Burst

Burst is a light card game that can be described as group Black Jack. That’s just like my game Pinocchio, but in Pinocchio the cards are hidden. In Burst you can see all the cards played. 

On your turn you either draw a card or play a card to the centre of the table. You have a hand size of three, so if you have three cards, you must play one. Cards in hand are your points. They are scored only at the end of the round, and you score points only if you do not go bust. Going bust means playing a card that makes the total on the table go beyond 21. This only happens when you have three cards and you are forced to play a card. Having three high cards in hand is good, but only if you don’t go bust. 

The card distribution is wide. There are many 1’s and 0’s. There are some cards from 2 to 10. The big cards go up to 15, but there are few of them.  There are some negative numbers. 

Some cards have special powers, for example allowing you to remove another card from the pool, to take a card into your hand, or to reverse the order of play. 

When anyone goes bust, the round ends and they score nothing. Everyone else scores according to their cards in hand. People will tend to be greedy and want to keep the high cards. However taking a third card always comes with risk. When you have two high cards, it is hard to resist drawing your third card because you cannot bear to part with a high card. Yet if you go bust all is for naught. 

In this game you have plenty of opportunities to hurt your opponents. The card distribution and card powers help players push the total to 21 or near 21. If the next player has three cards and doesn’t have a small enough card to play, he is doomed. There will be unexpected twists of fate. An untimely reverse can kill some players. Sometimes several players with three cards can survive a high total because they have 0’s, negative cards, or cards with powers. 

In the first game I played, the game felt draggy because we scored low every round. I felt the winning score should be 50 and not 100. Only in my second game I realised it was possible to score quite high. So 100 feels right. You can always choose a lower target if you want to make the game shorter. I think this is a wonderful game. Simple, exciting, and full of surprises.