Push – Are You Lucky, Well Are You?
It’s another board game review. I’ve been trying to get new games to the table this year and one of them has been Push. This is a simple deck of cards and it’s all about how far you can push your luck. But of course, like a good push your luck game, if you push too far, well, you bust and that’s not something you want to happen. Let’s see how this deck of cards plays and if this is a good push your luck game.
How To Play Push
Push is a simple game where you get two actions that you can do. The first is the most common that you’re going to do in the game. It’s going to be flipping cards, and pushing your luck, where the name comes from, to build out three columns of cards. It might be less, but generally you’ll build three. When you stop you pick one of the columns to take and add to your points. The other thing you can do is bank points you have, because there are ways that you can lose points.
Let’s talk about what happens to the other two columns. Depending on if a reverse was flipped or not, the next two players, either direction get to pick a column. So why not put everything in one column? Because there are rules for how you have to place cards. You can’t have the same number, or color in a column. If you ever do that, you bust, and you get no cards. Plus there is an additional penalty.
What’s this penalty, well, you get it for busting, or if a die card is in a column that you take. You need to roll the die. The die has the five colors on it and a blank side that is safe. But if you roll a color, you get rid of all the cards of that color you have. But you don’t get rid of cards of that color if they have been banked.
When the deck has been gone through, the player with the most points in their banked, and collected areas is the winner of the game.
What Doesn’t Work
This is a lucky game. You draw cards blindly and just have to guess when you want to stop. You might roll the die a turn before you would have banked a lot of points and you lose them all. So for some people that is going to be something that doesn’t work at all. Why, because it’s going to be that random nature that some people don’t like in the game.
What Works
But let’s talk about that luck in terms of what works as well. Because it is lucky and a die roll and go against you at the wrong time, or you might just draw three red cards in a row and bust drawing a fourth, but it’s fast. And everyone is down for the same lucky time that you are. You know if you’re a push your luck fan, this game is going to work for you.
I also like how you can bust. Because, I tend to notice most combinations of what might bust you. But there are times because you might be safe from a red, you only have two, and a four, you only have two. But the right combination comes out, a red four, and now you can’t place that into the columns and you bust. And I don’t notice those all the time.
Plus, with this being a fast game it plays like a party game. And when it’s going well, everyone at the table is encouraging others to push their luck one more time. Yes, you might bust, but imagine how good the points will be if you go further. And that is how a good push your luck game should work. And sometimes, as the person who is creating the columns, you stop because you know the last person is just going to get that die to mess with them.
Who Is Push For
Push is for people who want to play a light, silly game that is almost a party game in a lot of ways. If you are risk adverse, this game won’t work for you. If you don’t like randomness, this game won’t work for you. But is the premise sounds silly and fun, then you’ll probably like it quite well.
My Final Thoughts on Push
I do like Push quite well. I like the randomness of the game. And I think that is really a party game. I find it to be more of a party game than a game like Codenames is, the difference is, you can’t play with as many people, though still a good number. Push is just loud fun, something that I don’t really say about Codenames and some other party adjacent games that are really big group games.
And I like the mechanisms in the game. They are just simple enough to be a fast teach, but it’s a fun decision space to see when you want to keep pushing your luck. You get a four in all the columns you’ll probably stop. But can you spot those sneaky situations that can bust you. Or, can you flip a few more cards and get that one column super juicy for you to take.
Have you played Push, and do you like it?
My Grade: B+
Gamer Grade: C-
Casual Grade: A
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