LLAMA

Today, we continue our mini-series of deck-shredding games that are a bit like Uno but actually probably better than Uno with…

Game 53 of the “Bailey Family Summer 2023 Board Game Bonanza” is “LLAMA,” played by Jack (.8.), Toby (5), and myself.

“LLAMA” is a fairly simple game played with a deck of cards numbered one to six and llama cards. You start with six cards in your hand and can play them onto the pile by either matching the number or playing one number above. Llamas can be played on sixes, and ones can be played on llamas, thereby making the deck cycle. Now, this is a key mechanic because you always know what is going to be played next and therefore you can potentially predict the likelihood that you are going to be able to play a card that’s in your hand.

If you cannot play a card, you have two options: you can either draw a card to add to your hand or you can choose to stay and keep the cards in your hand and remove yourself from the round.

The round ends when either the first person gets rid of all their cards or everyone has exited themselves from the round.

You then add up the point value of the cards in your hand (with Llamas counting as 10), with a key distinction that you only count each number once. For example, if I had three sixes and two ones, that would add up to seven.

You then play another round, and the game ends when the first player gets to 40 points, with the player with the least amount of points winning.

“LLAMA” was nominated for the Spiel des Jahres back in 2019, and it definitely deserves it. I generally haven’t played many card games over the last few years, but now that Toby is able to comfortably hold a deck of cards in his hand, we have recently been playing more card games. This, along with “Munchkin Mighty Monsters,” are both great examples of games that are a bit like Uno but generally speaking, I think, are more engaging.

The order of the deck is really important because you can predict what’s coming up next and decide whether it’s best to keep the cards you’ve got in your hand and try to gain some points or if it’s better to draw and risk losing all of your cards but knowing full well that as soon as one player drops all of their cards, the round is over.

The last game we played of this was quite exciting, actually, as Toby was winning throughout the entire game, only to get stuck with a llama card on the final hand, thereby pushing Jack into the lead when it was all added up.

“LLAMA” is fairly cheap and can often be picked up for about £10. If your family likes Uno, this is well worth picking up.

You can also play it on BGA so I would recommend trying it on there.