SCOUT was one of the three finalists for this year’s Spiel des Jahres award, losing out on the honor to the great game Cascadia, and just became widely available in the U.S. this summer with a new print run. It’s a small-box game from the Japanese publisher Oink, whose other tiny-box games include Deep Sea Adventure and A Fake Artist Goes to New York, and is their best title yet – a smart, abstract card game that’s very easy to teach but offers huge replay value.
In SCOUT, players receive hands from a deck of cards numbered from 1 through 10, with two numbers on each card, so it has a different value depending on its orientation. The dealer deals out the entire deck of 45 cards (removing a few for player counts below 5), and each player looks at their hand without rearranging any cards. You have to fight that instinct to sort them, which is difficult for most people. You can only flip your entire hand upside down, so you have two choices for your starting hand.
During the game, players will try to play sets (cards with the same value) or runs (cards in sequential value, ascending or descending) of greater value than whatever set/run is currently on the table, playing only cards that are adjacent within their hands. A set beats a run, if the number of cards in each is the same; a set or run of more cards than what’s currently on the table always wins; and if the type and number are the same, you need higher card values to beat the active set/run. So two 9s beats two 8s, a 5-4-3 run beats a 4-3-2 run, but a 9-8 run doesn’t beat a 2-2 set.
If you can play something better than what’s on the table, you take the current active set/run and put them face down in front of you, earning one point per card thus captured at the end of the round. If you can’t or don’t want to beat the active set/run, you can “scout,” taking one card from either end of the active group (but not the middle) and putting it in your hand, anywhere your like, oriented either way. The player who played that active set/run then receives a one-point token from the supply. This is the key to the game – taking the right cards to create new sets or runs in your hand, and doing so in a way that can create further sets or runs when you remove other cards by playing them.
Each player also has one “scout and show” token, usable once per round, where they can do both actions in the same turn – take one card from the table, then play a new set or run to beat and capture the active one. The round ends when one player has no hand cards remaining, or if all players scout and the turn passes back to the player who originally played the set/run on the table. Players get one point per captured card, one per token received from other players scouting their cards, and then deduct one point for every card left in their hand (except for the player whose set/run ended the round). The game continues with one round per player, so everyone gets to be the start player once, after which you add up all your points from all rounds.
SCOUT is incredibly easy to teach, and quick to play, working really well at 4-5 players; I actually haven’t tried it with 2, because there are a bunch of extra rules that I think will make it far less fun and simple. There’s some strategy to when you choose to take cards, and how you integrate them into your hand to create new sets/runs and perhaps set up further sets/runs after you’ve played something, while you also have to keep an eye on opponents’ hands to see if anyone is getting close to playing their last card. Full games take a half hour or so once everyone has the hang of things. The list price is $23, but Oink’s second printing of SCOUT sold out almost immediately; I sprinted to their booth on my first day at Gen Con to secure a copy because I was sure this would happen. If you can get a copy somehow, or are willing to wait for the next print run, it’s a definite winner, with bonus points for the easy teach and for its portability.