Send in the Clowns
Scout is a ladder-climbing game that has recently been republished by Oink Games. The theme, what little there is, involves the circus (outside of the box cover, you’d never know it). Fortunately, the theme doesn’t matter, the gameplay is the main attraction.
First off, if you’re not familiar with the term “ladder-climbing”, the way it works is, one person plays a card or set/run of cards and the next person must play something that beats it. For example, if I play a single 8, the next person could be it with a single 9 (or 10), a pair (or more) of the same number, or a run of cards (1-2 or 5-6-7, etc). There are no suits to follow, so no “flushes”. Once you’ve beaten the current play, the next player must beat your play & so on, until someone runs out of cards in their hand (there’s another way which we’ll get to in a bit). Scout throws a few wrinkles into the typical shedding game.
SETUP
Depending on the number of players (2-5), you’ll take out a few cards (except with 5), then deal all of the cards out. DON’T PICK THEM UP UNTIL THEY’VE ALL BEEN DEALT (I’ll explain why in a minute). Also, give each player a Scout & Show token. Place all of the money tokens in the middle of the table & the point tokens off to the side.
The reason you can’t pick your cards up as they are dealt is, that you can’t rearrange them. They must stay in the same order that you picked them up (as a group). The first thing you’ll notice about the cards is, that they have numbers on both ends. One card may have a 2 on one end & a 9 when flipped over (the opposite side # is shown underneath the main number on each end as well).
GAMEPLAY
The first decision you have to make is whether to keep your cards in the direction you first picked them up or turn ALL OF THEM upside down, again, not changing the order of any of the cards. What you’re looking for are pairs/triplets/etc or runs (keep in mind, the runs MUST be left to right (3-4-5 & not 5-4-3). As you play, there will be ways to manipulate your hand a bit, but we’ll get to that.
Once you’ve decided what direction to hold the cards, the first player will play any card, or group of cards, from their hand. These can come from anywhere in your hand as long as they are already together. Keep in mind, as you pull cards, it will collapse other cards together, potentially creating runs or pairs for later.
Say you have the following cards in this order: 324778789. For your first play (as long as it’s either the first play or is beating the current play), you could pull the 2 out which would collapse the 34 together giving you a small run later. You could also pull the 8 from the middle, giving you 3 of a kind later. Or you could pull the 7 on the right to get a pair of 8s (although I’d probably just keep that run of 789). Each time you beat the current play, you take all of the cards you beat & add them your area. Each of these will be worth 1 point at the end of the round.
What happens if you can’t beat the current play, then what? I’m glad you asked. This is where the name of the game comes in. You SCOUT. Scouting means you take one of the cards from the last play & add it to your hand, ANYWHERE in your hand, in EITHER direction. From the cards on the table, you are only allowed to scout a card from either end (if there are more than 2 cards). Again, when you add it to your hand, you can flip this card in either direction and insert it anywhere in your hand, hopefully making a good play for later.
When you scout off of someone’s hand, that person earns a dollar token (a point at the end of the round). They’ll take one of the tokens from the middle of the table and add it to their area. Then it’s the next players turn.
But how does it look for the next player? Again, that’s what I’m here for. Let’s say the last play before you was a 6-7-8 and in your hand you have 2234889. You have a run of 3 but it’s a smaller run than what’s out there. Another thing to keep in mind, a pair beats single and a run with the same number of cards (so two 1s beat an 8-9) but more cards always beats less cards (a 3-4-5-6 beats three 9s). Now back to our current play. You’ve got a 6-7-8 in front of you but nothing to beat it with. You can scout either the 6 or the 8 (cards on the end) and when you place it in your hand, you can turn them any direction (say the other side of the 6 is a 1 and on the 8, is a 5). You could take the 6/1 and place it as a 1 between the two 2s or take the 8/5 and put it either as a 5 after your 4 or place it as an 8 with the other 8s in your hand.
Let’s say you take the 8, which leave 6-7. The next player just has to beat this 2 card run (since it’s no longer a 3 card run). They can either beat it or scout a card for themselves. Be careful though, if all players scout and it gets back to the player that played those cards, this round is over. The round will also end as soon as someone runs out of cards. If this happens, everyone who still has cards in their hands, will take negative points for each card remaining (if the round ends by scouting all around, the person who initially played the cards does not count their cards as negative. You just toss them). One last thing during gameplay…the Scout & Show token. You can scout like usual (giving the owner of the play their dollar token) but then play your cards, beating the current, now lower cards in play. Back to our example, you take that 8/5 adding it to the end of your 234 run with the 5 and play it, easily beating the current 6-7 with your 2-3-4-5. You rock! Hopefully, it’s good enough to make it around the table, making everyone scout off your cards.
When the round ends (either one person running out of cards or everyone scouting off one player), add up all of the cards you’ve taken throughout the game along with the dollar tokens, subtracting any cards left in your hand. Keep track of your points with the point tokens (double-sided, showing positive & negative points) and after everyone has dealt once, the game ends. The person with the most points wins.
OVERALL IMPRESSION
Let me just say, I really like this game. It’s quick enough for a filler and easy enough that anyone can play (listed age is 9+). The hardest concept to wrap your brain around is resisting the urge to rearrange your cards (but if you’ve played games like Bonanza, you’re used to this). Anyone that has played poker or rummy understands runs, pairs & trips, keeping in mind that more cards always beats less cards.
With this new printing, it’s fairly easy to find a copy, although I think it’s a bit pricey for what you get (a deck of cards & a few tokens). Still, it’s a great game & I’m glad I have my copy.
8.5 out of 10
You can find Oink Games online at oinkgames.com/en or on Facebook at facebook.com/oinkgames.
