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Tag Archives: Kooky Kalooki

Playing the Game Wrong

More and more often we’ve been discovering that we’ve been playing some of our games wrong.

Well, maybe not wrong, but it seems like some rules somehow slip by us. Sometimes we purposely ignore certain rules. With co-op games, we always play with our cards face up on the table. It just makes it easier to strategize. Other times it’s just that we messed up.

Some of our mistakes we discovered because of a BoardGameGeek thread. Others were discovered after rereading the rules again.

With 7 Wonders, we didn’t realize you couldn’t play multiple copies of the same card. No one ever questioned it, so we never looked at the rules for clarification.

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The Game Anywhere Table

A while back we backed the Game Anywhere Table on by Transforming Designs. Like most kickstarters, it did not make its anticipated delivery date (Dec 2016). There were a few delays, during which they made some upgrades and tweaks (all of which were VERY well communicated); they are on target to have delivery complete for the tables by end of July (accessories are a different story) and are working on a larger one.

I’ll cut right to the chase: this table is great for gaming on. Being able to fold it up and put it away when not in use is also great. It means we have a designated table for games, without it taking up a lot of space.

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Kooky Kalooki

Several years ago my husband and I stumbled upon Kooky Kalooki while we were out shopping. It says it’s a Jamaican card game, and since his mom is from Jamaica, we thought it would be a great gift for her. Despite never having heard of the game before, his mom quickly became the expert (9 times out of 10, she wins).

If you’ve ever played Phase 10, it’s a little like that, but more complicated. Everyone starts on Round 1, so everyone is dealt 9 cards and is trying to get 3 sets (more on sets later). If I’m the only one who gets 3 sets, I move on to Round 2 and get 10 cards for my next hand while everyone else is still on Round 1. So once you play a few hands, you can all be working towards different goals (the tricky part for whoever is dealing is remembering how many cards everyone gets). Now, in the rules you’re supposed to play 9 rounds or to a certain amount of points, but we play until someone completes Round 9. The way we play always takes longer.

For each Round you need a certain number of sets and/or runs:
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