It’s choose and divide in Split from Jumbo Games, a very fast and intuitive card game. Will you divide and conquer your opponents or will your loss be splitting you in half?
Each player gets 7 cards and the dealer gets 2 additional cards. The cards all have numbers up to 100. There are standard cards and wild cards. The dealer places the highest and lowest standard card from his or her hand face up on the table. These cards mark the beginning of the two split stacks. The next player places a card with a number between the value of the top cards of the two stacks. Next, the next player places the just-placed card on one of the split stacks and places another card with a number between the (new) value of the stacks. If a player cannot place a card, the game is “reset”. All open faced cards are discarded and the active player draws 3 cards from the draw pile. This player again places a highest and lowest standard card from his or her hand face up on the table as the beginning of two new split stacks and play resumes. The player who is the first to lose all his or her cards away wins!
Split is a tremendously simple and lighthearted card game. The hardest part about Split is writing a comprehensive review about it. The game has less than an A4 sheet of rules (half of which are filled by a cooperative variant) and has a very simple concept. The concept of Split, designed by Kim Vandenbroucke, is so incredibly ingeniously simple that I was visibly surprised that I didn’t yet know a game with the same game mechanics (although you could argue it’s a little bit like a competitive version of The Game of The Mind). It’s simple and tremendously easy to learn. The game also has a cooperative variant (where the comparison with The Game is easier to make), but the competitive variant by far offers the most fun. Fun filled filler that won’t split the table.
