The beach is littered with junk. For the homeless hermit crabs, all that waste is not rubbish, but a shot at a better life. Thanks in part to the difficult housing market, a paper cup, plastic cup, tin can or ramen tray can quickly become a seaside villa. Build the best homes from all that junk for your crabs and octopuses, score the most points and leave your fellow players sitting in the trash. Oh, cut the crap! I mean: Cup the Crab!
Cup the Crab is essentially about grabbing stacks of cards in the hope of scoring the most points. Players add cards to the three scoring stacks. At just the right moments, they have to play their crabs or octopuses to claim a stack, but another player may snatch a stack of cards from right under everyone else’s noses. The title of the game, Cup the Crab, has several layers, just like the game itself. Players try to separate the treasure from the trash by taking the best points and leaving the junk behind. They also try to mess with each other by blocking or claiming scoring stacks at just the right time. The theme revolves around rubbish too, and perhaps it is also a little reminder that we should all pick up our mess from the beach once in a while.
At the start of the game, each player receives a deck of cards. Every player begins with a number of random Cup cards, three Crab cards, two Octopus cards and two Bottle cards. At the beginning of each round, players choose three cards from this selection to play during that round.
Over the course of seven rounds, you need to plan your card choices carefully, because players will collectively play Cup cards onto the three different stacks and then try to grab them. By playing a crab, you may claim a stack for yourself. With a bottle, you can block a stack, but with an octopus you can steal a blocked stack. At the end of seven rounds, the player who has collected the most points wins.
Cup the Crab is easy to explain and quick to play, but beneath that simple shell hides a surprising amount of bluffing, timing and paranoia. The theme gives this card game a wonderfully distinctive edge and makes the gameplay feel intuitive right away: spot what is useful, leave the rest behind and hope nobody fishes your perfect little pile out of the bin. Thanks to the short rounds, you will quickly think: one more game? Before you know it, you are claw-deep in the clutter.
