Thrift Treasure: Ciao! Card Game
Last year we bragged a lot about how many amazing games we picked up at Geekway to the West. Not in the vendor hall, but during the annual flea market. Dozens of regular people set up on tables to quickly move their extra games out of their collection. Of course, this is to make room for more games. That’s why the deals are so good!
This year was no different. I didn’t keep exact track of my spending, but it was somewhere around $200. This may seem like a lot of cash to spend on games, but I was able to bring home almost a hundred new-to-me titles! Many of which I’ll highlight on this site over the next few weeks (months?).
The first one only set me back $1. Ciao! by Gigamic is a card game that is best described as a mashup between UNO and Rock, Paper, Scissors (and a little bit of Old Maid). Originally published in 2015, this inexpensive card game comes in a very sturdy tin. Inside you’ll find 108 cards of several types.
Regular cards feature a rock, paper, or scissors in one of three colors – green, yellow, or red. The object of Ciao! is to be the first player to shed all the cards from their hand, just as in UNO. Instead of matching a number or color, players must beat the previous card. As you might have assumed, rock beats scissors, scissors beat paper, and paper beats rock. Additionally, green is the weakest color, followed by yellow, and then red as the most powerful. When you play a card, it must either be of a more powerful color or be able to beat the symbol shown.
Special cards mix up the game, also UNO-style. Joker cards are placed on any card. That person then chooses the symbol it represents, while the color is determined by the color of the Joker. A player may never play the Millstone card to the pile. Instead, you must get rid of it as the result of a wild symbol. This throws in a touch of Old Maid to the game.
Some cards feature a wild symbol printed in black, and events will occur when they are put into play. Some reverse direction or allow you to play again. Others let you give a card from your hand to another player or even trade your entire hand!
A typical game of Ciao! is only one round. The rulebook includes notes for scorekeeping, which assign points to players depending upon the cards left in their hands at the end of a round. The person with the lowest score after five rounds is the overall winner.
Ciao! is an interesting mashup of UNO, Old Maid, and Rock, Paper, Scissors, and it mostly works. That doesn’t mean it’ll be my first choice to grab if I want to play one of the three games. It would be something I’d try a couple times before relegating it to the shelf. If you want one for yourself, there are good examples for sale on eBay for prices close to original retail.
Do you enjoy games inspired by other games?
