Author Note: Apologies for falling off of the face of the earth! I was traveling to places like the Board and Brew in College Park, Maryland, and playing a mess of games this weekend. So, expect a few reviews that let you know what’s going on. Today, I’m sharing a review of quite an old game – No Thanks!, and I finally got it to the table this weekend.

Game: No Thanks!
Publisher: Various (Z-Man is our copy; the one shown below is by Mayfair and is what is currently in print)
Designer: Thorsten Gimmler
Main Game Mechanisms: Press Your Luck, Set Collection, Bidding
Number of Players: 3 to 5
Game Time: 15 to 20 minutes

Description: No Thanks! is a simple card game that gives you two choices – do I take the card that has been revealed, or do I put a chip on it? But be careful – you only start out with 11 chips, and if you use them all, you need to take cards. You get some chips back as you go (when you take cards), but you need to be careful! The person with the lowest score wins, so you want to watch out. As you play, you want to try and get consecutive numbers (3, 4, 5, 6 – the max you can have in a set is 4) because you only have to score the lowest number in that set. If you have any chips at the end of the round, they each count as -1 points, helping to push your score even lower.

Review: I’ve had this game for almost a year and I never got it to the table because I didn’t have 3 people or more to play it with. Finally, for my birthday this past weekend, my partner and I went to see my best friend and her hubby. We played it and everyone at the table really enjoyed it. Do you take cards? Do you throw chips on there? Oh no, I need to take that card because I only have one chip left in my hand and there’s a whole bunch of chips on there that I could use.

You wouldn’t think that a little game like this would catch my interest, especially because traditional bidding games don’t always catch my attention. But, I definitely enjoy what it brings to the table and how easy that it is to learn. Easy to learn and hard to master – which is something that I love about all sorts of tabletop games. It plays quickly and you will want to play several rounds in a row to really get the hang of it.

Buy, Try, Deny: If you play with 3 or more people on a regular basis, I definitely recommend that you add it to your collection. At the very least, try it with some friends and see if you like it. The Dice Tower always sings the praises of this game, often suggesting it as a stocking stuffer. It definitely fits that little filler game that makes you push your luck with your friends or family members, and even non-gamers can enjoy what it brings to the table as well.