Number of Players: 2-4 Base (2-8 Expansion)
Time: 1.5 hours
Ages : 10+
Game Type: Classic Card
Gamer Type: Casual
Complexity: 3
Greydog games has taken the classic game of Hand & Foot and brought it into the modern era. Regionally, the United States has some of the best card games in the world, but a lot of these games are being lost to history as people spend more time on their phones and less time living with their friends. Greydog is bringing back the classics with a modern twist to keep things fresh, and maintaining the history of the gaming community.
Story
So here we have the story of how the game came to be remastered, rather than the story in the game. The owners of Greydog found that their favorite game was hard to play, finding different decks of cards to make everything easy to play (you need one more deck than the number of players). Further, the classic game needed a little upgrade to be functional in the market. So they took to the task of making standard decks for the game (which helped make the rules easier to understand) and made the decks have different colored backs, so you could move between numbers of players. This made a game with the classic down pat. Then they added an expansion, which we will get to at the end. Great story of saving a game. (10 out of 10)
Artwork
Cards with numbers on them are not going to win any awards for artwork…cards with numbers on them where the colors are modified to erase a century of confusion and art deco backs: sign me up. While this is a card game, it still has the aesthetics that make it nice to play. The box is a long medium box, which is thin, so it should be on top of one of your piles (5 of 10)
Mechanics
How do you make a good card game? You make sure people can understand the rules and they are easy to explain. Since this is a classic game, they have that down. In this game, you make melds (groups of numbers) and books (larger groups of numbers). The numbers you use for your books increase your score, and building the books also increases your score. If they have a wild card, they are black; no wild card, they are red. The goal is to play through your hand, then you want to play through your foot using the classic draw from the deck or discard mechanic we all know from Rummy. It is a classic game, so you can learn in minutes and take a lifetime to master. (7.5 of 10)
Strategy
I like to think of this game like Cinche – how you build your strategy depends on where you learn to play. On one hand, you can build up for a masterful play of either the hand or foot. On the other, you can play out as the cards lay themselves out. This really comes down to the player and different areas breed different player types, which makes the game exciting. (6 of 10)
Novelty
Taking a classic game and repackaging it is cool, but there is not really novelty in that. So normally, even though it is an amazing game, this would get a 3. However, Grey Dog did not just stop with remaking the game, they added to it. In the remastered edition, there is a deck of modifier cards. These cards let you change the rules of the game to make it different each time. If you want classic, you can still play the base game. If you want to change it up, you can play the other cards. This gives amazing variety and novelty to the game. (8.5 of 10)
Overall
It has been a while since I added a discretionary point to a game and for this one I want to add to the score. This game is saving a piece of Americana that could be lost to time. While all game designers bring something to the table, Greydog is bringing history to a new generation, and for that they are awarded an additional point. This brings the score to 38 out of 50, which is an impressive score for a card game. This is a game you can play with your grandma and your aunt at a card party, then go home and play the extended game as a drinking game with your friends (or your gram and your aunt – who am I to judge your family?). It’s a great game to get people into gaming, and sometimes playing a classic card game brings some nostalgia to game night.
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