Scout English Version

- Game in English

- Number of players: 2 - 5

- Duration: 15 min

- Suggested age: 9+ 

SCOUT is a climbing game in which cards have two potential values, players cannot rearrange their hand of cards, and players can pass their turn to take a card from the highest card set in their hand.

More specifically, the cards are double-indexed, with different values on each half of the card, the 45 cards having all possible combinations of numbers 1 to 10. When setting up the game, the person shuffling the cards must randomize both the order of the cards in the deck and their orientation. Once each player has received their entire hand, they pick it up without reordering the cards. If they wish, they can rotate their entire hand to use the values on the other end of each card, but they also cannot rearrange the order of the cards in their hand.

On a turn, a player can perform one of two actions:

- Play: A player chooses one or more adjacent cards from their hand that all have the same value or have consecutive values (whether increasing or decreasing), then plays this set of cards onto the table. They can only do this if the table is empty (as in the first round) or if the set they are playing is of a higher rank than the set currently on the table; a set is higher if it has more cards or if it has cards of the same value instead of consecutive cards or if it has a set of the same quantity and type but with higher values. In the latter case, when a player overplays another set, they capture the cards from the previous set and place them face down in front of them.

- Scout: A player takes a card from either end of the series currently on the table and places it anywhere they wish in their hand, in either orientation. The player who played the previous hand receives a 1 VP token as a reward for playing a hand that was not beaten.

Once per turn, a player can scout, then play immediately.

When a player has emptied their hand of cards or all but one player has scouted instead of playing, the round ends. Players receive 1 VP for each face-down card, then subtract one point for each card in their hand (unless they are the player who was scouted multiple times to end the game). Play as many rounds as there are players, then the one with the most points wins.