Count Me In! 2012

In Count Me In! – aka, 1, 2, 3 ... ganz viele! ("1, 2, 3 ... lots!") – players work together to try to lay down cards in the right order. If they complete two rows of ten cards each, they win.

At the start of the game, shuffle the deck of fifty cards – five cards each with numbers 1-10, with ten different images appearing as pips on the cards: horseshoes, mushrooms, springs, and so on – and deal five cards to each player.

On a turn, a player must lay down a card, if possible. Cards must be laid in numerical order, so the first card in a row must be 1, the second card 2, and so on. At the same time, the same image cannot be placed into a row twice. If a player can legally play a card, she does so, then draws a replacement from one of the two draw stacks; if she can't, she lays a card aside out of the game, then draws a new card. (The cards have color-coded icons on their backs – red, blue, etc. – which can aid players in deciding which card to draw.)

If the players create two rows of cards numbered 1-10 before both decks run out and they can't play any more cards, they win; if not, they lose.

A competitive variant is included in 1, 2, 3 ... ganz viele! with players taking cards numbered 1-7 from two colors (e.g., red and blue), then laying them out in two rows. On a turn, a player turns over one of the number 1 cards, then one of the number 2s, and so on. If she reveals a card that shows an image already present on a card revealed earlier, her turn ends and she flips all cards face-down again. If a player reveals cards numbered 1-7 without revealing matching images, she wins the round. The first player to win three rounds wins.