Pyramid Review
Escalation!
Published by Z-Man Games
Designed by Reiner Knizia
Art by Beth Trott
57 cards (56 playing cards, one instruction card); full-color, boxed, two to five players; $10
If you don't have one living next door to you then he's across the street; if not there, down at the cul-de-sac. He's a jerk. A bad neighbor. Maybe you lent him your weed whacker and he never gave it back. Perhaps she borrowed a cup of sugar, but when you needed two eggs she turned you away at the threshold. His apple tree keeps dropping fruit on your side of the property line and your kids keep stepping on the bees they attract. Things like this start small, but there's always Escalation!
Z-Man Games has brought your neighborhood woes to the tabletop with their new card game of interhouse warfare. Things have gotten out of hand, and the object for two to five suburbanites is to leave your opponents with all the cards.
Everyone gets a hand of cards, and they rotate laying down one or more of them. The cards are numbered one to 13, with three wild cards and two neighborhood watch cards. Each person in turn must put down a greater total than the person before them did. For example, the first person may put down a single "one" card, so the next person need only place a two or higher. On the other hand, they might up the stakes early in the game and play a greater sum. You can play more than one card on your turn, however many you like, but they must all . . .
This article originally appeared in the second volume of Pyramid. See the current Pyramid website for more information.
Article publication date: April 6, 2007
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