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 Great Way to Teach Kids Math Facts While Having Fun! Oct 01, 2008
Kids beg to play this very easy and fun card game in which you add or subtract card numbers, trying to stay under the "tip top" card number, such as 33 or 55. Strategy cards add a twist to make this one very fun educational game! Great for homeschool math facts practice!
6 of 6 found the following review helpful:
 Decent, if slightly derivative, addition game Oct 10, 2004
"Over and Out" is a fun little "adder" with a couple of interesting twists. Nothing really original about the concept: just keep the count from going over the "Tip Top" number. Go over the Tip Top, and you lose the round: not really a revolutionary idea there. Nothing really intriguing about the "action" cards, either: you can reverse the order of play, draw a new Tip Top, or bring the count right to the current Tip Top. (The latter being a huge help when the Tip Top number is 66 and the count is in the teens.)
What gives the game a fresh feel is the chips: Each player starts with 4 chips of his color, and all players are dealt 4 cards to start. However, if you go Over and lose a round, you lose a chip--and there's no way to get it back. And when cards are dealt for later rounds, you only receive as many cards in your hand as you have chips in front of you. So if you're down to two chips, you only get two cards to play with. Run out of chips, and you're out of the game; last player standing wins.
(One "house rule" I recommend is that if you've down to your last chip, and thus have a one-card "hand", you have to keep your one card face down in front of you until you actually play it. Since you have no choice but to play the card you've got, it doesn't matter if you see it or not. It adds a little bit of suspense to the game, particularly if only two players are left in a one-on-one, winner-take-all final hand.)
One downside to all the fun: more players can make for a VERY long game. If you want to play a full 8-player, 4-chip game, give yourself a *lot* of time to finish, because you might end up having to play 31 rounds to determine a final winner. This is not a game you can whip out and finish in five minutes, since every extra player adds four more rounds to the game.
However, if you've got a bunch of friends who want to spend a night at the table chatting over a friendly (or even not-so-friendly!) game of cards, this might be the perfect game. There's not a lot of strategy involved, play is very straightforward, and there's not too much to keep track of beyond what the total count is. It requires some concentration, but not a lot of heavy-duty thinking.
Overall, not a game to write home about, but certainly not the worst way to pass an evening.
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based on 2 reviews
