by secretly discarding some cards based on player count.  Each player is dealt a hand of 7 cards and the remainder of the deck is available as a draw pile.

Each player gets a player reference card that will remind everyone of the setup rules, the number of rounds to play and the ranking of hands.  Additionally there are spaces on the left and the right of the reference card to store your scored cards.

Starting with the first player (who is given the golden pineapple figure), each player will play one card from their hand, placing it face up on the table, and then immediately replenish their hand back to seven cards.  When all players have played the prescribed number of cards, the group then makes the best combination possible from all the cards played to the table.  Depending on player count, this will either be a 4 or 5 card combination.

In poker terms, the ranking goes:  straight flush -> 4 or 5 of a kind -> flush -> straight -> high card.  Within a certain class, the highest ranked cards would take precedence.  Therefore, a 9-8-7-6 straight would be better than a 7-6-5-4 straight.   However, note that the game has renamed the combinations, so you’ll be calling out for sweet scraps < ripe runs < slushies < smoothies < super slushies!

All cards in the winning combination are scored by the player who played them, in general going under the full points side.  If there are cards which are tied in value (and that particular rank would be included in the best combination), they are scored, but placed under the half points side of the player aid, meaning they will be worth half value at the end of the game.  Note that the cards with higher values on them score fewer points, so you’d ideally like to score with your lower numbered cards.

Any cards not used in the winning combination are simply discarded back to the box, and the game continues on until you have played the number of rounds as indicated on the player aids.  At the end of the final round, add up your points, scoring full points for cards under your full points side half points for the cards under the half points side.  The player with the most points wins; ties broken in favor of the player with the most physical cards scored in the game.

Thoughts from other Opinionated Gamers

This game might sound familiar, and it is a reskin of the game Surfosaurus Max.  This new version by Happy Camper is a bit more sedate in its art take – but the game mechanics itself stay the same.  

This is a challenging game of semi-cooperation – you’re always looking to score the most points for yourself, but you have to read the table and other players intentions to actually score those points.  Turn order is a big deal here as you will have the best chance to direct the contents of the winning combination when you play last – though you may not be able to as your hand size of 3 doesn’t give you quite as many options as you’d like!

There is a nice push and pull between the cooperative and competitive nature of the hand.  Sometimes I like to keep my low valued cards in my hand and wait to play them only when they complete a combination, preferably near the end of the round so someone else can’t snake in there with a higher card that would then cut me out.  There are other times, like when I have a pair of 3s, where I might play them in my first two plays, trying to cajole two more 3s to come out…   The risk here is that if no one else joins in (or if no one else has the 3s), I may have just wasted those high scoring cards and gotten nothing for them!

The deck is big enough, with its 7 suits, that nearly every combination is possible but at the same time, nothing is really quite sure – again, the small hand size keeps the overall portion of the deck in play at any time to a small proportion.  You also might need to put your memory skills to use near the end of the deck as you might be able to remember if you’ve seen a lot of a particular card or not… 

The artwork in this version is honestly pretty plain.  The ranks each have a different color and are associated with a different fruit silhouette – but there isn’t much to it.  Compared to the surfing dinos of the original, it is definitely a stark comparison.  Likely, there will be fans of each of these extreme takes on the graphic presentation – but at least the gameplay stays the same in both.  

The one other change here is the way in which Happy Camper decided to rename the recognizable names of common poker hands for their own fruity monikers.  While it might further the theme a tiny bit, everyone in my games basically lapsed back into the more common poker terms.  The new names actually ended up being a bit confusing as we were all used to the other terms.

Combo is a quick playing game with a delightful amount of challenge in figuring out how to best play your cards.  Well timed card play is a must, but you also have to be lucky enough to have the right card at the right time.  There is honestly room for both versions of this game in my collection.  Depending on the group, I will choose the one whose art style I feel will most complement the group about to play it.

Ratings from the Opinionated Gamers

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

Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/4hFzV4X