Link: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/291453/scout
Playing Time: 15 minutes
Weight: Light
Genre: Set Collection
Designer: Kei Kajino
Players: 2-5 Players
SCOUT has become my go-to filler card game, a tense but silly game with a theme that’s just pasted awkwardly on. Apparently you’re a recruiter for the circus and you’re trying to find acts from your competitors to recruit? It doesn’t REALLY make sense, but who cares.
Each player is dealt about 12 cards, and each one has two numbers on it – one on top and one on bottom. When players pick up their cards they rotate each to have the number they want on top, and then put them in order. After this happens, their cards CANNOT be rearranged in their hands.
One contestant will then put out a ‘show’, which is a combination of cards that is either a multiple number of cards (i.e. three of a kind) or a straight. Each subsequent player can try to beat that show with a better show (more or better cards) but if they can’t, they’ll ‘scout’ instead, which is to say take one card to put into your own hand. If you do so, you weaken the ‘show’ so a later player can beat it (and hopefully you’ve also made your own hand better) but if everyone ‘scouts’, the player wins the hand.
SCOUT works by combining manipulation and greed with social trust. It’s lightweight and easy to teach, and comes in a box that easily slips into a coat pocket. For filler games, SCOUT is very hard to beat.
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